By Therese McKeon

Shoutweb recently caught up with Dustin Kensrue, frontman for the California-based Thrice, to discuss some of the highlights of their tour with Poison The Well, The Darkest Hour, Vaux, and Moments In Grace as well as Dustin's expectations as the opener for Dashboard Confessional on their upcoming arena tour.

Dustin: Hopefully, it won't be too loud with soundcheck going on.

Shoutweb: Don't worry. I'll make it quick. I have a plane to catch to get to Raleigh, North Carolina for some March madness.

Dustin: March madness?

Shoutweb: Yeah, it's college basketball.

Dustin: Yeah, I don't know sports at all.

Shoutweb: So, I have been checking out the messageboards. You guys have been around the world in 35 days!

Dustin: Yeah, it seemed like such a long time. We started in Hawaii, then Japan, Australia... Then there was the European part of the tour. It was fun.

Shoutweb: And you decide to stick with Vaux?

Dustin: To bring them out on this tour? Yeah. We had an opening on this year. The Darkest Hour couldn't get back because they're in Europe. So we asked Vaux if they wanted to do it. We loved them before we even met them so it was great to finally meet them and tour.

Shoutweb: Are most of these shows sold out?

Dustin: I know some were sold out and some were not selling at all in places we've never played before like Albuquerque and Sparks, Nevada.

Shoutweb: You're opening the tour on St. Patrick's Day.

Dustin: I didn't even know it was St. Patrick's Day until someone told this morning. I'm sad because I bought green shoes and they were the wrong size so I don't have them with me now.

Shoutweb: Oh, no!

Dustin: They're all-green Converse. I was real excited about them.

Shoutweb: Were they specifically for St. Patrick's Day?

Dustin: No, I bought them for show shoes because I needed new show shoes but now I have to wait to get the right size.

Shoutweb: Bummer.

Dustin: Exactly.

Shoutweb: So after this tour you have an opening spot on tour with Dashboard Confessional. From the looks of the messageboards, some people are not too happy about that.

Dustin: I am so out of it so I don't know what people are saying but we're really excited to be playing with them. After doing all of these small shows in Europe with Vaux then these small shows we're doing now, to play in front of Dashboard Confessional is cool because we can kind of underrplay it. First playing these shows then switching to playing larger venues is going to be a different kind of learning experience.

Shoutweb: Is this your first time playing that size venue? I know with Thursday you were playing mid-range venues.

Dustin: Yeah, but not this big.

Shoutweb: How do you guys maintain on tour? Last I heard, you were all sick and spreading the fly all around.

Dustin: I was feeling way better when we got home and had nice weather. But then we came up here and you have all kinds of snow here. It's freezing! Hopefully, I don't get sick again.

Dustin: We kind of take it as it comes. We get sick then try to get better then get sick again. That was the most sick I've gotten in a while when we were in Europe.

Shoutweb: What about Vaux? Have they successfully dodged the bullet?

Dustin: I think maybe a couple of them got a little sick. I think it's because they're from Colorado they've built up an immunity.

Shoutweb: You have PTW out too?

Dustin: Yeah, we have PTW and The Darkest Hour after Vaux. Moments In Grace is on the whole tour too.

Shoutweb: It's like a mini Warped Tour only with all the good bands.

Dustin: We would Glassjaw to complete it. Glassjaw, Brand New, and Coheed, then we'd be good.

Dustin: Can you hang on? (Pause) Sorry, one of our techies cut his finger and it was bleeding all over so he had to go to the hospital.

Shoutweb: Not pretty.

Dustin: No.

Shoutweb: I voted Artist In The Ambulance my number one record of last year.

Dustin: I thought it was going to be behind The Mars Volta?

Shoutweb: You remember me saying that?

Dustin: Yeah.

Shoutweb: The Mars Volta got number two on my list.

Dustin: Wow! Thank you.

Shoutweb: Are you guys doing anything different for this tour?

Dustin: We're playing one of the b-sides from the record called ?Eclipse?. We started playing it halfway through the Europe tour. We haven't played it in the states at all yet. We've been playing "(That) Hideous Strength" which is a b-side off "Illusions of Safety" so I think we're going to be playing that. Ed's working on a new intro on the computer right now so that might be in effect tomorrow. I don't know though.

Shoutweb: Well, it's been great checking in with you.

Dustin: You too. Thanks for everything.