What A Difference A Year Can Make; A Follow Up With Thrice

When I was in junior high school, there was always that short skinny kid who left for summer vacation, and came back the next year this tall stocky kid with a deep voice. My, my what at difference a year can make.

It’s been almost exactly a year since I last talked with the band Thrice. And in that year they’ve grown by leaps and bounds; eclipsing almost everyone’s expectations, including their own. This past grueling year that included: the release of their newest album (and probably best effort to date), The Artist In The Ambulance, a grip load of tour dates, including some across the pond and the Vans Warped Tour, and a string of late night T.V. show and music channel appearances. They even did a walk to benefit the cure for cancer. And through it all, they’ve remained humble, kept their moral standards, and most of all, been totally appreciative of everything.

This time around I got to sit down with Eddie Breckenridge, the other half of the fraternal rhythm section known as “The Brothers Breckenridge,” and this is what happened.

Interview conducted in person by Doran Dalton. Pictures by Doran Dalton.

Band: Thrice
Name: Eddie Breckenridge (bass)

BW: So, it’s been a really huge year for you guys. I mean you’ve just had such a meteoric rise, since the last time we talked. And I just wanted to, first of all, congratulate you on all of your success in this past year.
Ed: Thank you, thank you so much.

BW: Well with all the success comes the media. And so, with all the media attention that you’ve been getting, has that been taxing at all or is it something that’s more appreciated rather than looked at as a burden?
Ed. Uhh, I don’t know? You know. I don’t really notice it so much. I mean, I’m not the kind of person that really likes to hear about myself or see myself on things. I like things like, speaking about our band to people and doing interviews and talking about how we do things and stuff like that. But, I don’t know? It’s been cool. I’m glad that people are noticing our band, I’m glad that people take the time to promote our band and it’s cool. It’s weird, it’s kinda more like a dream, it’s very surreal, the fact that our song is on the radio or MTV2 is like, “No it isn’t!” Like, I don’t watch TV ever, cause we’re always on the road, and even when we’re at home, I don’t have cable so…..

BW: So, for you it’s more like..
Ed: I just play, I just play music and do that and focus on that and try not to focus on anything else.

BW: Is there a difficult dichotomy between, being a socially conscious band, on one hand and then on the other, getting spreads in magazines like “Revolver” that have porn star foldouts in every issue?
Ed: I think there is, but at the same time, if we’re honest and we talk about how we don’t agree with that stuff, we’re still getting coverage, and maybe we can be a positive influence within all of that negativity. I don’t know, like…..I don’t know? Like, there’s some magazines like that, that I actually like doing the interviews for. Because they’ll be like, “Strippers or..blah, blah, blah?” And we would just be like, “Neither. Like, I would never date somebody that doesn’t have respect for themselves.” And they’ll just have like this blank stare and be like, “Oh….okay.” Because so many people expect people in bands to be a certain way and I’ve always loved being that person that’s not what you expect. Not that I would say something like that, just because it’s not what somebody would expect. But, I just love seeing people’s faces when they expect us to be some partying, crazy, promiscuous band. And we’re not that kind of band. I mean, we all have…2 of the guys are married, I have a girlfriend, we’re just not that kind of band. And I hope that we would be a positive influence on others because I think it’s really important to respect other people. Because those girls that you see in posters and ads and stuff, they have families, and they’re somebody’s daughter and they have brothers and sisters….

BW: Continuing in that same vein, there was a ramble on your website about a show that you guys did at UC Redlands, where the sponsoring publication tried to get girls to take off their tops and stuff before you guys played…
Ed: Ohhhh yeah, yeah. What was that publication called?…..

BW: I’m not sure, but I wanted to ask you. I know that you guys didn’t promote that….
Ed: No. No way.

BW: …and so, how did you handle the situation at the time, and how will you handle something like that in the future. I mean, you can’t predict what anybody’s going to do or anything, but…
Ed: I don’t know? Certain things you learn from, I mean, like as a whole, we as a band don’t want to support publications that we think are negative.

BW: So, you guys won’t be doing anything with that particular publication anymore?
Ed: Probably not. I think, that it’s just a sad thing when someone wants to do an interview about your band and your music, but then all they want to talk about is girls, or hooking up, or doing drugs or whatever. And it’s just like, ‘Can we talk about US, as musicians or a band, or what our lyrics are about’, or just stuff that I think people want to hear about.

BW: The title of the new album was inspired by a story written by Al Burian. And it was about him trying to justify being an artist and making a difference at the same time.
Ed: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, just because, being an artist you don’t get a clear idea if your music is positively affecting other people, and sometimes you need to step beyond those boundaries of just making art OR sometimes people can use art in a way that can make an impact on other people.

BW: So has that, making a positive influence, been like the band’s intention all along the way or..
Ed: Well, it was more like a learned thing. We figured out about it when we signed to Sub City (Records). Like we had the choice to either sign to Hopeless (Records), or Sub City. And it was like, “Okay, we have this opportunity to do something that we love AND help out people who are maybe not as fortunate as us.” And it would be stupid not to do that, and I think that the fact that Louis (Posen), the owner of Sub City, created that. It kinda opened our minds to how important it is to us. And even in whatever you do, playing music or writing, or doing construction, or whatever you do. It’s important to positively affect other people especially on an individual level I think. That’s when you can really change what can happen.

BW: Well, the two albums that you did with Sub City (Identity Crisis, Illusion of Safety), both made contributions to two different charities. The Artist in the Ambulance is sponsoring a charity called.

BW/Ed: The Syrentha J. Savio Endowment (SSE).

BW: Right. And you guys not only contributed proceeds from the album to the charity, but you took it a step further and did “The Race for the Cure."
Ed: Right.

BW: Can you tell me a little about that, like actually getting physically involved in the cause that you’re trying to contribute to?
Ed: Well, we met the founder of The Endowment. This guy named Mark Beemer, he’s friends with Brian (Mcternan), the producer of our album, and we met him through Brian and hung out with him, and we were trying to figure out which charity to work with for this album. And we were looking around. And Brian was like, “I have this friend who has this endowment for people who don’t have health care and they can get scans for cancer and then they can get treatment if they are positive for cancer.” And we were like, “Oh cool.” So we hung out with him, and he was a really cool guy. And his wife actually died from cancer and they set up the endowment together before she died. And just having a personal relationship with Mark, and being able to talk to him on a day to day basis and ask him how things are going and stuff. Rather than just giving money away to some organization or whatever. We really feel like we have a greater connection to the whole thing, and we’re doing things beyond just giving a percentage of the CD sales. We’re doing: “Race For The Cure," we’re doing benefit shows, we’re gonna do one I think on the 17th in L.A. when we get back home.

BW: Is that for the fires or the endowment?
Ed: No, no, this one’s going to be for the endowment. The one for the fires is in San Diego.

BW: Oh, that’s right.
Ed: Yeah, and it’s just really cool. Because that connection just makes it way more open to work closer, and more frequently with different ways to raise money for the charity.

BW: Plus, you guys being personally involved in things like “Race For The Cure” probably draws more attention from your fans and gets them involved as well right?
Ed: I was actually really bummed at how many people actually showed up.

BW: So the turn out really wasn’t that great?
Ed: No, it wasn’t that great. I mean, the amount of kids that come to our shows in Orange County and the amount of kids that showed up, it was kinda sad. But, it was also kind of a late notice and early in the morning, but still, ya know? I would hope that if you were willing to drive out to see us play, you’d be willing to walk 3 miles to help raise tons of money to help people.

BW: Is that something that you’re going to continue to do?
Ed: Yeah, we’re already talking about what we’re going to do next year.

BW: Well, despite having all the “major label dollars” for this album, I was reading that you guys still took a DIY approach to recording. Can you explain that?
Ed: Well, we recorded with Brian again, and pretty much the same way we recorded The Illusion of Safety. But we recorded the drums in a different studio, in a bigger room, up in this place called Bearsville.

BW: Isn’t that, that haunted studio, supposedly?
Ed: Yeah, it’s suppose to be, but we didn’t see any ghosts so I was kinda bummed. (laughs) But it was really cool. We had more time to record, than we’ve had in the past. I don’t know…I don’t think you really need to record with some over priced producer. I mean, as long as you get good sounds and you get it mixed by somebody who knows what they’re doing, it’s going to come across great.

BW: So would you say that the biggest difference was not so much the money, but more, the time that you guys had to record?
Ed: Yeah totally. We got it mixed by Andy Wallace who is like a pretty big mixer. I think that cost more than anything.

BW: The new album has all the same strong melodies and the guitar power as all the past albums, but there’s also some electronics and string arrangements in there. Is that something that you purposely went into the studio, and said, “Okay, we’re going to do this and that with this album”, or did it just happen that way?
Ed: Well, we’ve always wanted to, I mean….all the sounds that may sound electronic or whatever are all stuff that we did through the guitars, with pedals and stuff. But the strings are something that we’ve always wanted to do, but never had the funding to do it. And we didn’t really have a specific idea of where we wanted to do anything, except for “Cold Cash, Colder Hearts”, because Teppei actually created the strings part with volume swells with his guitar, if people see us live they’ll see him do it at the end of “Cold Cash." But, yeah, when we had the chance it was the craziest thing. Cause we were just watching these amazing musicians reading it off of paper and just playing it *snaps* instantly, it was like, “Whoooaaa." J It was really cool, and I’m glad we got to do it. I hope we can do more of it in the future too.

BW: What was the reaction from the musicians? Where they really into it at all?
Ed: Yeah, especially the composer. Because he’s used to doing more like, stuff like: plays and musical scores for theater and more soundtrack type stuff. And he got ours, and the thing that he was really excited about, and the thing that made us feel good-because he’s such talented musician, was all the stuff that we did with odd time signatures and stuff with certain note changes. And he’d be like, “I can’t believe you guys chose that! That is really cool.” And we were just like….sweet, we don’t even know what we’re doing ya know? But it’s really cool. It was so cool to work with amazing musicians and see them having fun playing your music.

BW: Did you guys get some backlash from the fans for having more simplistic songs on this album, cause they’ve been pretty complex in the past?
Ed: I think the song structures are more simple but I think a lot of the songs are more technical as far as, melodically and rhythmically, it’s not as riffy as Illusion of Safety. And I know some kids were bummed on that, but at the same time, I thought that I.O.S. was a little too much riffing. Cause Teppei pretty much didn’t play anything but riffs through whole songs, and I think that it’s important for songs to have dynamic, and to have space where songs can breathe. And it’s just like we wrote exactly what we wanted to make, and if some kids didn’t like that, I’m really sorry, but at the same time we write for ourselves first, ya know?

BW: Right. I was going to say, I mean, if you’re happy with what you’ve written and you’re really happy with how the songs turned out and you like them. Is there a point where you take all the comments from people who are suppose to be your fans saying stuff like, “Oh, they changed their sound cause they’re on a major label” or “They sold out for the radio” or whatever. Is there a point where you just say, “Screw you guys, this is the album we wanted to write.”
Ed: Well. Yeah, I definitely think that I was there at a point in my life, where I was like, “They didn’t write the exact same album as the last one, they suck.” Ya know? But that doesn’t make any sense now. You look at bands like The Beatles, or any band, like Radiohead. Bands that I think are amazing. And you see a constant progression through their whole musical career. And I hope that’s how we will be. I mean I don’t think we’re even close to being the Beatles or Radiohead, or anything even in the slightest. But I would hope that we’re progressing and continue to make music. And I care about making myself happy first. And if people don’t like it, that’s totally fine with me. Because if I ended up writing an album, because I wanted to write what other people wanted to hear, I probably wouldn’t be happy ya know?

BW: Yeah, and at the same time though, you would hope that your fanbase would want to…

BW/Ed: Grow with you…
Ed: Yeah, totally. And I think that we, more so than a lot of bands, have had more people support us through a lot of the change. I think each one of our albums have sounded different, more so than some bands, and it seems to be working, like people still like it, which is really cool.

BW: Dude, I gotta ask you what the deal is with your wrist. I never could figure out what the weirdness was about your wrist.
Ed: (laughs) Okay, okay, here’s the thing. I’ll go through the run down. I broke my wrist skateboarding…actually, not my wrist, my elbow. But it was my right elbow, skateboarding when I was in Jr. High or high school, and I didn’t tell my parents. And it was bad for a while, like I just told them that I bruised it. And I ended up going to the doctor and he x-rayed both of my elbows to check or compare the good one to the bad one. And the one that I broke was messed up, but they looked at my left elbow, and they were like, “Wait, which elbow was the one you messed up?” And my LEFT elbow was messed up way worse, and I think that it was just something that I was born with. But I can’t turn my hand over.
**Eddie sticks his arm out, with his palm down, and shows me how he can’t turn his palm over, face up.** (So, he can only turn his palm 90 degrees. Like if you were to slap somebody)

BW: Weird so, you can’t do this: **I stick my arm out and turn my hand over.**
Ed: Yeah….I can do it with this (right arm), but I can’t do it with this (left arm). So when I play…I end up having to play like that, or upright somehow. It sucks! And it’s something that I can’t fix. But, what can you do?

BW: Okay, so now I’m just rambling, I think we’re both sorta distracted by Coheed’s soundcheck that’s going on right now. Like we’re both trying to listen and at the same time pay attention to the interview. (laughs)
Ed: (Laughs) Yeah, I know huh. They are so awesome.

BW: Well, shoot….is there anything that you want to plug or any closing comments.
Ed: I love Coheed. I guess, I just want to encourage everyone to….Well, first of all. Thank you. Thanks so much if you’re still sitting there reading this. (laughs) And especially“thank you to you guys, and your site. I just want to encourage people to search and find new music. I don’t know, the music world is so huge, but the fraction of the music that people actually listen to is really small. And I just want to encourage people to come out to shows and watch music, and be involved in the music community. I think scenes are kinda sucky because they’re exclusive.

BW: Yeah, the scene is SO clicky here (Phoenix, AZ).
Ed: Yeah, that sucks. But as far as just coming out and being a listener of live music, I mean records are awesome, but live music is where it’s at. So, come hang out.

BW: Awesome. Thank you.
Ed: No, thank you.