The “cheesy” characterization that Thiessen himself gave to the sixth track, and the first single, off the band’s new release Five Score and Seven Years Ago typifies the type of laid-back, unpretentious attitude with which Relient K approaches their craft. Overall, Thiessen tends to craft more conflict-laden tunes, in the peppy and poppy, post-punk mold of bands like Blink 182 or Motion City Soundtrack. Thematically they tend to follow the recurring progression of “Wow, that day kind of stunk. But hey! Look! There’s the sunrise.” On Five Score, however, the happier tracks like “Must Have Done Something Right” and “The Best Thing” fall more in the vein of “Yesterday pretty much rocked because you were here and I can’t wait until tomorrow because you’re going to be here again.”
The departure hasn’t been an easy one, for Thiessen as he admits the challenges of writing happy songs relative to more two-sided numbers.
“As a human being, people are drawn to conflict,” Thiessen says. “You read any story or watch any movie and it’s got to have conflict. Just to write a happy song, is not something that humans are drawn to do.”
In this case however, the task was, literally, a labor of love.
“I wrote a couple of songs about my girl, which I’ve never done before,” Thiessen says. “I was just expressing the smile that was on my face.”
Hence the cheesiness and the small groans over lines like “We should get jerseys / because we make a good team / But yours would look better than mine / because you’re out of my league.”
The album also features a healthy dose of randomness as well, like album opener “Plead the Fifth,” an a capella conspiracy theory about the assassination of President Lincoln.
For “Plead the Fifth,” Thiessen replicated all of the drum sounds with his mouth.
“Imitating the shaker was easy at first,” Thiessen says. “Then I kept trying to do it and my mouth was like, ‘I’m done with this.’”
“I’ve been toying with the idea of an a capella song since our second album,” Thiessen says. “My dad used to have a bunch of a capella records and some Christian gospel albums.”
While Relient K is influenced strongly by Christianity and remains classified as a religions rock group, they’ve also endured some of the wrath the religious publicity machine can muster. A few years back, the band partnered with Abercrombie and Fitch, with the clothing outlet using one of the group’s songs to synch with a mountain biking video. The match between a Christian band and a “risqué” clothing store stirred up a bit of backlash.
“We were on a small Christian label and we were psyched to get some exposure outside of the Christian market. But major publications started threatening to boycott the band,” Thiessen recalls. “Christian publications can be pretty harsh.”
Of course, they never noticed that the venture had already come and gone.
“It was so small that no one even noticed,” Thiessen says. “They didn’t even bother to research the fact that it had already happened and was already over.”
Similarly, there was no outcry when the band partnered with Capitol Records, a label that represents Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and a few other artists that might not go over so well with the conservative crowd. Thiessen believes that times are changing and that those that chastised them before for partnering with Abercrombie have been swayed by a new era.
“A lot has happened in those four years [since the Abercrombie partnership],” Thiessen says. “There have been Christian bands associated with major labels and on the mainstream radio and on MTV,” Thiessen says. “Being with Capitol, it really hasn’t changed us.”
• Relient K brings its act to 9:30 Club this Monday, May 7. Tickets are $17.50. For more on Relient K, visit www.relientk.com.