Thornley Talks Hired Guns

03/17/09 3:35pm

by Stephanie Joudrey (CHARTattack)

I caught up with Thornley frontman Ian Thornley just days before his new album hit stores, and you could hear the relief in his voice that it was finally ready.

Tiny Pictures, which came out Feb. 10, was a stressfully created sophomore disc. Fans patiently suffered five years for Thornley to deal with touring, writing and new management to get this disc out.

Although the band is named after Thornley, he has never taken on as much responsibility as he has for this disc. Thornley worked with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters) and the man behind the band's name recorded all of the guitar parts alone. He also called in a favour from labelmate Daniel Adair of Nickelback to record the drums.

CHARTattack found out what made him take on the bulk of the recording, and what happened to his former bandmates.

CHARTattack: Did you actually work on the album for five years?
Ian Thornley: Yeah. Well, I was certainly writing and demoing plenty the whole time. It can keep going. You can keep writing more and more until people will say, "OK, let's put this out."

If you're at odds with what other people are thinking artistically, then you will probably never reach a middle ground. When you have the right people saying the right things and these people hold some clout, then it kind of works in your favour.

When we finally got Nick Raskulinecz on board and he was like, "No, these are the songs and here is what you are doing." When the guy who has all of the Grammys says it, everyone says, "I thought so, too" and takes credit for it. I was like, "I honestly don't give a shit about all of that stuff." I just want to make music and put it out, quite simply.

What made you decide to do all of the guitars yourself?
I just knew exactly what I wanted. Nick and I had talked about how to work and how the process should be. We both just kind of agreed that the fewer people around, the greater the focus.

I think that is what we achieved. It also had to do with having lived with the music for as long as I had and knowing what I would change from the demos. We really developed a great rapport to where it was almost shorthand. It was very quick and very focused.

We both knew where we were going with the next sound or next part or if we needed something here, what kind of sparkly jingly jangly layer can we put here? We both have our little areas of expertise when it comes to doing that. It was very, very quick.

Are the old band members still with you from the last CD?
No. There has been a sort of revolving door over here in Thornley. Some have come and some have gone. Right now, [bassist] Kenny Tizzard is back in the line-up. On guitar, we have Patrick who has been with me since the Big Wreck days. He was a tech back in those days. On drums, we have Eric Paul from Big Sugar. He was the guy who came in after Sekou [Lumumba].

It's like rock 'n' roll high school. Some people graduate and some people... I don't know, I am trying to think of a positive way to say I shit-canned everybody.

No, it's not really like that. I still have relationships with everybody who has been in and out. It's not one of those types of things. I'm not a slave driver. It's also hard when it's that long between records.

Everybody who has been in this band has been a wonderful musician and it's hard to keep guys like that at home waiting for your business life to get its shit together. More power to them that they got gigs.

Is it stressful with a new CD and new band for a new tour?
It could be, but no, I'm not stressed about it at all. I know that any of the people that we will be using are going to badass. And will not only know all of the music inside and out but will have the right energy and chemistry to mesh with anybody else we get.

There aren't, like, real hired guns. We aren't going outside of the camp to look for some guy who has really cool jeans. We're keeping it within people who are in the family.