Thrice kicks off tour with Dashboard Confessional

by Joshua Maloni and Maryjo Kirsch
Tribune, May 13, 2004
Sentinel, May 15, 2004
Dispatch, May 21, 2004

The overcrowded world of rock is growing. And, not just in terms of new artists, but new music genres. From pop-rock to emo, hard rock to rap rock, it’s challenging trying to break free from the clutter and forge your own identity.

Orange County-based Thrice has found a way to make an impression with listeners. Using a headbanger’s mentality to combine emo-style lyrics with hard rock guitar, bass and drums, the band has created what Rolling Stone calls “the face of hard core punk.”

After two independent releases, “Identity Crisis” and “The Illusion of Safety,” Island Records signed the band and released “The Artist in the Ambulance” last year.

Thrice has traveled extensively in support of “Artist,” playing gigs on the Warped Tour, with Thursday and a headlining tour of their own. Before hitting the road with Dashboard Confessional for a part acoustic tour, Thrice lead singer Dustin Kensrue took time to play a little question and answer last week during a much needed tour break.

NFP: I understand you guys are on a break right now? How’s that been?

DK: It’s been nice. We’ve been keeping busy trying to rework some stuff for the Dashboard tour.

NFP: Since you guys have been off for a few weeks, and now you’re approaching yet another tour promoting “Artist in the Ambulance,” what’s the band’s mindset, are you weary of the road at all?

DK: We’re a little weary of the road. This is the longest we’ve been home in a year-and-a-half, is these four-and-a-half weeks. It’s been awesome. (But) we’re really excited about this tour, because it’s kind of different than any of the other tours we’ve been doing. Obviously, a lot of the venues are a lot bigger, but we’ve kind of changed the set around.

Some of the old songs we kind of adapted somewhat acoustically, and two we pretty much completely changed the whole dynamic of them. It’s mixing up the set a little, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

NFP: Why add an acoustic set to the mix?

DK: I think originally when we were offered this tour it seemed like kind of a weird idea. Then we start seeing it as an opportunity to kind of do something different. I mean, Dashboard is based a lot on acoustic … but it just seemed like a cool forum for us to show a different side of us, I guess.

NFP: What has been the fan reaction to the acoustic stuff?

DK: It’s just different. It seems like most people who were into the band enjoy that stuff and hopefully the other two that we’ve reworked that are not acoustic people will be into because they’re songs that we haven’t really played.

We really liked the structure of the songs, the lyrics and the chords and we just weren’t into playing a super-fast punk beat kind of stuff anymore. So we took it and added an organ and slowed it down. It’s really beautiful.

NFP: How do new fans react to the older, indie stuff?

DK: I’m not entirely sure, because I think to an extent, a lot of people who are coming to shows to see us, a lot of them are somewhat older fans. There’s going to be more people that own the new record, but I think probably more people at shows who own (more than) the old record than there are people who just own the new record.

I don’t think anyone’s ever really complained that we play too much of the old stuff.

NFP: What was different on “Artist” that made it get more recognition than the earlier stuff?

DK: Not to where if you played it next to each other you’d think it was a different band. But, there’s definitely been a progression and a change of styles. We’ve kind of always been all over the place, anyway, so it’s kind of hard to pick out the difference, I guess, in a live setting.

It’s just a difference in levels. Each record has gotten more recognition than the last.

It was kind of building from the first record. It’s been a steady growth.