PropertyOfZack Interview : : Thrice

PropertyOfZack spoke with our friend Riley Breckenridge a few weeks ago in preparation for Thrice’s farewell tour. Riley and I looked back at the band’s recent touring, their career as a whole, his feelings on their hiatus, the future, and so much more. It’s a great read for any Thrice fan, so don’t miss out on it!

Thrice released Major/Minor in the fall and you guys went on to what seemed to be a very successful fall tour. Before Thanksgiving, you guys announced the hiatus. Fans were pretty shocked. When was the decision to call it a break initially made?
I can’t remember exactly when. I feel like the writing had kind of been on the walls for a while. The amount of touring that we’ve done over the past two or three years has gone down considerably and in large part that is due to Dustin and Teppei having growing families and young kids at home. You know, Dustin has got three kids, Teppei has got two and has a third on the way. It’s really tough for them to be home at all, really. So the amount of touring we have done has kind of gone down. It’s something that I didn’t think of the realm of possibility, and unsure when it was going to happen. But when Dustin told us that he needed to take a break for a while, it was definitely disappointing, but it wasn’t something that was totally shocking to me. But I couldn’t put an exact date on when we decided we were going to do that. I think he might have decided on his own earlier. But we didn’t feel comfortable saying anything about it until after that tour with La Dispute and O’Brother.

I guess if you dug deep enough around the internet, there were rumors of that decision months before it was actually made. Were those coincidental or was it months before the tour started?
I don’t know if some information leaked and that’s how the rumors got started or people were just kind of pinching stuff together. But yeah, like I said, it didn’t seem like it was outside of the realm of possibility. With people pursuing other interests and our touring schedule getting smaller, it was kind of easy to piece together I feel. Some people that are really into the band follow what we do. I’ve seen it online for probably the last couple of years. Like, “Oh this is going to be their last record,” or “This is going to be the last record. They’ll take the break here.”

I think fans have been very respective of the decision. To anyone’s eyes it seems like there is no bad blood. Like you said it’s been something for family. Would you say, disregarding your disappointment, that there has been a ton of support from your closest fans?
Yeah, I think most people get it. Obviously, family should come first and foremost. I think people that have kids and have families probably understand it better than those who don’t. I’ve seen firsthand how tough it is on Dustin and Teppei to be gone. And how tough it is on their families. So it’s understandable. It’s still disappointing, I still really want to tour and still want to make music with these guys and keep working hard on what we’ve put a lot of time and effort into in the past almost fourteen years. But there comes a time where you just have to step away from it and I think as a member of the band you can look at it as this really disheartening thing and a huge bummer or you can see it as something that is the beginning of a new and exciting chapter to do new things and explore other interests. For me, the prospect of being home a little bit more is exciting because I can find other areas of work to get into and I can settle down with my girlfriend and maybe start a family of our own. Those are things that all four of us kind of put on hold in varying degrees to make sure Thrice could continue being a band. Now that Dustin has decided that it is time for him to take a break for a while, it’s an understandable decision and something that I’m fully supportive of. I’m just looking at it as an opportunity to explore new options and use this last tour as the way to express our sincere gratitude for how supportive our fans have been; how they’ve helped us turn something that seemed totally unrealistic into a career for the better part of a decade.

Is that what this last tour is about? You guys could have called it a day after that last tour. Is this just to make sure that you are giving the fans what they want, in terms of a set list and everything?
Yeah. We did a little online poll to kind of see what people wanted to hear and then have put together a song pool based on that poll. I’m just really thankful that we do have an opportunity to go out one last time and to know that this is going to be the last tour for the foreseeable future. There could have been a situation that we’ve seen thousands of times where a band will go out on a tour, not knowing if it’s going to be their last one, and then they come home and somebody is like, “Oh, I’m leaving the band,” or “We need to break up.” That’s got to be a lot tougher to deal with. I think this is easier for me to deal with all of this knowing that there will be one last run and a way to thank the fans with the fans being fully cognitive that this is the last time that they are going to have the chance to see us for a while.

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