Gear Simplicity
Despite the number of textures and deceptively
intricate ideas throughout Thursday’s
back catalog, Pedulla and Keeley have pretty
simple rigs. The latter tends to favor Marshall
and Vox AC30 amps and standard Fender
Telecasters with a Seymour Duncan Hot
Rails bridge pickup. Pedulla is a bit more
adventurous in his use of multiple effects
units, but he also favors Telecasters with a
Hot Rails bridge unit. He also has a custom
First Act hollowbody—which is also stocked
with Hot Rails.
“For some people, that’s a weird pairing—
to put that hot of a pickup in a guitar
like that,” he says of the double-cutaway,
Bigsby-outfitted guitar. “But it’s awesome,
and that got used probably the most. “Dave
also has an awesome Harmony Rocket that
we used, and I have a Jaguar that I played on
a couple of things.”
Amp-wise, Pedulla has recently gotten into
Bad Cats. “I used to use the Bogner Ecstasy
Classic for distortion and I tried various combos
for clean sounds, but I just got myself a
Bad Cat Lynx and that’s all I use now. The
second day of the tour, our front-of-house
engineer came up and was, like, ‘Dude, that is
the best your guitar has ever sounded!’ And I
feel the same way. For the first recording session,
I really wanted that Bad Cat but I didn’t
have one, so I borrowed one. After two weeks
or a month off, it became a challenge to find
one for the next session. Dave was pretty adamant
too—‘You need to make sure you have
that amp again.’ Luckily, a friend of mine
had an extra one he sold me at an amazing
deal. So that and the Line 6 M13—that’s all I
need. The only thing I use in the studio that
I don’t have in my live rig, at least for now, is
a DigiTech TimeBender Digital Delay pedal,
which is a lot of fun.”
Keeley, on the other hand, had some difficulties
with gear during the
No Devolución
sessions. “When we went into the studio, a
lot of my gear was in disrepair,” he says. “So
the biggest change for me was, ‘Steve, can I
play your guitar here?’ and ‘Oh,
this doesn’t
work—but it sounds kinda cool.’ It was a
hodgepodge of amps that did or didn’t work
or were blown or wires that were disconnected.
It’s definitely strange making something
that’s going to last forever in a context where
you’re not confident in what you’re using.
It’s impossible for that not to affect
what you
play, as well as the energy of the parts. It can
add to the tension of a part or a song or just
the energy of a record. I can hear things like
that, at least in my own playing.”
Keeley sees the light live. Photo by Louise Lockhart
He missed one amp more than anything
else. “There’s a Marhsall JCM900. It’s
Geoff’s amp, but it’s the one I played in the
basement days for years and years. It has
been historically troublesome and finicky,
but it sounds fantastic. Beyond that, the
most frustrating thing was that I have a couple
of AC30s that sound fantastic, but the
noise . . . we couldn’t get rid of it no matter
what we did! That was a daily struggle.”
Home Is Where the Hardcore Is
What separates Thursday from some of the
more dubious exponents of the genre they
helped create is their willingness to embrace
newcomers
and their steadfast refusal to
turn their back on the hardcore scenes they
grew up in. Whether it’s offering opening
slots to recent up-and-comers Touché Amoré
and La Dispute on tour or Pedulla revealing
that studio communication often involves
requests such as, “Play something like an old
Quicksand drum beat,” the guys in Thursday
continue to have a hand in the DIY scenes
that made them who they are today.
“It’s a school of thought we were
exposed to at a young age, and it became
an inherent part of our personalities and
our philosophy for life,” Keeley says. “Be
authentic, don’t sell people on an idea.
Rather than selling people on an idea,
present them with a piece of art and allow
them to take it from you and accept or
reject it—and be okay with that.”
And
No Devolución is indeed a piece of
art—arguably with more emotion, innovation,
and hardcore attitude than anything
Thursday has done before. All without returning
to what they’ve done before—and all
without turning their back on it, either.