Thursday Biography

Thursday is a rock band from New Brunswick, New Jersey that has released four full-length albums: Waiting (2000 Eyeball Records), Full Collapse (2001 Victory Records), War All The Time (2003 Island Records), and A City By The Light Divided (2006 Island Records). Their name comes from the band's desire to not be automatically associated with any particular musical style.

Thursday was formed in 1997 by vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarist Tom Keeley, guitarist Bill Henderson, bassist Tim Payne, and drummer Tucker Rule. The band began playing basement shows in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and surrounding areas. The band played their first official show on December 31st, 1998 in Geoff Rickly's (lead singer) basement alongside Midtown, Saves the Day and Poison the Well.

They recorded demos to hand out at shows and in the summer of 1999 even teamed up with MP3.com for their first official release, the 1999 Tour EP which featured demos of songs that would be soon be found on their debut EP, Waiting, released January 18, 2000, on New Jersey-based Eyeball Records.

Hesitant to join a larger label, but with full support from Eyeball Records, Thursday signed to Chicago, Illinois-based label Victory Records. The band's relationship with Victory Records would be a troubled one, as the band and the label rarely saw eye to eye. Thursday finished up their follow-up to Waiting, Full Collapse, but could not release it the way they intended; Victory Records claimed the band's lyrics were unimportant and not worth the extra packaging. Further, Victory Records created Thursday whoopie cushions for distribution at Warped Tour, an act that infuriated the band. [1]

Full Collapse was released on April 10, 2001, without much radio or television support. The band toured in support of the album, but did not receive support from Victory Records. It was not until the band joined fellow New Jersey friends Saves The Day on a tour that Victory Records began paying notice to the band; without the band's consent they began marketing "Understanding In A Car Crash" as the band's first single, and released a video (comprised of live footage) that would receive airplay on MTV2. By this point, Bill Henderson had left the band to be replaced by guitarist Steve Pedulla.

After many tours and months of unhappiness, Thursday was nearing the end of their life as a band. Angry with each other (for reasons none of the band members could recount when asked later) and at Victory Records, the band recorded a song for the Five Stories Falling EP, the band's last release on Victory Records. Rickly has been quoted many times (at live shows and in interviews) stating that he and the band simply released that record to fulfill contractual obligations, and that fans should simply download the one new song that can be found on the disc.

The one new song found on the Five Stories Falling EP (released October 22, 2002) is "Jet Black New Year", possibly Thursday's most popular song within the underground music community. The band has described the effort as a musical fight against each other, unable to communicate with one another in any other way. The lyrics draw from an experience that is documented in story form in the extensive liner notes found with the disc. Additionally, each of the other band members contributed a story (some factual, some fictional) to the liner notes.

Thursday parted ways in an unfriendly manner with Victory Records and joined Island Records. Their major label debut, War All The Time, was released September 14, 2003. The album's title, coupled with it being released approximately two years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led many critics to believe it was a political album; Rickly has denied this on many accounts, instead claiming that he is speaking about love being a war.

War All The Time features Andrew Everding on keyboards, though he would not become an official member of the band until December 26, 2003, when he was officially welcomed into the band at the band's now-traditional Christmas holiday shows held at New Jersey's Starland Ballroom, in Sayreville.

War All The Time received both praise and criticism; many felt that it did not live up to Full Collapse, an album that is often credited as being one of the most influential emo-core albums of the twenty-first century. The band has since stated that they felt rushed to write, record, and release the album due to the pressures of a major label. The entire writing and recording process took only six months; the band has claimed they almost forced themselves into a contained sound on the album.

The first song released off of the album was "For The Workforce, Drowning" released prior to their performance at Hellfest 2004. This song seemed to push Thursday further down the road that "Jet Black New Year" had started. Their performance at Hellfest, which included a cover of Far's "Mother Mary" featuring former Far lead singer "Jonah Matranga" seemed to be revolutionary. However, "For The Workforce, Drowning" turned out to be a one of a kind on their album.

The first single (and only single to receive full radio and television support) was "Signals Over The Air", a song Rickly claims to be about the sexual revolution. A special radio edit version of this song exists, which removes part of the bridge near the end of the song. The UK single disc contains two extra songs: acoustic versions of Full Collapse's "A Hole In The World" and War All The Time's "Division St".

The second single, the title track "War All The Time", was released much later, but due to the video's controversial nature, never received much radio airplay or rotation on MTV. Thursday has said many times they are not sure what is so controversial about their video. The video contained no violent or sexual themes.

Thursday toured extensively to support War All The Time, taking their friends Thrice and Coheed and Cambria on a full US tour before joining AFI on another tour. During this time, Thursday performed many in-store acoustic sessions in places like Tower Records; Thursday also recorded live acoustic tracks for Y100 Sonic Sessions, a radio program on the now defunct Philadelphia-based radio station, Y100. The live acoustic version of single "Signals Over The Air" was used on Y100 Sonic Sessions Volume 8.

Thursday also performed at the Apple Store in New York in October of 2003, which was recorded as a live acoustic session split release with Thrice, who played the same day at the Apple Store in LA. Those recordings were issued exclusively through iTunes. A promotional EP, "Live In Detroit" was released late in 2003 through Revolver magazine.

Rickly began to become sick quite often on the road; the band did not always get to finish their entire show, especially during the European leg of the tour. This, in addition to nonstop touring and creative issues within the band, forced the band to go on an indefinite hiatus in 2004.

The band came together once again for a charitable cause to save New York punk club, CBGB, on August 25, 2005. This performance (like every CBGB performance) was streamed live through the CBGB's website; thus, it was bootlegged - the bootleg features two live songs that have never been released. It is unsure if they were ever recorded in the studio.

Around this time a five song personal demo was leaked onto the Internet, taken from My American Heart's manager's iPod. (Rickly performed guest vocals on My American Heart's 2005 album). The band was initially upset that the personal demos of the songs were leaked, but soon issued a statement telling fans they are happy that people take so much interest in their music.

Thursday confirmed that one song from the demos, "At This Velocity", would be on their upcoming full-length. Three other songs ("The Other Side Of The Crash/Over And Out (Of Control)", "Telegraph Avenue Kiss", and "Autumn Leaves Revisited") would also make the album, despite significant changes from their demo form. One song remains untitled and unreleased, and the band has not yet announced whether there are any plans for that song. The band continued its holiday show tradition that winter, playing some of the demos ("At This Velocity" and other new material such as "The Lovesong Writer") live.

Thursday hinted at a two CD double album to follow up War All The Time, but scrapped that idea, saying that not even The Beatles could fill two full CDs with enough solid material. The original plan was to let one disc showcase the band's softer side, while allowing the other disc to showcase the band's harder side.

Another idea hinted at early on was that the album would feature guest bands (such as Converge, The Blackout Pact, The Blood Brothers, and My Chemical Romance); this idea, though not scrapped according to Everding, did not appear on the album but is instead likely to be seen on a charitable EP due late 2006.

A City by the Light Divided would be Thursday's War All The Time follow-up; this is Thursday's first full-length not produced by Sal Villanueva, but instead produced by Dave Fridmann. The title is influenced by a poem from Octavio Paz, which can be found in the album's liner notes.

Island Records leaked the entire album through MySpace in a low quality stream on April 18, 2006, a few weeks before its official release on May 2, 2006. The first single from the album is "Counting 5-4-3-2-1" which draws inspiration from real-life tragic events experienced by the band growing up in New Brunswick, NJ.

On September 15, 2006, AbsolutePunk.net reported that an author covering a lawsuit between Victory Records and Hawthorne Heights mentioned that Thursday has been dropped from Island Records. There are rumors that Island has been looking to drop its rock bands that aren't turning profits and Thursday's latest Island album, A City by the Light Divided, did not sell nearly as much as its previous record, War All The Time. However, these rumors were corrected within hours and the author of the original article confirmed that Thursday had not been dropped from Island.

The band's latest video, "At This Velocity;" has been released, but right now can only be seen on the Island Records website and on Yahoo! music.