Final hours of Thursday

Innovative American band Thursday will perform their final shows in Australia, having decided to call time on their career.

Music critics have never really known how to categorise Thursday.
Emo? Screamo? Punk? Post-hardcore? Post-rock? Pop-punk?
Labelling the sound of the powerful New Jersey six-piece since their 1999 debut record, Waiting, has proven a futile exercise.
But after 13 years, six innovative studio albums and the building of a loyal fanbase around the world, Thursday are calling time on their career.
And it all ends in Australia this month, when the band return to perform at the Soundwave festival and a short series of headline shows.
"This is our last tour in general," singer Geoff Rickly confirms.
Thursday's frontman also clarifies that the decision to end the band was not an easy one.
"Its been almost half of my life, so it was tough," Rickly says.
"But at the same time the one thing we've always tried to remember is that the band is bigger than any of us or any of our decisions about what we wanted it to be.
"We wanted to keep it pure and stay dedicated to the ideals that made it special."
Rickly explains that for of the band's lifespan, it was the number one priority in each member's life.
But with time and age, other priorities have grown.
"With Thursday, nothing else comes first," Rickly says.
"Thursday is the only thing that comes first - ever.
"When you're not ready to do that anymore, it's just not the same.
"When we knew it was getting to a point where we couldn't keep it up to that [high] standard anymore, and it was just selfish that we wanted to keep doing it for our personal reasons and because we love the band, that's when we decided that it was for the best [to break up].
"I feel like there's other stuff that we could do [musically], but not where we are right now.
"With all the different things that people in the band have going on, I don't think there would be enough room for us to keep doing Thursday where it's the most important thing in our lives.
"That's what's always made it feel good to me - when everyone in the band was totally dedicated, committed and in love with the band."
Rickly is focusing on some "writing-for-hire" songwriting jobs, of which he reveals little, and is also looking to make some more music with his side project United Nations.
But the singer doesn't rule out forming a new band and making it a full time project.
"I've met so many amazing musicians since I've been in Thursday, that it seems stupid not to work with some of them," Rickly says.
The fact that Thursday's last ever tour will be Down Under is sure to generate nostalgia and sentimentality from the large fanbase that have followed the group since the release of their debut record, Waiting.
But during their Australian performances this month, Thursday will also be performing their seminal and influential 2001 record Full Collapse from start to finish.
"I hear [Full Collapse's] influence in younger bands and I find that very flattering," Rickly says.
"Some people say it was the first really aggressive emo record.
"There are a lot of different reasons why people think it was so influential, but I think it was just that we were really young and sincere and we didn't quite know what we were doing.
"That combination just worked for us.
"There's something special about having a bunch of kids be really honest on a record and also trying to make something new at the same time.
"That's probably why we were never able to duplicate anything that sounded like it again.
"Its real strength was the accidents and the things we didn't plan - it turned out well because of what we didn't know.
"We didn't really know how to write a song yet.
"Each time we wrote a song on that record, it felt like we were rediscovering what music was supposed to be."
Rickly admits that performing Full Collapse again is like going through "a time machine".
"I feel like a kid again when we're playing those songs," Rickly says.
"We've played some of those songs literally a thousand times since we put out that record.
"The band's like a machine, but emotionally you get three or four songs into that record and it feels like it's 2001 again."
Rickly also enjoys reliving the period in his life that informed his lyrics on Full Collapse.
"There are certainly some things that I still hold dear in the lyrics," Rickly says.
"The things that I have gotten over in the lyrics and that are remote to me [now] - I was writing about things that had happened to me five or six years before then - I get to relive them and remember them, and that's kind of cool too."
Thursday continued to evolve and push their boundaries over their six albums, but Rickly feels there were strong consistent threads throughout their entire catalogue.
"Lyrically I've always explored a lot of the same kinds of themes; individuals, relationships, our increasingly depersonalised and isolating world, modes of transportation as metaphors for the acceleration of culture - I think that's always been a huge thing in our music.
"And compassion - that's always been a giant theme.
"Musically, in the beginning a lot of the work was more crude.
"The thing we consistently did from the beginning to the end [of the band], was try and work up a slab of music that was brightly coloured and had a million different things going on.
"We wanted to dazzle you so you didn't know which instrument was which.
"That's always been a huge theme in Thursday."
When Thursday emerged in 1997, they were quick to form both a figurative - and literal - underground following.
Many of their earliest shows took place in basements.
The band's very first live performance was beneath Rickly's New Brunswick home.
Thursday played on a bill alongside Saves The Day, Poison The Well and Midtown - all of whom would go on to achieve success.
But in a piece of poetic symmetry, Thursday's final live performances will be alongside Saves The Day, who are supporting Thursday on their headline shows this month.
"Isn't that crazy?" Rickly asks.
"It is amazing - it's so funny that a couple of [New] Jersey bands started together, and now on the other side of the world we're ending with them by our side.
"It's nice to have them there.
"I always feel that musically [Saves The Day] approached it one way, and we approached it a very different way.
"Somehow we always ended up playing together and making sense together.
"People say, 'I like bands like Saves The Day and Thursday' - but to me we couldn't be more different."
Rickly explains that Saves The Day's singer and songwriter Chris Conley writes more traditional pop rock songs and then his band expands on the idea and layers it.
Thursday have always started with a sound and layers, and then worked backwards to turn them into a song.
"We have totally different approaches and sometimes I wish that we would write more like Chris," Rickly admits.
"That we would write a song from start to finish and then orchestrate it.
"We don't sound experimental, but our approach to writing was always to try new things - it was an experiment every time."