Interview by Kris Peters
Thrice are a band who have always pushed the envelope when it comes to metal.
Once described as "the Radiohead of post hardcore", the band has been unafraid - and ultimately rewarded because of - to amalgamate genres and blatantly throw the handbook out of the window when it comes to heavy music.
For their third album The Artist In The Ambulance in 2003, Thrice achieved the at that time rare feat of having their album funded by a major label. The record was a departure again from their previous sound, introducing orchestral and electronic elements that would go on to be further explored with the follow up album Vheissu.
Spawning hits like All That's Left and Stare At The Sun, The Artist In The Ambulance proved to be the defining album of Thrice's career, and now, 20 years on, the band are making their way to Australia for an anniversary tour to celebrate the milestone.
Drummer Riley Breckenridge sat down with HEAVY to tell us more.
"Australia is a unique one," he measured when asked how the band mentally prepares for a tour like this. "Just because of the time difference and the amount of air travel you've gotta do. It can be really taxing but I think the more we've gone over there, the better we have gotten at adjusting. It definitely requires a lot of coffee (laughs) to keep you on point. It's exhausting but ever since we came down there the first time in 2004 it's been incredible. The support has been totally overwhelming from the get go, so we're really looking forward to this."
It has been two decades since The Artist In The Ambulance first hit our speakers, and we question Riley as to what has changed with Thrice in that period.
"A lot," he laughed. "We've gotten older. A lot has changed sonically. We've explored some new areas of music. We don't necessarily shred and play metal inspired stuff as much as we used to back then, but we re-recorded and revisited the record and put that out in February of this year so being able to revisit these songs and being able to do this US tour that we just finished up... it's kind of like riding a bike. Yes, we're older, but we've kind of breathed new life into these songs and I think it came across really well."
In the full interview, Riley talks more about the changes with Thrice over the twenty years, the new version of that album and how it differs from the original, expanding their musicality over each album, playing the whole album front to back, what we can expect from the shows, his favourite memories of making The Artist In The Ambulance, the further experimentation on the next album and more.