Thursday melds music, fashion on Strhess Tour

Thursday, Murder by Death, Fear Before the March of Flames and Heavy Heavy Low Low have teamed up for the inaugural Strhess Tour, which kicks off Jan. 18 in Hartford, CT.

Presented by Purevolume.com, the tour is sponsored by the Strhess clothing line designed by artist Derek Hess. Hess is designing all the tour artwork, which will appear on websites, posters, postcards and T-shirts.

New Jersey's Thursday--vocalist Geoff Rickly, guitarists Steve Pedulla and Tom Keeley, keyboardist Andrew Everding, bassist Tim Payne and drummer Tucker Rule--created the tour to support "A City by the Light Divided," produced by Dave Fridmann.

"Actually, we were planning our own tour, and we've been friends with Derek a long time," Rickly said during a recent telephone interview. "When I got married, he sent me an original he made for me and my wife. I've known him for a long time and I thought that was really nice. Now, he's doing all this Strhess stuff."

Rickly and his band's first task was to put together the line-up. Murder by Death was a logical choice. The Indiana rock band is supporting "In Bocca Al Lupo," produced by J Robbins (The Promise Ring, Jawbox).

"Murder by Death, I've known them for a real long time," Rickly said. "I saw them at their sixth show they ever did, at a bookstore in Indiana. They totally blew me away. We were playing this anarchist bookstore and they were this little local band and they were so good. I persuaded them to come do records with us on our label Eyeball. It was a totally a natural choice straight away for them."

The Denver melodic metalcore band Fear Before the March of Flames is pushing "The Always Open Mouth," featuring the songs "Drowning Old Hag" and "Ten Seconds in Los Angeles." Rickly admitted he initially wasn't a fan of the band.

"Fear Before the March of Flames was a band I always heard about, but every time I listened to them I wasn't really into them," he said. "But their new record came out, and somebody said, 'You should listen to this one. It's a little different.' I had no idea they had gotten that creative and incredible in the course of one album. They went through the roof. I think it's so amazing. I listen to it all the time."

Led by vocalist Robbie Smith, San Jose, CA-based Heavy Heavy Low Low released "Everything's Watched, Everyone's Watching" in September. The group was referred to Rickly by a friend.

"Heavy Heavy Low Low, we heard about from our friend, and they really wanted to do it," Rickly said. "We were like, 'OK, cool but I really have to listen to them.' I really like them, too. I was really totally pleasantly surprised."

Although it's only a two-week tour, Rickly has big plans for the jaunt. He is hoping to air shows on Pure Volume and create original music by collaborating with his tourmates.

"I'm really excited. It's just one of those things where you're lucky enough to be in a band and you do it full time, and you actually have an audience that cares and supports you; you get to see so many cool things just to see if they work--to see if you can do something new and cool."

After the trek, Rickly and his bandmates are headed to the United Kingdom, where they will open for My Chemical Romance.

"They were like our little-brother band," Rickly said. "Now, they're like one of the biggest bands in the world. I haven't even spent that much time with them since I produced their first record and put it out. They used to do our T-shirts before they were a band. To see them just totally conquer the world is cool. We're playing Wembley Stadium for two nights, and that is even more amazing."

Thursday is tentatively planning to film a DVD featuring b-sides in the next couple weeks.