INTERVIEW: THRU IT ALL
BY ROB HINKAL
Oklahoma based trio Thru It All are currently in the midst of a (just kicked off) U.S. tour, which sees them playing throughout the country well into next month. I caught up with vocalist, Nick Jordan, via Zoom during a short break in the band’s busy schedule to discuss their tour, their latest album, chaos zen, and to dive a bit deeper into the themes of the alt-rockers newest release.
You just started on the new tour. How does it feel to be back out on the road?
Dude, it’s been so fun. We’re just two shows in and we have, like, twenty-seven dates on the tour so it’s going to be awesome. And we’re coming up your way, actually up the East Coast with a full East Coast tour. It’s been awesome man, great so far!
How does it feel to be able to present new music to an audience for the first time? Are you excited or are you cautious as to how they’ll respond to what you’ve worked so hard on?
For me it’s more about the energy of the whole performance rather than, “I wonder if they’ll like this song, specifically,” or like the record. I mean, I’m really proud of the record but at the same time for us it’s just like, we’re going to go record tonight and go drop a new song on Friday and just keep it pushing and keep it going. For me it’s just let’s make a whole experience and just get everybody on a good vibe and hopefully lighten the room up and make it a really cool environment, you know? Try and have a high energy show.
Relating to that, when you do tour for an album, do you find that different regions of the country or different states react differently to different songs?
Yeah, I think there is a little bit of that. We kind of blend a lot of stuff. We just say “alt rock” because it’s a good umbrella but we have some moments that are like a straight up punk rock show and then we have moments that it’s like Kid Cudi or Mac Miller or something. And then we have moments where it’s like 90’s alternative, grunge type stuff. So, we have a well-rounded sound and certain people will react to the different moments of the set. We kind of have something in there for everybody. Like in New York we’re playing just a straight up punk rock club in Brooklyn so I’m excited for the fast double time parts and stuff like that and to see how that goes off there and in different areas.
Many of the songs on the latest release seem to reference a kind of longing to escape from familiar surroundings. How did that theme come about in the creation of the album?
Yeah, I guess on an even deeper level just continuing to find that wonderment, that lust for life, I guess. Like, finding the magic in the most simple, mundane thing. Keeping that alive is a recurring theme in the music. Not letting your spark die out. So many people just kind of lose that as life goes on and you go through so much stuff. There’s a lot of themes of battling with that and stuff along that line.
When you set out to record a new album like this last one, do you start out with a theme in mind for the songs or do you go in with a blank slate and allow the theme to reveal itself through the music and through the process of recording?
Yeah, it kind of just reveals itself. I mean, it would be cool to do some sort of concept album down the line but this album in a sense is an album of singles. We really dropped a song, like, every month last year and grouped them all together and let the natural flow of whatever we were creating just come to be. We didn’t really sit down and say “Let’s write about this”. We didn’t really try, we just kind of let it happen, like you said. Just let the creativity flow and whatever we make, we make, you know? It’s really interesting going into a studio in complete silence, having no idea what’s going to happen, and then you have this thing that’s seemingly from thin air that’s just played over and over in all of these places and all of these different people’s lives and stuff. I think that the coolest thing about music, that you’re materializing something out of the ether, you know? It’s pretty cool. Because half the time you don’t even know where the stuff comes from. You’re just like, “How did we do that?”. That’s how I feel anyway.
chaos zen sees you guys utilizing a number of different musical styles and genres, like you said before. Are there any in particular that you may have experimented with on this album that you would like to continue with in the future?
Yes, we want to keep the hip-hop aspect of it going. We have around four songs now that have full blown rap verses so we want to keep some of that in there. We want to feature. When we think about features and stuff in the future, we’re really keen to do stuff with rappers and hip-hop artists, like have a full rock song but then have a verse from, “insert artist here”, whomever it may be. We kind of want to blend those two worlds a bit, and it’s already such a thing, but we want to just keep that going.
Where did the last song (T.O.M.P.) come from?
Oh! (laughs)… T.O.M.P. If you know what that stands for then you know. I think we messed up our Spotify algorithm a little bit with that… people were probably like “What the hell is this?”. We went to record at a cabin out in the woods and it’s an actual true story (laughs). We were out in the middle of the woods for three days just running around and having a good time and it was wild. At like one in the morning we’re done recording and drinking some beers, just having fun in this cabin and we’re like, “Let’s do another song!”, and it’s just one take. As I was drumming the country drums on the little keyboard, Daniel just soloed that whole thing. A full, red dirt, country song in one take. We didn’t even really think about it, it was just funny.
It's definitely a unique way to remember and it still sounds great!
We were like, “Hmm, should we put this on here?”, but then we thought, “Why not?”. And also, we’re huge Blink* fans and we used to cry-laugh about those stupid songs that would just be five minutes of silence after the record and then this dumb thing would come on. So that’s kind of what that is for us.
Kind of like your version of a hidden track almost?
Yeah, kind of. Some people pointed it out and they were like “What is going on?” and now that the album has been out for a minute I haven’t heard much (laughs). But, I feel like when more people find it they’ll be so confused.
Well, like you said, it’s still a great song!
Thanks man!
K E E P U P W I T H
