Thrice are returning to Australia in May 2019 for their first headlining tour in over a decade. Armed with their critically acclaimed new album Palms this a tour not to be missed. We caught up with the bands bass player Ed Breckenridge as he shares his excitement to return to the land down under.    

 

How’s 2019 treating you?

 

It’s been a good year so far. We started in the winter doing a tour with Bring Me The Horizon and Fever 333.

 

We recently had Fever 333 here for Download Festival, they were crazy to watch live. What was it like for you getting to see them everyday?

 

It was cool they opened the show, they are such a high energy group. We’ve been doing it for so long it was good to have people pushing us to keep the energy up. It was cool because the bill was a pretty diverse group of bands which made the show interesting.

 

Huge congrats on Palms it’s such a great album.

 

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be coming to Australia with the new album. We haven’t been there in so long.

 

The album made it onto a lot of best albums of 2018 lists. You must of been pretty stoked on the response to the album?

 

Yeah I feel like every time we release a record we do it with our heads down. You record it and you put it out and then you start to wonder what people will think about it. It’s really cool that people are still responding to our music, we’ve been doing it for twenty years now. There’s a lot of cool music out there and it’s still easy to be inspired. It’s exciting to play shows and travel around. I’m so happy to be still doing it.   

 

Is there a particular song from Palms that you gravitate towards?

 

I would say for me it’s a toss up. On the mellow side of things it would definitely be “Beyond The Pines”. I think that song is powerful and the way that we orchestrated everything that was going on with it, instrumentally and vocally was really great. It’s always good to have a song that feels good as a closer for the album. Then “Just Breathe” also I really like that was the one we had the guest vocals from Emma Ruth Rundle. I just think that song has a cool energy that felt fresh. I’m happy with how that one came out it’s heavy but also intricate, I love it.

 

 

 

It’s not long until Thrice are touring Australia I’m guessing after being away for so long you are excited to finally get back down here?   

 

It’s one of my favourite places I’ve ever been. I was playing in another band when Thrice was on hiatus called Knapsack so I got to tour there with them. I’m excited to go back, it’s so cool. Hopefully I can get a surf in.

 

And you are letting fans help choose the set list for the Australia tour?

 

Ed Breckenridge  

Yeah we’ve been posting a link so people can choose the set list. Then it tally’s it all up. Usually we will be able to do all the songs but if every city wants a vastly different set I don’t now if we will be able to learn fifty songs.

 

Do you guys ever play your cover of “Send me an Angel” live?

 

We have never played that live. I would be down to do it. We chose that song for a Punk Goes Pop compilation. The song is from a 80’s BMX movie called Rad. There’s a scene in that we all really loved that uses that song so that’s why we chose the song.  

 

 

Do you have a favourite Australian memory from a previous tour?

 

Ed Breckenridge

We did a tour there with Hot Water Music and Alkaline Trio. I remember hanging out with those two bands and having a blast. The whole experience was super awesome. Hot Water Music is one of my favourite bands of all time so that was really cool.

 

Looking beyond Australia you are playing the 25th Anniversary of Warped Tour. You must be pretty stoked for that?

 

Yeah I think it will be cool. Hopefully some of the people who were working for Warped Tour back when we were on it will still be working it. I feel like the coolest thing about Warped Tour was always playing to a bunch of people that maybe have never seen you before.

 

Also after that you are playing Disrupt festival which looks like a pretty awesome line up too.

 

Yeah it’ll be fun. We haven’t toured with Sum 41 before but we’ve toured with The Used, Circa Survive and Atreyu. So it’ll be a bunch of old friends touring together it’ll be great.

 

Lastly do you have a message for the Aussie fans who are stoked to finally see Thrice again?

 

Yeah I want to apologise for not coming sooner. I think there was opportunities that we had in the past, something would come up or it would get cancelled. It’s not that we haven’t wanted to be there it’s just scheduling hadn’t worked out. I definitely plan on never taking that long again to come back because we all love it there. I can’t wait it’s going to be so much fun.    

 

(interview by Christian Ross)