"Stop reading between the lines,
You won't like what you'll find."
Tokyo Rose - Word Of Mouth

We have decided to name the new record, "Vheissu," and I will attempt to summarize why.

The one thing we knew was that we wanted to have a one word title. I brought Vheissu to the table a long time ago because I had always thought it was a beautiful word, and it had no definite meaning in the book it is from (V by Thomas Pynchon), but was more a loose collection of myths. Something else that I think we all appreciated about the name, is that it is not loaded for most people. They will see it, or hear it, and it will not have any meaning right away, and therefore it can simply come to represent the songs on this record and to title them without coloring them, almost as a number would. But then beneath the surface, there are a lot of interesting, if obscure, references to Vheissu in the book (and in critiques of the book) which could serve to inform aspects of the artwork, and create a general sense of mystery, which is something we all value I think. Below are some of these references, but I will first talk about some of the meanings which we have extracted from them.

One of the references speaks of Vheissu being a code name for Vesuvius, the volcano. Virgil cites Vesuvius as the entrance to the underworld and in the book this is fleshed out and it is hinted at that there is an ancient race of people, who have access to underground tunnels that lead underneath all nations of the earth.

Riley noted how he felt that we are now (and always it seems) standing at the verging of many different tunnels or pathways that lead to completely different places. Riley named this phenomenon "Standing at Vheissu," which the more I think about seems to hold the same sentiment as Robert Frost's poem, "The Road Not Taken," but with the darker imagery of underground labyrinths (and who doesn't like underground labyrinths.) In the poem, the speaker chooses a path, and laments the knowledge that he will probably never be back at this point, to make a different decision, or to see where the other path led, but notes that his decision will have "made all the difference," though what difference no one will ever know.

Two other ideas stuck out to me. One being that I see the tunnels underneath us all, as a metaphor for another reality that is quite close to us, but without our knowledge of it most of the time, ready at any moment to break though and interrupt our ideas of what reality is. A metaphor for the possibility or miracles in short. In the book it is said of the tunnels that "below the glittering integument of every foreign land there is a hard dead-point of truth."

Also I liked one critic's etymological dissection of the word Vheissu when he says this. "If "Vheissu" encodes anything, it is a pun--"Wie heisst du?," which is German for "What is your name?" or "What are you called?" This seems appropriate since one of the themes developing in my lyrics for the record is the ways in which we define ourselves. I think a key to who we see ourselves as is names; both given and those we give ourselves, both domestic and otherworldly. Are we children of God, or products of chance. The ways in which we define ourselves and ultimately live are, I think, heavily influenced by the names we receive, and the names we give to others.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the reasons for choosing Vheissu.

Peace, Dustin.

Dustin Kensrue of Thrice about their upcoming album "Vheissu". Even though I have yet to hear the album, I know I'll definently be preordering when the time comes around. Especially since this album and all of Thrice's previous albums had a portion of its procedes go to charity. If you ask me, there are a lot of musicians out there that can learn a lot from Thrice; not only musically, but also about being better people.

December 1, 2005
Avenged Sevenfold, Saosin, Death By Stereo
@7:00pm at the UCI Bren Events Center
(Still need to get tickets though)