Thrice: The Constant Quest

Californian rock royalty THRICE have continued to experiment and reinvent their sound throughout their 25+ years in the business, just one of the many elements that has contributed to their continued success. 2021’s joyously received Horizons/East album was scheduled to be swiftly accompanied by a companion album entitled Horizons/West. As they progressed with bringing this double-header to life, they soon realised it would be unwise to follow their initial plans in order to not compromise the final product. 

“The original plan was to work on both halves of the record at the same time and stagger the release like a year later, similar to what RADIOHEAD did with Kid A and Amnesiac,” explains drummer Riley Breckenridge. “As we started working on East we realised that banging out like 24 songs was a bit too tall of a task. We worked on it earnestly for a long time but we realised if we pushed ourselves to try and finish West in the original time frame it might feel a bit rushed and unbalanced. We had the 20th anniversary of The Artist In The Ambulance coming up so we were touring and releasing a re-recording of that and timing wise it just didn’t look like it was going to work out. We decided to shelve the original plan which give us some time to dive into our upcoming plans and re-approach West with clearer heads. That approach definitely worked out much better for us.”

Following on from their celebratory activities, THRICE found themselves with a renewed sense of purpose as well as a rekindled appreciation for their older works, this trickled into the creative process for Horizons/West. “We wanted West to be a bit darker and a bit heavier, the cool thing about us revisiting The Artist In The Ambulance and The Illusion Of Safety stuff helped us to reconnect with the heavier aspects of the band and the more visceral, impulsive song writing choices we made back then,” discusses Riley. “It definitely informed the writing of West in a way that wouldn’t have happened if we stuck to our original plan so I’m really glad it worked out that way. I think people were surprised by just how heavy Gnash is which was really cool. I think it gave some people a skewed perception of what the record is going to be like though. We all feel really strongly about Albatross, it’s got some really cool movements in it and the lyrics are great. It’s definitely one of the anthems on the record. Both singles have been received very positively.”

With the advancement of technology available to musicians they don’t even have to be on the same continent to be able to collaborate. Due to the circumstances Horizons/East and West were both written under different parameters, these approaches yielded considerably different results. “We all write individually and very rarely does anybody come up with a fully realised song,” admits Riley. 

“We all write parts and work on linking them together then compile all these ideas and end up having hundreds of little clips which we cycle through to see what would work as a verse or a chorus and pick and choose which parts we feel have the most potential. Most of East was pieced together virtually as it was a symptom of the times, being the height of COVID and us not knowing whether it was safe to be in the same room as reach other. We built the songs together using Pro Tools or Logic and worked mostly from home but with West we dedicated like a solid month to being in the same room nearly five days a week, just trying out different ideas and we felt like that approach was a lot more urgent as opposed to being more calculated. A lot of cool stuff happened that you couldn’t really capture just dipping in and out of files. We would make rough demos and listen to them at the end of the session and elaborate on anything we got really excited about.”

For a band so deep into their career, THRICE have been blessed with zero line-up changes. As a result, their bond has only continued to strengthen as they have matured. “THRICE has always been the four of us, collaborating together. Not like the brainchild of one or two people. It’s important for us to work collectively,” confirms Riley. “We’ve really made improvements on our communication and how we share ideas and how we react to ideas. That’s definitely contributed to our longevity. I think early on, when we were younger, we would butt heads a bit more during the writing and decision making processes. It’s like any relationship, you have to learn to accept people for who they are, be understanding and also be self-reflective and realise when you need to take a step back. We’ve all improved on that front. Taking the hiatus also helped us have a bit of a refresh and approach things differently. I didn’t appreciate it at the time but looking back I value the time I had away from the band and we now work more efficiently so we don’t burn ourselves out with crazy scheduling. Everything feels more streamlined. The early to mid 2000s were really stressful and almost suffocating.”

In any industry it can be easy to become complacent and fall into similar habits if you don’t set yourself goals and strive to improve your skills. This is an aspect of life in a band that Riley is acutely aware of and something which motivates his journey of self-development. “There’s no real end game in music or any form of art. There’s no final boss in music so you can never really ‘complete’ music. It’s a constant quest to get better, evolve, learn and improve what we do every time. I’m inspired to just keep pushing and I’m always on the hunt for new music that is inspiring, whether it is older artists that really resonate with me or new artists on the scene who are doing something different that inspires me to incorporate different elements into my playing somehow.”

Horizons/West is out now via Epitaph Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS124 here:

For more information on THRICE like their official page on Facebook.