Despite the fact that he was “wearing many hats” that evening, acting not only as a performer but also as his own tour manager and merch slinger, Kevin Devine took the time to meet up with Preach Electric the evening of the New Haven, Connecticut date of Thrice’s headlining tour.

How has the Thrice tour been so far?

So far it’s been really, really good.  We’re about a week in, or two weeks in now, I guess.  It’s moved really quickly, the shows have been great, all the people in the bands are easy to get along with.  Yeah, I can’t complain.  Everything’s been nice so far.

You’re playing with the Goddamn Band on this tour.  What factors determine whether you play with them or solo?

Sometimes it’s just math, it’s money.  It’s like, how much can you afford to pay people.  And you know, I play with a lot of people that are adults and have lives, or jobs or whatever.  So you have to be able to give them…it’s fun to come do this but they also have to be able to make a little bit of a living.  And sometimes it’s also built into whatever the offer is, sometimes, the tour.  I’m asked to do it alone, or I’m asked to bring the band.   Sometimes it’s up to me, so it sort of changes every time.

Do the selection of songs you play live change when you’re playing solo versus when you’re playing full-band?

They do, not as dramatically as you’d think.  I mean, I tend to, I really like playing both ways, and I really like playing both…There are some songs like “Brother’s Blood” I really love playing acoustic and electric, and there are songs that just kind of lend themselves much better to the band, and some things that lend themselves much better not to the band.  But yeah, there’s definitely some stuff that…I think what changes a lot is I don’t really use a set list when I play by myself because I can just go as it feels,  whereas when you have the band you have to have sort of more of a plan, so it changes more in that way.

Circle Gets the Square, your first full-length, came out in 2002, so around eight years ago.  Are there any songs off of that or even your other older stuff that you’re reluctant to play or can’t necessarily connect to now?

Yeah, sure.  There are a lot of songs, especially from that first record, that I can’t…there are a lot of songs that I don’t…well, I used to feel like that about almost that whole record, because it was something…it came out in 2002, but it was written and recorded in like…I wrote some of those songs in like 1998 when I was eighteen, or something, and some of them I like now, again.  Like I went through and I came back to liking them, but some of them feel like they were written by a seventeen or eighteen year-old kid and they’re about…I feel a little disingenuous singing break-up songs about girls that I haven’t seen in twelve years, or even more so women who are now married, happily, whose weddings I’ve been at.  It just feels a little…funny.  But I also have to remember that some people really…just ‘cause you don’t, doesn’t mean that other people don’t have this connection to it.  Once you put something out in public it’s other people’s music as much as it is yours, so.

Some of your songs are very personal, are there any that are almost too personal to play live?

There are probably some that I feel, not that I mean if I wrote it I feel like, ahh [laughs]…There’s like a little bit of…If I wrote the song I feel like it made it past whatever self-editing, whatever happened to say “you shouldn’t sing this in front of people.”  But there are some that are more like…It’s more that I feel like I would rather not…there’s some you write that are like this is…In the moment I feel really quite strongly about it and then later I feel a little bit more like I could have kept it to myself, but that’s more of a quality thing sometimes than a personal thing.  It’s more like, is this song good enough to play alongside the other songs?  And sometimes I don’t know.

You’ve started to play some new songs, you played the song “You Wouldn’t Have to Ask” for a German website a few months ago, and in January when you played The Space you played another new song.  Are there any plans for those songs?

Yeah, there’s a record that’s going to come out in the fall with Manchester Orchestra, the band’s called Bad Books.  It’s us, me and them, and I wrote five songs and Andy [Hull] wrote five songs and we all play on it.  So, I think that the record…Those songs are all on that, those both songs that you just mentioned are on that record.

You played a few festivals this year, Coachella, Bamboozle, and, most recently, Bonnaroo.  How to you feel about playing festivals versus club shows?

I feel grateful that we get asked to do those things, because they’re pretty ama–, the company you’re in is really incredible, you get to really play with some great bands and see some stuff you would want to see but might not get to otherwise.  So, and there are experiences that are so different from being in a room like this, or whatever you’re in, some field with fifty thousand people for three days, and that’s, or in Bamboozle’s case, an asphalt parking lot, but I really, you know, I like doing them and I never expected that we would be a band that got offered to do them, so now that we have I would definitely be okay with getting to do more of them, but we’ll see.

You tour the UK and mainland Europe fairly often.  What are the main differences between your audiences there and your audiences in the US?

I think that some of the people, in the UK it’s a pretty similar demographic and I think the response is a little similar, people are a bit chatty over there, even if they like you they’ll come pay money to see your show and kind of talk a lot, which I don’t think happens as often here.  But it does happen sometimes though, but.  I think in Europe it seems like the fans are a little older.  I think the music I make appeals to people that aren’t just into bands like Thrice, or Brand New or something, but I think the majority of the people, at least in America, that come to my shows are people who like, whether it’s that kind of music, or indie rock music or whatever.  But I’ve always had some fans in their forties and fifties and stuff who like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, and I like that, because I like that music too.  There’s a bit more of that there, I feel like.  Like, I’m always kind of…I get a kick out of it when you see some like fifty five year-old man at your show in some punk rock club.  But, so yeah, that would be the main difference, I think.

Going back to Bad Books, are there any plans to play shows?

Yeah!  We’re going to do a short tour of the East Coast and then a short tour of the West Coast.  Both maybe not right next to each other, but one in the fall when the record comes out, and maybe one in January, we’re not sure yet.

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Later that night Kevin and the Goddamn Band opened with the near-eight minute epic “Brother’s Blood.”  The emotion-driven set consisted mostly of songs from his most recent full-length of the same name.  From 2005’s Split the Country, Split the Streets the band performed “Buried By the Buzz” as well as Kevin Devine staple and fan favorite “Cotton Crush.”  They closed with a cover they’ve played throughout the tour of LCD Soundsystem’s “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” but not before playing a “new” song of sorts, “She Stayed As Steam.”  The song was considered for Brother’s Blood, but was determined to not fit with the rest of the album.  Instead, it is now being featured on a 12” EP, along with another outtake from the Brother’s Blood sessions, two remixes, and two lives tracks, all previously unreleased.  The “She Stayed As Steam” EP was first sold that night, and will soon be available for preorder from These Are Not Records, in collaboration with the label Favorite Gentlemen.  Keep a look out for that EP as well as the Bad Books release this fall.