Alice Magazine NYC - Chapter 3

Jana Early sits down with Dustin Kensrue, lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the
band THRICE before they go onstage in Atlanta!
ALICE MAGAZINE: So, first, What in the world did the guys say when you told
them you wanted to come back and start Thrice up again after calling it quits a few
years back?
DUSTIN KENSRUE: Everyone was into the idea in general. We had to kind of figure
out logistics. Everyone just really wanted to make sure that it was going to be sustainable
this time. Just trying to start over with better rythyms. yeah, i don’t think anyone
expected me to hit them up again within a few years like that. It was hard for
everyone in different ways (ending Thrice a few years back), but it was really good for
us all to have a break, I think. Like, we all have a much better perspective and
appreciate things more now for sure.
AM: How many of the songs on the new record were songs you had written in the
past or worked on in the past, or was all of this completely new material?
DK: Its all new in a sense, I mean we all sort of tend to kick ideas around constantly,
like, “hey check out this riff... it may be cool to use in the future.” Generally, I never
have lyrics aside from the song i’m actually writing at the time. So, generally its all
just new, or built off some random old idea or something; generally very skeletal,
if theres anything (written previously) it’s just some simple crapy recording on our
phones or something. Most of mine are just like me humming quietly into my phone
because i’m somewhere where I can’t be loud and I”m just like “ggrrrhhhherrrr,”
(Dustin sort of growled into his phone at this point to demonstrate how he quietly
records random ideas.) Then I’ll go back and listen and I have no idea what it was
that I was thinking. (laughs at himself in that quiet Dustin Kensrue way of laughing).
AM: So all new material. Thats cool. Now on the record itself when you get into
“Blood On the Sand” and just the racial violent chaos...
DUSTIN: Yeah, in 2015.
AM: Yeah, exactly. Could you just comment on that I guess? We all saw the hell of
2015 and what happened, could you just comment on that? Why sing about it?
DK: Yeah, part of it is that I try to let the songs themselves dictate a lot of where the
lyrics go. So, we always write the music first and thats kind of telling a story on it’s
on, and I need to find something that overlays it that makes sense with it. So I’ll have
a variety of things that I’m thinking about or an idea that would be a great song, so i
kind of sit with those songs and see what they feel like they are kind of telling. I think
because the music in Thrice is kind of weighty feeling and serious in a lot of ways, I
end up having to choose weighty and serious subject matter. So, that could be a
variety of things, but this year it just ended up being a lot of that stuff on my mind
that was bothering me. For me, writing stuff like that is a way to process some of it. In
the creative process of writing, I end up doing a lot of research about whatever I’m
writing about, just trying to understand it before I write. When I’m writing a record
I feel more engaged in the world than I am at other times, and I like that. Makes me
feel like I need to be more engaged more of the time too. Better than none at all