Thornley Returns After Five Years

02/11/09 5:15pm

by Stephanie Joudrey (CHARTattack)

When it takes a band five years to get an album out, you have to ask what happened. It's no Chinese Democracy, but that's still a long time to wait.

Fans and frontman Ian Thornley are more than ready to see Thornley's sophomore release, Tiny Pictures, finally in stores. When hit with the looming question of why it took so long, Thornley's answer is pretty simple, even though the process clearly wasn't.

"It's a weird one," he says. "There was a lot of shit.

"There was a lot of touring after the last record. There was also a lot of politicking.

"We had changed management and getting new relationships in the mix with older ones. Then there was musically deciding what kind of record we wanted to make and choosing the songs. It was all very time-consuming. It almost sent me over the brink."

Now that Thornley has made it back from the brink, he can look at his creation with a smile. He can't help but give himself a glowing review a few days before the album's release.

"I think on the last record, I didn't really feel that way as much as I do about this one. I think that on that record, every song was swinging for the fences.

"On records that I grew up on, my favourite stuff a lot of the times is to really find something beautiful in what some people would deem filler. The more obscure Led Zeppelin stuff, the stuff that didn't quite make it to radio, I have always thought that was kick-ass. I really had a good time knowing that I had the freedom to make music, as opposed to hits, with a portion of this record.

"We went in with a very clear philosophy of 'We are going to have four or five radio tunes and four or five rockers and four or five mellow, muso tunes where I can play guitar solos and mandolins and pedal steels and have kids choirs.'

"We can actually make music as opposed to wondering if this is too long to get on radio. It's nice to not worry about that shit."

Thornley changed a lot on Tiny Pictures. He lost all of his bandmates, opted to record all the guitar parts himself, and called in some big guns. Thornley worked with Grammy Award-winning producer Nick Raskulinecz (Danzig, Velvet Revolver) and got writing help from Nickelback's Chad Kroeger, who taught him to "trim the fat" from songs. All the different input helped him realize where he can take himself and his music.

"I can often take on a sort of vibe," says Thornley. "I wouldn't say a persona or style, but a type of rock 'n' roll and say, 'This is what I have always been reaching for.'

"I think it's healthy to have a certain amount of that, but it's also healthy to be like, 'This is where I've been and who I am, and this is where I want to go and what I want to do.'

"Having it all be out in the open and being very honest about it is the healthiest way to be, as opposed to just having a bunch of yes people around saying, 'Yeah, you are that way, man. Sing like that and play like that.'"

A tour is in the works for later this year.