The Irvine, California, band Thrice got together at the end of high school in 1998. After years together, the band, comprised of vocalist and guitarist Dustin Kensrue, guitarist Teppei Teranishi, bassist Ed Breckenridge and drummer Riley Breckenridge, was inactive for more than three years before coming back together to work on their latest album, May 2016’s “To Be Everywhere is To Be Nowhere.”
They will soon embark on a co-headline tour with Circa Survive and are headed to Tucson to perform at the 2017 KFMA Fall Ball this weekend.
Here’s what we talked about by phone with Kensrue.
What are you working on right now?
“We’re writing for the next record right now that will hopefully be out summer 2018.”
What has been inspiring the music you’re working on?
“They’re not super far along yet in terms of themes or lyrics — that generally comes last with our writing — but we’re at the point where there’s basically a ton of different little musical pieces that we’re trying to sift through and decide which things we want to pick up and push a little further and which ones go together. It’s in a totally chaotic phase, but at the same minute it’s starting to just look like the beginnings of a record.”
Do you typically start writing the music before you write the lyrics?
“Yeah, pretty much always with Thrice, just because it’s such a collaborative process with the music writing. And then I tend to sort of listen to what the song’s already doing in a sense of story; there’s kind of an arc going and a mood, so I try to match different things that I might want to write with that song so that it feels kind of integrated and cohesive.”
What is it like being back together again after your hiatus?
“It’s been really great. We’ve been a band so long already that you kind of don’t forget how to play together and it just always stays there, so you have those same connections. We moved past friends to family status over the years so all that’s good, but having that break definitely brought a freshness to what we were doing again, and it was really healthy both personally and artistically for us.”
What are you most excited about for your upcoming tour?
“This record cycle’s been really great and great getting some radio exposure, and being able to play for a lot of fans, especially an event like Fall Ball where a lot of people are having the opportunity to see your set but maybe have only heard a song or two ever or maybe just heard of the name in passing. So I think that’s opened up even new people coming out to see the normal show as well.”
What’s your favorite song to perform?
“As a band we’d probably go with “The Earth Will Shake” from our album “Vheissu” … that’s been kind of a staple of our set. Usually we end up closing with it one way or another.”
