Christopher Walken taught us all how to build a house.

"If you want to learn how to build a house, build a house. Don’t ask anybody, just build a house."

With a new album, "A City by the Light Divided," coming out today, the band Thursday has its hand full. The Northern Star got a chance to talk to Andrew Everding, keyboardist for the band, about New Jersey influences, signing body parts and Kevin Federline.

Northern Star: Well, tomorrow your album ‘A City by the Light Divided' comes out. So my first question would be how has Thursday grown musically since your last album ‘War All the Time?'

Andrew Everding: Say that one more time for me.

NS: How has the band grown musically since your last album ‘War All the Time' was released?

AE: Well ... technically, as players, everybody is getting a little better and I think that's due to, (sniff,) due to the fact that every ... we've all had a year and a half off to play together. So, it seems to me like the band's coming together more or less on an organic nature and just learning how to play with each other a little better.

NS: OK.

AE: But sound-wise the new record sounds completely different from anything we've ever done. I mean, it's still Thursday but we're able to ... we were able to amplify the ideas on the record a little more than we were on the past ones.

NS: OK.

AE: Yeah.

NS: How tumultuous was that tour following ‘War All the Time?' Were you guys really close to disbanding?

AE: Um, it's not that we were super close to it. We were ... there was definitely a lot of interpersonal differences between people and all when ‘War All the Time' came out. I mean, there was a lot of pressure for us to do that record, you know? External pressure, where as, like, the new record was a lot of internal pressure, you know?

NS: OK.

AE: But it's ... the external ... the external environmental forces that were on us half the time were just like the crazy amounts of touring we were doing. Being everywhere but home, you know? And just not really having enough time to be around each other and figure out what was going on with ... hold on one second.

NS: OK

AE: (Sneezes) Sorry.

NS: Bless you.

AE: (laughs) Allergies today, it's ridiculous.

NS: I hear it.

AE: Um ... Yeah, I mean ... we were ... we were close when we ... when we hopped on the Warped Tour last time it was definitely like we weren't really sure if that was going to be the last tour or not. But, by the ... by the end of it, and touring with The Cure and doing that tour, we started to realize that we just needed to take some healthy time off so when we got home from all that ‘War All the Time' touring, we initially said that we were going to take a few months off and then it ended up being like, four or five before we started writing ‘A City by the Light Divided.'

NS: So you guys managed to turn it around though, and get back in the studio?

AE: Uh, yeah, and I think that, like ... I mean, it's just kind of like we softly went into writing this record. We just kind of did it [unintelligible] than if we went full-on. But it took us a year to write this thing, you know? And when we went in the studio, it was just like ‘Wow, this is such a better choice than, you know, not doing music together.'

NS: Right.

AE: Like everybody feels the same way about this record. In terms of its strength and how ... how close we're coming to what we're doing, you know? And how much we really like what we're doing, you know?

NS: So that whole situation had a real impact on this album then?

AE: Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I would say, I mean, everything you do, you learn from. You know?

NS: Absolutely.

AE: And ... that was definitely the case with this thing and ... we're all really, really, really proud of it. There's not a song that I don't like on the record. In fact ... we basically recorded 16 songs, I think; 16 or 17 songs when we were done with it. And there's only 11 on the record, so there's five that are kind of floating right now and it was ... it was a tough day when we had to figure out which ones we didn't want on the record because we all thought they were awesome; gave them to our producer. He was like ‘You know, this is a tough decision, just based on the fact that it's like, everything on this record, we feel, is really good.'

NS: Are we going to hear those leftovers on the next album?

AE: Uh ... you might hear them sooner than that. There's been talk of, I think that ... I think that it's kind of a mistake for us to try and put them on the next record because we definitely sound like this record.

NS: Right.

AE: So we're getting released on iTunes tomorrow. If you buy the record on iTunes tomorrow, you get this extra song that was one of the other ones we did, you know? So, it'll be released as B-sides and there might be an E.P. down the road or something. We'll see.

NS: Alright, I'm going to shift gears here a little bit.

AE: Sure.

NS: You guys have a lot of odd time signatures and your song structures are pretty innovative ...

AE: Yeah.

NS: Which suggest maybe a background in progressive rock?

AE: Yeah, we've heard that before.

NS: Where did you guys pick up some of those techniques from?

AE: Eh, it's funny though. It's like, none of us are really professionally trained musicians. Most of us have taught ourselves, you know?

NS: So it's instinct?

AE: What's that?

NS: So it's just instinct?

AE: Yeah, in some ways it's just instinct. It's like everybody's influences in music come from such difference places. There [are] a lot of bands where we all come together and we're like ‘Yeah, those bands rule,' you know? But, I guess Steve has some progressive background. I guess he really likes that stuff. And sometimes, his guitar leads and stuff are kind of reminiscent of it. But, we're also a band that is in a normal key range of a chord progression where you would be like ‘Yeah, you go from A to G to B' or whatever, you know? It's like, we'll throw in a chord that really doesn't fit but adjust everything else to make it fit, you know?

NS: Right.

AE: Yeah.

NS: OK. I am going to shift gears again. This is actually the last question of the first part.

AE: Alright.

NS: Alright, work with me here. Which of these New Jersey natives has had the greatest influence on Thursday: Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, Skid Row or the New Jersey Devils hockey team?

AE: {Laughs] I would have to say Bruce Springsteen.

NS: How so?

AE: I don't know. He's got that blue-collar ethic in his music. The other two are good and the Devils are an OK hockey team. You know? Bon Jovi is funny. That stuff just reminds me of high school and hearing that in middle school and what not. But, I still listen to Bruce Springsteen records.

NS: OK.

AE: Whereas Bon Jovi is more or less like on top of the world, or they try to be like this huge thing, Bruce is more like that down-to-Earth dude, you know?

NS: Right.

AE: And he comes from a different place. So much similar to where we came from.

NS: Do you guys keep any kind of close contact with any other New Jersey acts?

AE: Umm ... yeah. It was funny, we were talking about this earlier today with someone else but we see a lot ... we get to see a lot of bands that ... we've all come from New Jersey but, most of us are on tour so it's like we see them in random places. Once in a while, you'll see them at home but, I'm good friends with the Bouncing Souls Boys. I see them when we can and they're usually on the Warped Tour. Who else? Chris from Saves the Day we'll see once in a while. Our tour manager is good friends with him. We actually caught up with him in Texas. And then [also] the My Chemical Romance boys because Geoff [Rickly, lead singer] did their first record. We used to see them a lot. We don't really see them anymore because they kind of got big and everything.

NS: Right. I saw you guys did ...

AE: [Interrupts] They're still the same [unintelligible] band, so it's all cool and everything. They're just so busy, you know?

NS: Yeah, that's understandable.

AE: Yeah.

NS: All right. Well, we're going to go to the second part ...

AE: Sure.

NS: Which is what we call the ‘lightning round.'

AE: All right.

NS: We're just going to do some word association, so just give me a word or two on what you think.

AE: All right.

NS: The first word is ‘screamo.'

AE: Horrible.

NS: I figured. All right, our second word is, actually, it's a person. It's ‘Kevin Federline.'

AE: [laughs] Uh ... misguided.

NS: All right. ‘Understanding in a Car Crash.'

AE: It's the closes thing we've ever done to a pop song.

NS: OK. ‘The Cure.'

AE: One of my absolute favorite bands in the whole world.

NS: All right. Well, this is going to be the last part of our interview.

AE: Hit ‘er!

NS: It's just kind of a roundup. It's just some kind of bizarre questions that you probably ... maybe you've heard before, maybe you haven't.

AE: OK.

NS: So ... weirdest thing you've ever autographed?

AE: Ah ... weirdest thing I've ever autographed ... I'm not totally sure. I have a thing where I won't sign body parts. I've been asked to sign somebody's forehead and I've been asked to sign a boob before. But I refuse to sign body parts. But, you know, the normal stuff, shoes, pocketbook, cell phone, all that kind of stuff. There was something really peculiar once, but I don't remember what it was. I think it was a bloody shirt from like this kid was in the crowd and he got punched in the face or something and he wanted us to sign this blood shirt. I'm old fashioned man. Paper is fine by me.

NS: An influence on Thursday that people would never guess by just listening to you.

AE: Um ... well, let me think real quick. Depeche Mode, actually.

NS: What have they influenced in particular?

AE: Me, pretty much. [unintelligible] A lot of myself is influenced by them.

NS: The album that you want to be buried with?

AE: The album I would want to be buried with ... um ... Elliot Smith "Roman Candle."

NS: This is the last question so finish this sentence for me. Thursday will be remembered as...

AE: A very hard working band that sticks together through rough times and makes music with the most amount of integrity we can put into a situation. And that we shouldn't be remembered as an emo/screamo band, we'll just be a rock band.