Thursday Reflects on Signing

Today we are very pleased to announce that we have signed with Epitaph Records. We would like to take this opportunity to tell everyone why we are so excited about this partnership and how we believe it will affect our future.

Many of you already know that we have had many difficulties with our record labels in the past, both "Independents" and "Majors", and have subsequently taken some time (a year and a half) to decide on a new situation. In this time, we've been meeting with labels from all over the country as well as discussing the possible alternatives to "signing" with a label. Some fascinating and intelligent people took the time to help us see what we were looking for (and some Record Execs inadvertently showed us what to avoid). From distribution deals, where we would be our own "label", to digital releases with suggested donations, we tried to educate ourselves to all the new and exciting ways that people can get their music out.

One of our biggest concerns was that we find a situation where we could be free to just be Thursday. In the past we've been asked to be the poster boys for a movement that we didn't wish to be a part of, pressured to write "The Big Single" and told to work on our "image." As much as we've always tried to remain true to our vision for the band and our belief in the basic power of music, it has been a struggle to constantly deflect the suggestions and advice of the people surrounding us. In this way, our story is an all-too-common one in today's music industry: We jumped in at the deep end and found ourselves trying to swim with the sharks; even when we were winning, we were losing ourselves. We feel very lucky to have outlasted these challenges and are grateful for the chance to finally do things our own way.

So why did we choose Epitaph? Of all the exciting and liberating options available to us, we found the idea of entering into a partnership with a label that we've always loved to be the most exciting idea. In this new era of music distribution we still see value in aligning ourselves with a company of dedicated and hard working people rather than trying to conduct all of the business ourselves. We want to keep our focus on music and touring. Epitaph have continually voiced their desire to help us become the band that WE have always wanted to be. It's a great feeling to have a label encourage you to be more socially conscious and politically active. It's a great feeling to have a label owner push you to explore the most experimental and challenging aspects of your band's music instead of dissuading you. It's a truly great feeling to be working with a label that all of our friends have had so many great experiences with. And it certainly doesn't hurt to work with a label that has put out many of our favorite records and is run by someone who's been in a touring band.

Brett G. was very clear that he wasn't looking to create any hype about a "return to form" for Thursday and he has never asked us to revisit the style of song writing that we used on Full Collapse (still our biggest selling album to date) but that we should continue to write with the firm intent of making our best record, our true "dream record" and that was especially informative in our decision to sign. We love our early records but the reason we still write music together, every single day, after ten years is that we believe our best records are still unwritten. We are very inspired by Bad Religion's post-Atlantic albums and look forward to our Epitaph years.

In short we've always believed that music has the power to change lives and that all of us who have been lucky enough to make music for a living have a responsibility to try and make the world a more compassionate and livable place in any small way that they can. We hope that with Epitaph's help and guidance we can do our part.

Thanks for listening,

Tim, Tom, Geoff, Andrew, Tucker and Steve (Thursday)

Thursday's Ten Favorite Epitaph Releases (in no order):

Refused "Shape of Punk to Come"

Hot Water Music "Caution"

The Bouncing Souls "Hopeless Romantic"

Bad Religion "Suffer"

Converge "No Heroes"

Tom Waits "Mule Variations"

NOFX "Punk In Drublic"

Rancid "Let's Go!"

Atmosphere "Seven's Travels"

Grinderman, "Grinderman"