From Riley Breckenridge:

Greetings from the final leg of the Major/Minor Tour. As of this writing, we’re spending a day off in the booming metropolis of Boise. So “booming”, in fact, that I just wandered around an outdoor mall and felt like I was in a scene from “28 Days Later”. THERE IS NOBODY HERE. I saw ONE person, and he/she/shim/it may or may not have been a zombie. I couldn’t couldn’t muster up the courage to get close enough to confirm or deny that possibility. Too dangerous. (You know, the whole “brain-eating” thing.) We’ve got a show in Seattle tomorrow which marks the beginning a string of shows down the West Coast to wrap this thing up with four “hometown” shows (LA, OC twice, and San Diego).

I’m eager to get home, and I’m not. I miss the hell out of my lady and our dogs, miss the hell out of my mom, and I’m really looking forward to having a clean bathroom to conduct “business” in, rather than dropping the kids off in filthy stalls and backstage that have seen the worst cases of mudbutt from all of your favorite bands a thousand times over. I’m looking forward to bathing in something that is cleaner than I am. Something that isn’t essentially a giant band-dude-detritus-filled petri dish for foot fungus. Home is awfully comfortable. Tour, most often, is not. Although, there’s a certain level of tour discomfort that has a way of feeling strangely comfortable after you’ve been on the road for a week or two. 

I’m not eager to get home because I love this. I love working. I love playing music (and hearing that it effects people in a positive manner). I love the friendships I’ve built and maintain on tour with my bandmates and crew, my tourmates and their respective crews, and my friends from out of town who I only really get to see while I’m on the road. It’s been a full year (Yikes!) since our last US tour with Kevin Devine, Bad Veins, and The Dig, and while being home was comforting and relaxing and entirely necessary (especially with my dad being ill and eventually passing away in January), I get antsy at when I’m not doing what I do…playing music for people who are kind and generous enough to spend their hard-earned dollars on a ticket to see us play/sing along/share kind words before or after a show.

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From Riley Breckenridge:

We’re three weeks deep, and there’s not much news to report aside from the usual “This tour is awesome. I hope it never ends. I love the bands and crews we’re out with and it’s been amazing to hang with them and watch them play every night.” We did get to see La Dispute play an incredible set in front of their hometown crowd at the Intersection in Grand Rapids on Tuesday night, and the passion and honesty those guys put into their set every night (combined with hundreds of fans singing along) never fails to send chills down my spine. Tuesday night was the pinnacle. It was just an incredible testament to the power of music and the community that it has the ability to create. 

After the show, most of us headed down to Founders Brewery for some outstanding beers (some of the best I’ve had on this tour, and I’m a beer nerd, so that’s no limp compliment) and chats. Aside from actually playing and listening to music on the road, one of the things I like most about touring is having the ability to talk shop with some of the musicians we’re on tour with. Naturally, I tend to gravitate towards drummers and shop talk (gear, practice and warm-up routines, influences, etc.) but I really love talking about how they function in the songwriting process for their band and hearing insight on certain parts/beats/fills came to be.

I had a chance to hang with Michael from O’ Brother at Founders and talk a little bit about his current influences and the creation of their new record Garden Window which comes out on November 15th. I got an advance copy a few weeks ago, and it’s ridiculously good. I’ve been a fan of the band for a while, and had high hopes for their follow up to their Death Of Day EP, and they managed to exceed those expectations and then some. It’s just a fantastic record, and a step that I hope does great things for them. Michael’s playing is powerful, dynamic, tasteful and inspiring, and he manages to pull it off playing of a minimalist three-piece kit.

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From Riley Breckenridge: 

Hey folks. It’s Riley again, back with a second road blog from our Major/Minor tour. As fate would have it, the second I started to settle into tour mode and our sets started feeling tighter and flowing better, I got stricken with some sort of stubborn, lingering allergy/cold combo that has me coughing, sneezing, and snotting through my last seven days and nights with a red nose, itchy, watery eyes and a serious surplus of boogers and phlegm.

Being sick on tour is a bummer. Gone are the comforts of your own bed, the resources of your medicine cabinet, fridge, and pantry, and the healing vibes of your ladyfriend and/or family. Present are sleepless nights in a bus bunk (or van bench seat), (mostly) filthy backstage bathrooms, and living close quarters with a bunch of other guys you really don’t want to get sick. I can play drums with snot gushing out of my face and get away with it. If I get Dustin sick, it’ll affect our shows. So I’m on germaphobe status now, constantly washing my hands, using hand sanitizer, sneezing or coughing into my shirt, and generally trying to keep to myself. This too shall pass.

Aside from my feeling like a pile of hot garbage, this tour still has the Awesome Meter pinned at 100%. We played a sold out show at Irving Plaza last night and had a blast. New York City shows are always pretty hectic with a ton of press, industry and label folk, media outlets, friends, and former tourmates on hand, but all of that anxiety and excitement ends up making a good show feel like a great one, and a great one feels amazing. (It can also make a trainwreck of a show feel like an absolute catastrophe, which has definitely happened more than I’d like to admit.)

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Thrice kicked off the Major/Minor Tour with La Dispute, Moving Mountains, and O’Brother just last week. Riley Breckenridge from the band is being kind enough to do a weekly Road Blog for PropertyOfZack to keep fans updated on one of the biggest tours of the fall. Check back every week for more updates! 

From Riley Breckenridge: 

Greetings, PropertyOfZack readers, my name is Riley Breckenridge, and I play drums and write music for Thrice. Zack’s asked me to contribute a weekly road blog for the next six weeks, and while we’re not a band that’s known for its tour antics or debauchery, I hope my look into life on a Thrice tour won’t bore you to death.

Disclaimer: Admittedly, this entry is a bit vanilla, but bear with me. It’s early. We’ve got five weeks to go.

We’re a little over a week into our Fall tour with La Dispute, O’ Brother and Moving Mountains and it’s been awesome thus far. We’re really lucky to be out with such talented bands, and more importantly, good people. I feel like the bands on this tour really compliment each other well sonically; from the energy of La Dispute, to the heaviness and atmospherics of O’ Brother, to the diversity of Moving Mountains, to whatever the hell we do. The bill feels really balanced, and from the crowd response I’ve seen and heard, people have been really responsive and appreciative to every band. I think that’s not only a testament to the how great the bands we have out with us are and how awesome their performances have been, but to the quality and open-mindedness of their fans.

I’ve had a little trouble getting my sea legs out here on the road. It’s been a full year since we last did any serious touring, and it shows. I spent the first five or six days trying to re-acclimate myself to tour life; trying to remember how to sleep in a bunk, adjusting to living in close quarters with nine other guys, trying to avoid turning into a fat pile of asses by eating like a savage, mustering up the courage poop in toilets that look like they’ve been spackled with butt mud and mildew, being OK with showering every two or three days, walking around smelling like a hobo farting into a bowl of old chili, moderating my intake of what seems like a never ending amount of free cold beer, socializing with strangers, missing my mom and my lady and my friends back home, answering the same interview questions multiple times a day, finding quiet time to read and write, and playing drums for ninety minutes a night.

I’m getting there. Slowly.

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