The Thermals managed to survive the Bush years boy are they excited. Excited enough to jump labels from Sub Pop to Kill Rock Stars, and cut a record that’s a big departure from their critically acclaimed 2006 breakthrough, The Body the Blood the Machine. Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster moved to Portland together in 1998 and since 2002 the Thermals have built a reputation for their furiously- smart, if smug and sarcastic, brand of pop-punk.
Now We Can See came out earlier this month. It’s a surprising effort from a group famous for lines like “Blood is easy to obtain when you have no shame.” Here’s the video from the title track:
Now We Can See doesn’t back off the poppy hooks, political cynicism and witty double entendres of their previous records, but it does consciously move beyond their punk formulas to a more complex sound: invoking a broader set influences including sixties pop, early-nineties alternative, and alt-country. After the success of The Body, the Blood the Machine, The Thermals laid off the sonic attack just enough to make a record that asks more questions than it purports to know the answers to. Now We Can See is more about self-reflection than external critique. We’re human after all. Aren’t we all to blame?
I caught up with Kathy Foster in February fresh off The Thermals’ UK tour with The Cribs.
1000Voices: How is this record different from The Body the Blood the Machine?
Kathy Foster: It’s written from the perspective of someone who’s died and is reflecting on their life, and on the life of humanity and how fucked we’ve been.
My complete interview after the jump.
1000Voices: What aspects of life are we talking about? Emotions? Or more physical stuff?
KF: There’s a lot of themes of water, land, and love.
1000Voices: What made you want to write about all of that?
KF: I know Hutch was anxious to get away from the religion and politics of the last record, because, you know, we already did that. But it this one also it kind of continues where the last record left off, and continues in a new direction. To us the story of [The Body, the Blood the Machine] ends in the apocalypse and everyone’s dead. So this record is thinking if you died and you were able to look back on your life and all of humanity throughout time– realizing all the mistakes we’ve made as humans and personally in our own lives too.
A couple songs are about being so embarrassed to be a human and how much we’ve messed up that you want to devolve back into a fish. In one of them, you died because you tried to become a fish and go back to the sea but because you’re a human, and this isn’t science fiction, you died.
1000Voices: Is there a revelation when you die?
KF: I think that’s kind of the question of the record. If you could look back after you died, if you had a chance to make up for your mistakes would you do anything about it? Would having that knowledge make a difference in how you acted?
So it can be seen as hopeful if you think people would act upon their mistakes, but it can be dark if you think about people not acting on their mistakes.
1000Voices: So you’re dead. Do you see anything happy looking back?
KF: Well yeah. I personally would. “Now We can See” looks back at how savage we are, but other songs on the record are more positive, like if you were about to die, how you would want the person who you love the most to be next to you. A lot of it is about love, which for me is the main reason for living.
1000Voices: How’s this record different musically than the last record?
KF: I think every record we do is a progression from the one before it. So I think we want to evolve the sound but still have it sound like a natural progression. We like our aesthetic, we want to sound like The Thermals, but we want to expand too.
At the beginning of 2008 we did a show in New York that was live karaoke. We learned 17 covers, and people got on stage and sang the songs. We chose all these pretty classic songs like “You Can’t Hurry Love” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” It was cool to see how all these hit songs are written, and comparing it to how we naturally write songs.
1000Voices: What surprised you?
KF: Well a lot of it was realizing how simple a lot of these songs are. So I just keep reminding myself to keep it as simple as possible and working with that rather than overplaying.
1000Voices: Well you definitely come at these songs with a lot less aggression.
KF: I think that’s natural. You come out of the gate all gung ho and then as you spend more time in the band and working on songs, and they just naturally settle down.
The first record [More Parts Per Million] is recorded on a four track, and I like how lo-fi and trashy it sounds, but then it’s like we don’t need to make every record sound like that.
1000Voices: The last record got great reviews… How did you feel when you finished this record compared to the last one?
KF: I’m really proud of these songs because we spent the most time on these compared to any other record. So I think because of that I felt more nervous when we were done. It was fun to record, but it was fun but stressful too. I still feel unsure about this record. I’m wondering what people will think about it because it’s so different than the last one. I’m hoping people like it.
I’m also wondering if people will like it right away or if it will grow on people, and I’m kind of hoping people don’t totally like it at first. A lot of the records I end up loving I’m not totally sold on for the first couple of listens.
1000Voices: I was definitely surprised when I first heard the record.
KF: It’s just one of those things. I think it sounds different than people think it will. When it’s something you aren’t expecting, it takes you a little longer to get into. It’s not as immediate, and I think that’s a good think. Still, I feel a little more insecure about it.