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Thrice: Major/Minor By Teppei Teranishi

Album seven through the eyes of Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi.

Day two of the Thrice track by track extravaganza and we turn to guitarist Teppei Teranishi for his view on the majestic 'Major/Minor'.

Read on and come back tomorrow for another!


01. Yellow Belly
"This was one of several songs that were born out of a super productive string of jams between the brothers and myself. I wanted to write a riff that was super nasty and aggressive and the main riff just crept out. The two halves of the riff were actually reversed at first until someone suggested flipping it. Riley came in over the riff with his drumbeat and Ed followed with his bass — it sort of just happened. The idea behind it was that the key of the song could flop between being B minor and B major depending on how you informed it with the chords. The working title for the song was “Major/Minor” which of course ended up taking the title of the record."

02. Promises
"Over the last few records, we’ve become accustomed to writing with groove as a major focus. The backbone of “groove” of course is in the rhythm section, and furthermore, starts with the drums. Riley went into the studio several times on his own to lay down some drum ideas he had. He tracked them, shared them with us and if inspiration was triggered, we’d track something over the drum part. This song is a conglomeration of separate ideas from Ed and I over the beat you hear in the first verse/pre-choruses. I think I’ve spoken about this before, but we track all our ideas as we jam on them. We’ll have some specific parts that we’ve worked out that we want to preserve so we’ll record it. It always just rolls on until it disintegrates into nothing. The chorus was one of those parts that just happened to end up being pretty cool so into the song it went. Happy accidents."

03. Blinded
"Riley brought the drum and rhythm guitar parts for the intro/choruses to the table and I was immediately grabbed by the drumbeat and the almost Dinosaur Jr.-esque vibe the chords had. I sort of played off that with my lead part and we kept referring to it as the “90’s part” while we were writing. The drumbeat on those parts are some of my favorite things Riley has ever done rhythmically."

04. Cataracts
"Another song that came from the string of jams between Riley, Ed, and I. I distinctly remember walking back in the studio from a quick break and hearing Ed and Riley jamming on the drum/bass groove. I grabbed my guitar and once again, it all just sort of happened from there. I really dig the vibe on this song — it’s got a little bounce in its step."

05. Call It in the Air
"A fairly atypical and stream of consciousness type of structure — sort of storyboard-like. I love how patient the song is, doing slight variations on a theme until it explodes into the chorus. It’s a dark left turn from there..."

06. Treading Paper
"This was one of the first ideas (it may have been THE first) we jammed on going into the writing of this record. As I recall, it was a product of an impromptu jam and I believe it was the catalyst for an unintentional theme of rolling in and out of major and minor root chords throughout the record."

07. Blur
"My favorite part of this song is the juxtaposition of the jazzy second verse to the rest of the song. I feel like if you pulled it out of context, it wouldn’t ever feel like it was part of such an aggressive song. I like how the hectic music really complements the lyrics over the chorus. The disorientation expressed in the words is really carried through in the whirlwind of the music."

08. Words in the Water
"There are songs that just happen and there are songs that are toiled over. This was the latter. I can’t even remember how many different versions it went through before it ended here, but I think the fact that the working title for the song was “Ed Loop” (it was based on a bass loop that Ed made) and that loop or anything even close to it didn’t up anywhere on the song is an indication of how many times this song was torn down and built back up. The song really came around for me the first time I heard it with real lyrics over it. There’s something about the choruses that really get me, especially when it takes that turn when it goes to the major chords. Sometimes it just takes a few tries before you get it right."

09. Listen Through Me
"Five out the eleven songs on this record are on baritone guitar, this being one of them. I realized while we were recording this that I actually didn’t need to play this on a baritone as I stay on the high strings the whole song. I think that mostly came from the fact that Ed is holding down the fort with those big chunky chords — it really opened things up for me to be able to stay on the high end of the spectrum. We had some trouble at first getting the verse riff to sit right in the song. It was built off of a sort of earthy, ambient idea that Ed had, and putting it in context of the song changed the feel quite a bit. The Rhodes came to the rescue."

10. Anthology
"Out of the magical trio jams between the brothers and I. Dustin had a super rough phone recording of him humming the verse and chorus melody over an acoustic guitar. It seemed like it called for a big, crunchy, fuzz pedaled guitar kind of vibe, so the three of us took that and came up with the song you hear now. Besides the fact that we upped the key a whole step, I think the song is virtually unchanged from the original demo we tracked that day."

11. Disarmed
"One of the last songs we wrote for this record. I really like how cool and laid back this song is in comparison to the rest of the record. It always seems like we end up writing a record balancer towards the end of a writing process. Lyrically, speaks to me greatly as I lost my beloved mother just prior to writing this record. Where’s your landslide? Where’s your victory? Tell me now, where’s your sting?"