Thunder in the Valley finally release Aloha

Thunder in the Valley, courtesy of their MySpace page

A year ago, Thunder in the Valley were busy, busy boys. The local five piece, who had made a name in all our local media as talented and visionary songwriters and performers, had returned from a lengthy tour with Vampire Hands and were dwelling in a Philadelphia studio, hard at work on their next full length.

As 2009 dawns, the band has been disbanded for nearly a year, and the album they had worked so hard and long to produce has remained on the shelves, shrouded in shadow, ever since. But yesterday afternoon, the news came down that the album, fittingly titled Aloha, would finally be made available as a free download. Gimme Noise spoke with guitarist Nick Ryan, who is now active in Leisure Birds, about the making of the album and the gracious decision to make it available now.
Guitarist Nick Ryan, photographed by Jon Behn

When and where did you record Aloha?

Philadelphia in July of 2007. Mostly at a studio called American Diamond.

Tell me a little bit about recording the album.

We were in Philadelphia for two weeks. We went a little crazy because we were sleeping in the studio, and putting in ten hour days. We didn't leave a whole lot, and when we did, we didn't really know where to go. It was a good time, overall, though.

When and why did Thunder In The Valley break up?

Officially, it's hard to say, since some bands break up months before their last show. If you count us doing the music for The Ballad of Josef K, we broke up 7 months before our last show. The why is probably too complicated to go into. The further away I get from it, the more impossible it becomes to blame it on any one thing, or person. We're all still friends, we're just a little more scattered across the country.

What was it like to know that the band was going to break up, and that this album might never see the light of day?

At first, I was pretty bummed, because I felt like it was the closest we ever got to sounding like what we wanted to sound like. Really, though, it's not like that many more people would have heard it if it had come out. I'm okay with it, and I'm pretty sure everyone else is too. I remember talking to Sheridan Fox about this same thing, and his attitude is kind of the one I've adopted, which is essentially "At least I got to do it." It's like, I didn't have to go into work for two weeks, and I got to make music everyday instead.

What precipitated the idea to finally release it, over a year after Thunder In The Valley's dissolution?

Honestly, just kind of a last minute purge for the year. I'm not a big believer in New Year's resolutions, but I've been getting a lot of other things out of my system this past year, so I figured why not this too? That, and the attention.