This Century Interview

April 3rd, 2011

Grant Trimboli

Property of Zack had the chance to sit down with This Century recently. The band discussed delays for their new album, touring, the future, and more. Check out the interview below:

For the record, could you state your names and roles in This Century?
Joel: My name is Joel, and I sing.
Alex: My name is Alex, and I play bass.

You guys are currently on tour with Good Charlotte and Forever The Sickest Kids. How have the first dates been?
Joel: Pretty awesome. This has been a cool tour because it’s a different crowd. We get some older people. We’re seeing all new faces. That’s definitely an upside. We saw new faces on our fall tour, but not nearly as many. We’re playing to a lot of new people.

What’s the set like? How many new songs are there?
Alex: Probably one or two new ones. We open with a new one. We’re mixing around the set now.
Joel: No, I think we play three or four new ones. Then we have two good old fan favorites we like to do.

You toured with The Maine and Hey Monday, but have fans been receptive considering the wide age spectrum on this tour?
Joel: Most fans have been receptive. We understand if not everybody likes the music. Our music isn’t for everybody. We’ve been pretty fortunate on this tour.

How did you guys get on the tour?
Joel: We have a booking agency, but The Maine guys put in a good word for us. I think it was through management. The guys in Good Charlotte had to like the music too. I’m glad they’re into taking us out.

Would you say that you’re more cohesive as a band up on stage as these tours have been getting bigger and bigger?
Joel: I wouldn’t say we’re where we want to be. I don’t if we’ll ever be where we want to be. Maybe we’ll just keep striving to grow. Compared to a year ago, yeah.
Alex: We try to do a little something different each time, and we step it up each time.
Joel: As far as musically, we’re pretty comfortable. Maybe I’ll jump of a rafter or something.

You guys released the Hopeful Romantic sampler this summer. Has it gone over well all this time later?
Joel: Yeah, it’s been pretty successful.
Alex: The reaction has been great. We’re just ready to release this album.
Joel: I think we finally have a release date now.
Alex: As of yesterday.
Joel: The reaction has been good; I just think people are waiting for more.

The band finished up recording in July. What’s been the delay?
Joel: Well, it’s been a combination of getting a release date. Part of being on a label is that you have other bands that are releasing records too. A lot of this stuff has been pushed back. I had some vocal issues back on the Hey Monday tour. I had to finish that stuff out. Between that and getting a release date, those have been the set backs.
POZ: How many tracks will there be?
Joel: There will be eight tracks.

How was the writing process for it?
Alex: We all collectively wrote it.
Joel: They say you have forever to write your debut album. We’ve had our whole lives, but we were writing this record maybe more than a year before we recorded it. We wrote close to a hundred ideas. We wrote a majority of the record right before we recorded it. It’s normally an idea that comes from a riff and we put the skeleton together and add everything else on as a band.
Alex: The producer for the record helped a lot too. He has great writing ability and he wrote a lot of stuff on this record. He’s great at structuring songs and stuff.

Do you have plans to do anything else with all of the extra ideas?
Joel: We do. Some of the ideas we put on another project with sixteen free songs. We’ve got a lot of other ones sitting around. We might try to bring them to life again or release them as b-sides.

How is it working with Action Theory?
Joel: It’s been cool. It has a smaller, family vibe. The Maine are technically on it. It’s kind of confusing. We deal with them a lot. We were kind of the pilot band of that label.

After this, you’ll head out with Forever The Sickest Kids again. How much are you looking forward to that?
Joel: It’s going to be awesome. The great thing is that we’re getting to know them on this tour. We’ll have that advantage against all the other bands. We’ll have been touring with them already.

Are there plans for more touring?
Alex: We have ideas, but nothing set in stone. If fans know us, they know that nothing is ever set in stone with This Century. We will keep people posted. We would love to be out for the whole year. We want to be out on the road as much as we can. That’s when we feel that we’re doing something.