INTERVIEW: THOUSAND BELOW
Recently Thousand Below released a new EP called “Let Go Of Your Love,” which includes acoustic and stripped-down versions of their most recent album, “Gone In Your Wake.” Not only did the EP include a different point of view of some of the band’s songs, but they also introduced a new single, “let go of your love.”
We were able to catch up with James DeBerg, the vocalist of the band, to hear about the making of the new EP.
So can you introduce yourself and tell us a little about you with the band?
My name is James Deberg. I sing in Thousand Below. I pretty much handle 70% of the live vocals. The other two Josh’s in the band help me do back up stuff and fill in stuff so that I have time to catch my breath, and I write all the vocals for the band.
So your album “Gone In Your Wake” came out late last year. What inspired you guys to make “Let Go Of Your Love?”
I have this insane theory, I don’t know if it’s insane, but I have this insatiable desire to make all different types of music with my projects instead of one band making one type of music. I really like artists that branch out and do stuff.
For a really stupid example, Drake can make a song that’s him sad about him getting over a girl and he can also make a song where he’s a crazy club banger or he’s rapping like he’s a hard gangster and no one thinks that that’s weird. Everyone is just happy that new music is coming out.
So with Thousand Below, I want to make heavy stuff, I want to make rock stuff, I want to make acoustic stuff, I want to make as many types of music with that band that I can physically get away with, and a lot of those songs, when we wrote them, we were like, “If there was an acoustic version of this it would be super tight.”
How did you guys decide to add in the new song with the ones that you already remade?
So what I wanted to do was an entirely original acoustic EP. I wanted to do 5-6 of complete originals but some people on our team felt that that was taking away from the record essentially and might make people think, “don’t focus on the album anymore.” So we met in the middle and did one new one, which is ironic because that new song got the best Spotify playlist streams and the most mainstream Spotify playlist streams we’ve ever gotten in our entire career. So it just goes to show that if you make different music, it will be accepted and we are really good at writing stuff like that. We’re really great at writing acoustic jams. We know how to make sad, chill, more low-key stuff.
How did you choose which songs to strip down versus the ones to leave alone?
We kind of picked songs off of the album that we had liked when we were writing originally and thought they would sound good as an acoustic song. The song “Alone” was one of the band’s favorites and is one of the better things that we put out. Just the way it flows, my vocal performance, and the way the song sits in an acoustic setting is very solid. The dudes are very happy with that one and that is their favorite without a doubt.
It seems you guys have a theme going. Does this new track relate back to your album “The Love You Let Too Close” (2017) or are they unrelated?
I’ve actually gotten that question before. Some of the songs are related. It's not something I think about. Like I can’t flat out answer, “Yeah all of our albums are cohesive together.” They’re just different parts of this one long story.
Besides making the stripped-down EP, have you been working on any other new music?
We wrote a couple of different songs on album three. We were alike alright let’s begin that process. We have a handful of songs written for them. Half of them I absolutely love and think are amazing, and the other half I’m arguing with the guys and telling them I don’t want them on the record; so we are kind of at that phase right now. But, we did one song already with the producer who is going to be doing the album and that song is freaking good. Like, that song is really really freaking good. I think our day one fans are probably going to sh!t themselves when they hear that. It’s the song that all the people in the complain-y comments of whenever we release something that isn’t exactly like our first record, it’s going to be the song that all of those people want to hear. It’s a banger for sure.
You are supposed to go on a European tour with Normandie and Captives starting in March 2021 and before that tour with The Plot in You in October 2020 through Eastern Europe and the UK. Are you excited to get back on tour and do you think you will have to keep pushing dates back due to COVID-19?
If you’re asking me, I’m not taking anything for a fact right now. I think people are announcing things right now with very little hope that it’s actually going to happen. For me, I don’t think anything is going to happen until the vaccine comes out. I don’t know anything about science or any of that stuff, so I don’t know when that is going to happen. If you made me guess right now, I don’t think the tour is going to happen, but it would be sweet if it did. I’m optimistic obviously because I want it to happen, but if I had to bet money on it, probably not.
Just based on how awful America has been handling the Coronavirus response and stuff like that, I don’t think some countries will not want us to come and visit, or if we do, we will have to quarantine in Europe for two weeks before the tour starts which is going to be freaking annoying. I’m stoked about the tours, don't get me wrong, both of those tours are freaking awesome to be on but I’m just being realistic. I don’t think it happens. But something could happen if the vaccine comes out in December and it goes well, then it changes the whole swing of things.
Have you guys thought about doing any live streams or acoustic sets while in quarantine?
We are kind of waiting. Getting our band together is a pain in the ass. When there’s not a tour coming up, we don’t really see each other that often. We started out as really really good friends before the band was a thing, and then I don’t know what it was, but when we started touring… we agitate each other, essentially. Like we love each other to death, but the second that we’re home from tour and we are out of the band, we don’t really spend that much time together. So the thought of just linking up for something like that, especially for something that might now get as much exposure as we want it to in this current setting of how much content like that is being put out. I don’t know.
I would genuinely love to do it, but getting my band in the same room right now is so freaking hard and is just a pain in the ass. To all of us, we’d rather be like, let’s just not. That’s just how we are. Some bands outside of touring are best friends and spend a bunch of time together, are constantly writing songs together, maybe have a house together. We are NOT like that. We love each other to death, but when we aren’t on tour, we don’t really see each other.
Does not seeing each other make it hard to write music?
They link up. The two Josh’s hang out when it’s time to write and get into the same room together. I stay out of that because the last thing I want to do is be sitting in a room with them not giving any actual music input other than “that’s lame, that's cool, put the bridge here, make this more exciting, make this sadder, make this cooler,” you know what I mean? It’s just healthier that I’m not there.
So what they usually do is write a minute or a minute and a half on a song and they send me stuff. Then they ask me, “Hey what do you think of this?” and I can give them a comprehensive breakdown of it before they dive in and write the whole song and then eventually tell them, “Yeah I hate this,” so no one’s time gets wasted. But generally, if those two guys get together in a room and send me something, then it’s usually pretty cool and it goes well. And I’m one of those people that genuinely works better when there’s no one in the room with me.
Who were some of your favorite bands to tour with, and who do you hope to tour with someday?
Honestly, the only band on our check things off the tour bucket list in the realistic realm is The Plot In You, which obviously that tour got screwed over, so that sucks. We were so excited to go on that tour. We haven’t been that excited to go on tour since our first tour with The Devil Wears Prada. We were giddy like kids to go on that tour and then when it got canceled, it was a huge bummer for us. That’s a band that we collectively look up to across the board music-wise and how they present themselves and just how cool their albums are. We just really look up to those guys and I’ve heard wonderful things about that band.
In a nonrealistic scheme, obviously Bring Me the Horizon, but everyone wants to tour with that band because they’re the coolest band in the world. Other than that, there’s not really a lot in the scene right now that sounds similar to us or that is influencing us that we would freak out to go on tour with them except for The Plot In You. But other than that, we will tour with anyone. We will literally tour with anyone who are cool guys and are even remotely close or sonically fit. You know we’ve been on tons of tours where we don’t fit in. We just do our thing and it goes well. So we will literally tour with anybody. We don’t care who it is.
We want to go as wide as possible. We almost did a tour with this band called Point North, which is this kind of alternative rock band. I really don’t know how to describe them, but their music is amazing and I’ve heard they’re cool guys. We were like, “oh cool we can do a whole tour without playing any screaming songs,” you know that was our plan. We were just going to go and be rockers.
Do you have a favorite city to play in on tour?
Toronto and Denver. For whatever reason, we just have a bunch of friends in Denver and for whatever reason, when we play there, we just do really well. We sell a ton of merch, a ton of people come out to see us, and it’s just a good city to play in. Plus we have a bunch of friends that we go party with and we go stay with and it feels like home, essentially, which is nice.
And Toronto is one of the coolest cities in the entire world. It’s just so wonderful to hang out in. It's like a mixture of Europe and America at the same time. You go to a show in Europe, the people care about the music and the concert almost twice as much as Americans do, so when you go to Canada, they kind of have a similar vibe but also they speak English so you understand what the hell is going on, so that’s cool.
Is there anything you want your fans to know?
I wish I could say upcoming things. We are in the process of recording album 3. I literally have a phone call with the label tomorrow to set up recording dates for that. Other than that, keep listening to “all your love” and thanks for even having an open mind to acoustic stuff and whatnot. Our fans are awesome though. They know we think they’re awesome. We love the hell out of them.
The new “Let Go Of Your Love” EP is out everywhere and shows a new and more intimate side to Thousand Below. Make sure to keep your eye out for new music from the band, and keep your fingers crossed for any upcoming tours!