Living screamo seven days a week

Before Geoff Rickly became the frontman of one of the most influential punk bands of the… Before Geoff Rickly became the frontman of one of the most influential punk bands of the last decade, Thursday, his basement was a rock ‘n’ roll community center.

Growing up near Rutgers University in Brunswick, N.J., Rickly was a promoter before he was a performer. Future punk frontrunners Saves the Day and The Blood Brothers all got hot and sweaty jumping around in his basement, relying mainly on word of mouth and Kinkos fliers to pack anywhere from 20 to 270 Jerseyites into the cramped show space. Rickly’s parents must’ve been quite the hosts.

The Pitt News had the chance to sit down with Rickly and his Thursday bandmate Tom Keeley just before they took the stage at Mr. Smalls on Jan. 30 and proceeded to pop the eardrums of every Pittsburgh fan attending the near-sold-out show. We talked about their stellar new record, the state of music today and how rock ‘n’ roll should be more community than commercial.

Before Thursday was one of the most critically respected bands in its genre – that is, before Spin Magazine named its War All the Time album number 7 of the year (above Radiohead) in 2003, before Rickly produced the debut of a little band called My Chemical Romance, spawning them into a musical juggernaut, and before they were playing to sold-out festival crowds all over the world – the boys in Thursday were just a bunch of high school buddies who dug music.

“We all grew up going to shows, and all our friends had bands. For us, it was just the typical New Jersey hardcore scene – playing in high school gyms, fire halls and basements,” Keeley said.

While most of the world was transfixed on Britney Spears’ perky smile in 1999, there was something brewing among many teens across America – a second coming of an underground punk community. And New Brunswick, where the musical styles of the underground in cities like Philadelphia, New York City and D.C. fused together, proved the perfect place for Thursday to take shape.

Bands like Saves the Day, Cursive, The Blood Brothers and At the Drive-In, all now commonly name-dropped by the more MTV-friendly punk bands, were touring the country through networks of friends and fans without any major-label backing or big-budget shows.

“One band never grew too big for the scene. You’d go see At the Drive-In at a local fire hall, and there were 800 people there. It was amazing because we all had a little piece of making that a special night. There was a sense of community, an energy and an explosive nature of those shows,” Rickly said.

But as Thursday developed as a band, so did the scene that nurtured it. The band released its benchmark record, Full Collapse, in 2001, melding epic, fist-pumping choruses with crushing, frantic guitars and lyrics about tragedy, self-discovery and – what else? – community. Your common emo album this was not.

It wasn’t long before the band was no longer playing basements, but Thursday maintained its vast network of musical acquaintances and a spreading fanbase. Needless to say, these guys always had a couch to sleep on.

Next came 2003’s War All the Time, which erased the beautiful chaos of Full Collapse in favor of a more calculated, heavier sound and a more defined message.

“When we went to the studio, it was obvious we were going to war. Everything began to be colored by the political age. Maybe we could turn ourselves inside out a little bit and make the songs about the personal and the political,” Rickly said.

Without the musical twists and turns of Full Collapse, however, the band quickly grew frustrated with its new album and newfound success, leading to breakup rumors that made fans quake with fear.

“The way we recorded and played War All the Time, after months of touring, I felt like I’d explored every corner of those songs. Every note and layer was calculated, so the songs didn’t live as long, because they felt choked. It made for a dark time for the band – we were at each others’ throats all the time,” Keeley explained.

Redemption was in writing, however, and by the time Thursday returned to the studio to record its next album, 2006’s A City By the Light Divided, the members knew something had to be done. The band’s new approach, however, wasn’t really new at all – the musicians broke down the tight, structured band they’d become for War All the Time and recorded like they had in the beginning: with absolutely no clue what they were going to do.

“There were places we went on this record where we had no idea what’d happen. We had to learn to give up control to each other again. It was like when we did Full Collapse – we were just trying to figure out what we could do, and it was joyful. These songs are living longer as a result,” Keeley said.

With Thursday’s new record reintroducing them to the rawness of rock that made them a band in the first place, the musicians have been able to reconnect to their scene while realizing how much it has disintegrated. With so-called punk storming the charts today, Rickly sees the community music of his youth being transported to MTV where it falls apart.

“There was an amazement at our scene’s success in the beginning, like ‘Wow, did you see that?’ I don’t feel that anymore. Right now a lot of bands get together to get big. They look for opportunities to push their music,” Rickly said.

Though their scene might be waning, Thursday is not going away anytime soon. Frankly, music just means too much to them.

“We say in Thursday that before we were a band, music was already something that had so affected our lives. Now to be able to be a servant to music is something incredible,” said Rickly. He paused, smiled and continued, “I could never sell this out. This is like a religion to me.”

Keeley, sitting across from his bandmate and childhood friend backstage at Mr. Smalls, started to glow. Looking at Rickly, he said, “Geoff and I don’t even have to talk – we hear something in music and immediately we just understand. It’s one of the most powerful things in the world.”