Tone Glow 178: Geoff Rickly (Thursday)
An interview with Thursday’s Geoff Rickly about the band’s ongoing reunion, creating new music, and perfume
Geoff Rickly
Geoff Rickly is a singer, songwriter, author and producer best known as the frontman of the post-hardcore band Thursday. Raised in New Jersey, Rickly studied literature at Rutgers University while putting on hardcore shows in his New Brunswick basement, a scene from which Thursday was formed in 1998. The band’s second and third albums Full Collapse (2001) and War All the Time (2003) are regularly cited as among the best post-hardcore and emo albums of the time, with subsequent releases experimenting with post-rock and shoegaze forms. Thursday broke up in 2012, reunited in 2016, and released their first new material for over a decade—the single “Application for Released from the Dream”—as an entirely independent band in 2024.
As well as Thursday, Rickly is a member of the alt-rock group No Devotion and hardcore band United Nations, and occasionally makes his own solo music. He ran the record label Collect, has guested on tracks by bands including Touché Amoré, Circa Survive and The HIRS Collective, and produced I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, the debut album by close friends My Chemical Romance. Known for utilizing literary allusions and forms in his lyrics, Rickly released his debut novel Someone Who Isn’t Me in 2023, a psychedelic retelling of The Divine Comedy based on his experiences trying to quit heroin during Thursday’s hiatus.
Claire Biddles talked with Rickly in London on July 1st, 2024, the day after seeing Thursday play at Outbreak festival in Manchester, and the day before seeing them play an intimate show at The Garage in Islington.
Claire Biddles: In the crowd at yesterday’s show I noticed a real mix between people around my age, mid-to-late 30s, and younger fans. Have you noticed this at recent shows?
Geoff Rickly: Our first reunion show was in 2016. We thought, you know, maybe this will go on for a year or two. 2018 was the 20th anniversary of the band, so we thought we’d do 20 cities, two shows each with War All the Time (2003) and Full Collapse (2001) and that’s it, we’d call it a day. Then right when we announced that we were going to do that, My Chemical Romance told us they were coming back [for their December 2019 reunion show at The Shrine in LA], and we had to open for them. And we were like, “Yes! We do have to do that!” Then we thought, we’ve been so lucky, why don’t we just keep it going as long as we can?
After the lockdowns, we went on tour with My Chem. It took about a year after the tour, but our crowd started skewing younger. When we came back in 2016 it was all old fans, which was amazing because we had a lot of fans back then. But now it’s about 40% new fans, and that’s been really surprising. You know, we’re eight years into the reunion and we thought it would only last a year. I just feel like we’re in totally uncharted territory. So who knows what we’ll do? We’re doing it DIY, doing it as a collective. It just feels like, let’s see what we can do, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get up to.
There’s always been a parallel with you and My Chem, but there also seems to be parallels in the way that you’ve both done these reunions, because it feels like you’re doing them totally on your own terms, with both new material and playing the old material as well. It feels different compared to a lot of the other groups from around the same era who are doing anniversary tours and stuff like that. Even when I saw the War All the Time show, it felt celebratory in a way that everybody was sharing—it felt like you were doing it because you wanted to do it.
I think for a bunch of stuff that we did at the time, people would be like, “They’re so difficult, it doesn’t make sense why they do things the way they do things.” But those same ideas just feel relevant now. When we play [older songs], it just feels like they’re of this time—they weren’t of that time. I think that a lot of our peers made records that were very of the time back then, and made a lot of sense when they came out. They still feel of that time, whereas War All the Time never really fit. I used to think it was such a difficult, weird record. And now when we play it, it feels like we wrote it for this time. It’s a strange thing. I wouldn’t say I’ve been vindicated, it’s not really like that, it just feels right now.
I think there is a parallel with My Chem too, where both of us blew up and had our moments but also kept taking weird left turns that nobody expected. We also both broke up at a time when it was like, maybe nobody gets us really—we thought our moment was over. But for both of us it was like, we didn’t even get our moment yet—it’s still to come. Do you know what I mean? Their reunion has been the moment. Mikey [Way, My Chemical Romance’s bassist] and I talk about it a lot, how this is our bands’ afterlife, and both of us got lucky and went to heaven (laughter). The fact that it’s bonus time means we can just be creative and not care—the legacy is written, for better or for worse. So what can we do with it? What kind of fun can we have with it? How can we give back? How can we bring out cool younger bands?
I really liked the thing you said when you reunited, about only adding to the existing discography if you thought it was really worth it, if it added something new to the catalogue. That also really chimed with seeing you play and being like, they’re playing because it means something. You’re putting out “Application for Release from the Dream” because it means something.
We’ve written a ton since we got back together, but it’s not blown me away. Some of it sounds a lot like old Thursday songs, or later songs. But it sounds like it, it doesn’t give me that feeling of like, that’s it. I don’t want to feel like I need a product because I’m out here. My band were like, “You just need to not give up. Keep writing.” I was like, “It never comes out!” And they’re like, “Then we’ve got to keep writing.” I’ve got to give them credit for saying that. They were like, even Fugazi still practices! You know what I mean?
With “Application…” I remember being like, whoa, there’s something here. We just had the chorus. Well, we had a bunch of other stuff and it was a whole different song and I said, “I don’t like this song, but I love this chorus.” And so we started chipping away at it. I always find this to be the truth: things only really get good when you have an obstacle that you have to problem solve. It’s almost like you need to keep finding better problems so you can come up with better solutions. This song was like that where there’s a really good problem, then we fixed some of it, and then there was a new problem. “Now the drum beat doesn’t work in this part anymore.” “Okay, so what’s the new drum beat?” We had this opening that was completely ambient. It was really cool, but I wasn’t sure if that was all it could be. Then Tucker [Rule, Thursday’s drummer] brought the drums from the breakdown to the beginning. And it just kind of kept on rolling like that until it was finished. We didn’t know if anybody would like it, but it adds; it’s something we don’t already have. I get chills when I listen to it. We were like, let’s not try and force out an album, but lets put this out. Everyone’s gonna hate it! And then everybody was like, “Top five Thursday songs ever.” I did not expect that.
I agree with that. It sounds like something different and new, which feels right. Because even with the last couple of Thursday records before the hiatus, you’re trying new things and new sounds. There’s no rehashing, really.
That last record [2011’s No Devolución] almost anticipated the shoegaze revival. I really didn’t expect music to go in that direction. We were like, this is a big swing and nobody’s gonna follow us. If we had kept going after that, I have no idea what we would have done. it wouldn’t have been “Application…”, it would have been some other thing. Maybe a totally ambient record. I think “Application…” feels mature because all of our previous records would be a reaction to the record before, pushing back against the last one. But with this one, we had nothing to push back against. What would we do if we could do anything? It’s actually a really hard place to be.
Not making something on the defensive.
Which I feel like at least three of our records are—they’re on the backfoot. But I really love this song. We’ve worked on some other stuff. There were three other songs in the batch that we recorded with “Application…”. Maybe those will come out someday, we’ll see. We’re gonna keep working on them but they’re not there yet.
That’s the joy of doing it DIY as well, where there’s nobody knocking down your door saying you have to do a record.
We’re like, should we do a split again!? (laughter). We just want to do fun stuff.
A split would be so cool, I’m imagining it with one of the younger bands that you’ve been playing with on tour. For so many of them, I’ll see them listed on the poster and listen to them. I got into Gel because you played with them.
They’re the best. They’re my pick for the next big hardcore band. I think they’re gonna keep getting bigger and bigger.
I went to see them in Glasgow two weeks ago and it was sold out. The crowd was fucking insane.
I think they’re already bigger than us in Europe. It’s so cool to see. When we toured with them, they were great, but then I went to see them open for Orchid and they were mindblowing. It had only been six months. How did they do that? How did they get that much better?
The singer is just like… the presence they have…
The singer and the guitar player Maddi. They’re the coolest. I don’t know if you’ve heard Maddi’s other band Nave?
No I haven’t!
Maddi sings for that band, it’s very Breeders, there’s a kindred energy there. Very unleashed pop explosion. Gel are all so fucking cool, and you know, they’re my Jersey kids. I was sending Maddi pictures from Hellfest and Outbreak, and we were like, NJ takes over Europe!
That’s how it should be! I saw so many bands during the day at Outbreak, before you guys played, who were shouting out different bands. Before they finished, Incendiary were like, are you ready to see New Jersey hardcore legends Thursday!? And everyone screamed.
It’s so sick being shouted out by Incendiary. It’s like, wait, those guys like Thursday? We played with them the day before. They’re all my neighbors in Brooklyn and I know them, they live a couple of blocks from me and we see each other, all our girlfriends are friends, that kinda thing. And then when we played with them, they were like, we love Thursday! (laughter). We’ve been in the same social circle forever and we’ve never talked about our bands!
A secret society of hardcore. You know, I speak to a lot of people—
Wait, I have to admit I actually really love this song. [“As It Was” by Harry Styles, playing over the café speakers].
Yeah, me too. I love Harry Styles.
This may be my favorite of his songs. I love it. Sorry about that! You were saying?
No, no, I love that. I love that we took that Harry Styles diversion. But yeah, I’ve spoken to a ton of people in music, all kinds of music, who love Thursday. This woman who I’m friends with who does PR for the Jesus Lizard and Sumac and stuff. And she’s like, you’re going to see Thursday? Oh my god, I’m so jealous! I love that so many people who are into heavier stuff or ambient stuff are into Thursday.
It’s amazing, it’s so beautiful. The funny thing is, when we were a young band the kids all loved us, but a lot of media didn’t. So it’s really strange and cool to see all our kid fans grow up to run it all. It’s beautiful. All the artists too, bands like Deafheaven, it’s really sweet. I feel really lucky. This is exactly the kind of band that I had always loved when I was a kid, that wasn’t exactly cool, but just kind of beloved, because they meant it.
I feel there’s always gonna be that isn’t there? There was so much of that at Outbreak as well. All weekend I was thinking about how everybody was just so real, hardly any posing or consideration about what is cool.
You know that Jawbreaker song that’s like, bad scene, everyone’s fault? That’s so true. When a scene is good it’s because everybody built it, you know what I mean? Like at Outbreak, they have made an environment where kids are open. It’s the crowd, it’s the organizers. Even down to the security. It’s incredible.
There’s something really special going on over here [in the UK] right now, I can really feel that. And I think in hardcore in general, in young bands, there’s something really special going on. I feel so lucky that we get to stick around and be old uncle Thursday. This is the hardcore scene that I had dreamed of when Thursday was getting bigger, the kind of scene that I wanted to foster that just wasn’t happening. After we blew up the thing that came next was more dayglo, and that was cool. That was a moment. But it wasn’t what I had hoped would come out of it. And I thought, I really failed, we all really failed. That’s really how I felt about it.
Then when the wave started, Touché Amoré and stuff. I thought there was gonna be a little tiny counterculture these days. Then it just started to spread, then the emo revival came in and brought the next generation of bands that were like, kids trying weird shit. And then Gel, they’re just a different vibe. They would be on stage playing stuff that borders on powerviolence, then they’d be out in their van blasting electronic music that they play off YouTube at 1.5 speed. And I’m just like, this is like a different world! I love this!
When I saw them they were playing Charli XCX before they came on. And I was like, this makes total sense to me.
It makes so much sense. I remember the first time I saw Turnstile before they were a big band. People were killing each other, it was so violent. I was listening and I was like, this isn’t heavy, why are people killing each other? Then one of my friends who sang in this great band Sick Feeling just turned to me and was like, hardcore is a social phenomenon. And it’s stuck with me. Because it is—it’s not about what it sounds like. I try to remember that. So you know, good friends open minds and cool ideas make cool shit. There’s a confidence in the kids too. They’re just like, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. We get it.
I did want to ask you like a few things about the book as well.
Yeah, yeah. So I’m working on the audiobook right now.
Oh, cool!
I’m scoring it myself, which is the exciting part. It’s also an incredible amount of music. And talking to translators, trying to get the book a little more widely distributed, because we’ve gone so indie that it is hard to find a lot of places. I’d love to see if I can get somebody in Germany to take the English versions so there’s something on the continent. Not trying to shove it down people’s throats, but if you want it, I want you to be able to get it.
Maybe you doing the audiobook connects with this, actually, because I wanted to ask you a little bit about the the process of continually going back over things that have happened to you—writing the book, talking about the book, now doing this audiobook, all while playing your older music with Thursday again. Those things aren’t exactly the same, but they’re all about reconsidering and revisiting past experiences. Is there a way that they dovetail, in the way that you think about your past selves?
Yeah. So it’s pretty obvious to people that there’s different categories of skills that go into being a musician, right? Some bands are great because they’ve got charisma, some bands are great because they’re incredibly dynamic live or have chemistry. Some bands just write great songs but aren’t good live. Some of them, they’re just so beautiful and you want to look at them while they’re playing. There’s all these different things that can be propulsive about music.
Thursday has a certain charm with the way we write, but a lot of our success is because we’re this incredible live band. That’s a separate skill that we have. I see live music as this ritual. It’s this communal ritual, and I never get tired of playing the same songs, because the ritual is supposed to be repeated. I think of that quite separately to the creative impulse. The ritual is about appealing to that energy where we can lose ourselves—time stops and pain stops and we’re there together. That’s why a show like yesterday [at Outbreak festival] means so much to me. Those moments of feeling when we’re all there together.
There’s a great opening on a Mogwai record, on Come On Die Young (1999), where Iggy Pop’s talking about dissolving into music. I’ve always loved that so much. It’s maybe taken from a talk show. He’s explaining it in this beautiful, pure way to somebody who didn’t want that answer. They wanted a sensational soundbite. Instead he gave him like, “I don’t exist, I [perform] to remove myself from the bonds of myself.” And it’s like, woah! Don’t say that (laughter). But I think there’s something powerful in that. That’s why I think it’s a real shame that the Jordan Petersons of the world have co-opted language about archetypes and the eternal and things like that. Don’t make that part of your culture war! These platonic forms that exist outside of the physical world, let them be. But yeah, I love to get to those places where it could be any time. But here we are.
I’m not a musician at all, but that speaks to why I go and see multiple shows by the same band. I remember listening to the episode of Bandsplain that you did on Nine Inch Nails, when you said you went to see them 30-something times on the Downward Spiral tour. And I was like, bitch, I would have done that as well!
I get it!
Because it is about that experiential thing.
See that’s the thing, too. When people follow us around I never get weirded out. Because that’s what I do. Why wouldn’t you? It’s so powerful. And a good band, it doesn’t matter which side of the barricade you’re on. You’re playing, you’re screaming along: you’re both essential. You’re both one of the energenic halves that’s talking back and forth. When I’ve been in the crowd, I want to feel that we had this special experience, and I’m not just there to witness it. We had it.
I remember seeing At the Drive-In before they popped. I’d seen them a bunch playing to nobody, and they were so amazing. They gave everything. But I remember this one New York show where everybody’s like, I think this is a cool band. I could see them waiting on the sidelines like, are people starting to like us? They came out and played and oh my god, it was like, this is the only place in the world tonight. The center of the Earth, it’s right here. That show was as good as any show I’ve played. For me, singing along to that was as important as being the guy on the stage at the microphone at any of our best shows. I don’t think it’s really a difference.
It also works so well with the way that you perform the vocals live, because obviously on the records there’s a mix of singing and screaming, and then at the show it feels like the audience is literally contributing to it by screaming those parts. You can’t do both at the same time, but together, we can all do it.
When we were writing Full Collapse, I had this idea. Well, first of all, I wrote my honors thesis on the lyrics of Full Collapse, this whole project that I was doing about post-structuralism and post-hardcore. It was all about the seed of the identity and the narrative possibilities of DIY music. My idea was that the back-up vocals are the community critiquing itself. So the main vocal is not an “I,” it’s a “we,” then the back-up vocals, instead of just being the community, that’s the critique of itself. It was sort of like a dialectic as a song. So that having been the plan, when it actually started to work and people connected with it, it just came to life. Before there was the community aspect of it, when we were playing to nobody, it was a hard sell. But once you see it the way it’s intended, where there’s the community voice, it makes sense.
This clearly goes back to the fact that my mom was an 18th century literature scholar, but so much of our music has literary allusions or allusions to other songs. Scraps of this and that, all the ways that consciousness builds between people: the traded records, traded books. Early on, I got quite a lot of flack for it: you pulled this from here, you pulled this from there. But I was trying to say, no, look, see, it’s a quote! It’s in dialogue with the past! I’m actually trying to be really clever. But I’m making it worse! (laughter).
But again with the understanding over time—the title of “Application…” comes from a poetry collection by Tony Hoagland. And I saw so many people being like, that’s amazing that you’re referencing that.
People really seem to get it more now. I think when you have established a long tradition of something, it’s easier for people to get there. But it’s still interesting.
The one thing that I’ve been trying to figure out that I think would be really powerful in any music that we write going forward, and I keep telling my band this—the most potent weapon we have as an old band is that we have a history. We have time, we have distance between our work, we have people’s perception of who we are. Obviously I used a lot of that for Someone Who Isn’t Me. People thinking they understand who this band is. So now there’s a concept to play with. And with Thursday, I think musically we could go even further. Because musical motifs and themes are such a great device: you can change your key, you can change your tempo. You can reformat and present again as something new. That’s something I’m really interested in.
Especially because there’s so many different elements of Thursday’s music that are recognizable, and that could be considered motifs—the sing-scream response, the allusions, Tucker’s drum hooks, so many phrases from individual songs. There’s so many different ways that you could do that. I think it would be so rich.
We’ve got some ideas about it. But yeah, we’ll see. There’s my ideas about things and then there’s everybody else in the band’s ideas. I do think that the gold lies in the tension between those opposites.
What’s the solo music that you’re doing for the audiobook?
It’s very much like a score, you know? It’s a lot of noise, some rhythmic stuff, some strings, piano. There might end up being some guitar, but I’m not sure yet. Right now, I’m kind of keeping it more like a traditional score, where I have open the different charts and chords, expressing this thing here, and that thing there.
Have you done anything like that before?
No, so I’ve gotten to really discover how to create instruments in computers and stuff like that. It’s been really fun because I wrote most of the book with an extensive ambient and noise playlist.
Also the only way I can write.
I have to block out other people and I have to block out any words. Because of having this playlist, in some ways, I feel like there’s already a feeling behind parts of the book that I can get back into my version. I’m having a tonne of fun. All my bandmates were like, “You can do this!?” And I was like, “I didn’t think I could either!”
“I’m not just the guy who sings!”
Logic does make it easier. Because I can be on the piano and be like, looking at the screen—what chord is that? While you’re recording it tells you what chord you’re playing (mimes trying to play a chord). Can I suspend the ninth? Okay!
It’s funny as well thinking about how much you love Nine Inch Nails. Obviously doing the score thing is very Trent [Reznor] and Atticus [Ross].
I actually did buy an instrument that Atticus made, but it’s a pack, it’s a whole different thing than buying an instrument. I’ve been trying to work with it, but... damn it, Atticus!
Is it an add-on thing?
Yeah, so there’s these things called VSTs, which are virtual instruments. I’ve got a whole pack of stuff that’s made by William Basinski, Tim Hecker, all these ambient musicians. The keyboard I have is a ROLI Seaboard. And it’s basically all these extra vectors that you can play with. You can bend the notes but also you can push down into it, and also when you release, it’s a different thing. And you can slide up and down. So different layers of the sound will unroll—strings and noise and percussion.
I like the physicality of that.
It’s just like the way I sing—it’s very expressive. So that’s been really cool.
Also, just as we’re on Trent and Atticus: I have to ask you what you think of the Challengers (2024) soundtrack.
I like it. I liked the movie more than my partner did.
Oh, really?
She’s like, the only two people that had chemistry were the two guys and they should have had sex and it’s so frustrating, it’s such bullshit. I said, what about the tennis parts where they shot below the court, didn’t you think that was beautiful? And she was like, it’s been done before! She’s a cameraperson, she was really not having it, it really made her mad (laughter). But I love that director too. I know a lot of people didn’t like Bones and All.
I fucking love Bones and All!
I saw that with Steve [Pedulla, Thursday’s guitarist] in the theater. I was dying laughing, I thought some of the parts were so funny. And Steve was like, I don’t think any of that was meant to be funny. But I think a bunch of it was supposed to be funny! When she’s like, what happened to your dad? And he’s like [adopts melodramatic pose] I ate the fuck out of him (laughter). That was supposed to be funny! I don’t care what anyone says.
That was a beautiful Timothée Chalamet impression Geoff. You can do it because you’ve got that lanky physicality!
I wish I had more of it now! In my younger days...
Ok, I have a question that my friend has passed on to me, my friend Apryl. She said that she thinks all the time about a interview that you did a while ago, when you were talking about how “Signals Over the Air” is inspired by PJ Harvey. Do you stand by that?
I love PJ Harvey. I’ve always wanted to be PJ Harvey. That is the number one artist that if I could be anybody, I’d be her. I actually pulled a bunch of strings to get tickets for her book release recently. The book is fine, it’s strange, she’s doing it in a long-dead dialect. It’s not really my thing, but my mom would have probably liked it. But then she played four songs at the end and she’s just as good as she’s always been. That last record [I Inside the Old Year Dying] is incredible.
I love her singing on that record. I remember I had to check if they had any other singers on it because she sounds so different. And then I was reading that [producer] Flood was telling her to be different, to not just “do” PJ Harvey.
It’s so funny because on the one hand, why would you ever want anybody but PJ Harvey singing? But at the same time, to Flood’s point, it’s still PJ. We just got new parts of PJ and they’re all good. I want to see her again when she comes around because I want to see all the old stuff too. I’ve been back on her catalogue recently. It’s unbelievable how good it is. Especially the record after To Bring You My Love.
The one with “A Perfect Day Elise” on it? What’s it called? [Is This Desire?] I feel like that’s really underrated.
Very underrated. People go from To Bring You My Love straight to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. Then that record in the middle is like... I think it might even be better than To Bring You My Love. There’s a part of me that thinks it might be. I saw her play on the tour for To Bring You My Love and she had this crazy evening dress on, and she was crawling across the stage. And I thought that literally because of her presence that she was seven feet tall. But she’s tiny.
I also want to ask you about perfume because I know you’re into it, and I know absolutely nothing about it. I have two perfumes and I love both of them.
What are they?
Okay, rate my setup. So for about 15 years I’ve worn Comme des Garçons Incense Kyoto.
A classic.
Thank you.
That’s Bertrand Duchaufour, the perfumer. He’s a king.
What else does he do?
So he’s done a few of the big Comme des Garçons, and some with Mark Buxton. He also did Jubilation XXV, for an Omani perfume company called Amouage. It’s the Sultan of Oman’s pet project, and he did the 25th anniversary perfume for him: blackberry, incense and wood, it’s amazing. One of my favourites was for this British brand Penhaligon’s, a barber shop one called Sartorial. Basically all the Savile Row suit makers go to the same barber, so you smell their shaving cream and talcum powder and stuff. But also you smell their hot irons. It evokes all of that and it’s really beautiful. He’s really something special. So I approve of Incense Kyoto. What else?
The other one I have in my bag actually, I just got it [Female Christ by 1969].
I know people really like 1969, I don’t know that much about about them.
I got this one from place close to me in Glasgow that stocks a lot of smaller brand perfume.
Which one? I know a lot of the indie stores.
It’s called Godshot Studio.
I don’t know if I know that one. You know, there’s a great Scottish perfume studio called Jorum Studios. Great notes. I brought their scent Fantosmia on this tour, which is this really weird leather, saffron and fig one. It’s really cool. The perfumier lost his sense of smell, and he smelled this one scent that didn’t exist. When he got it back, he tried to recreate it. He also has one called Gorseland, which is pineapple weeds and chamomile, because he wanted to make it all with ingredients that are Scottish.
Tomorrow night, one of my favourite perfumers is coming to the Thursday show. His name is Sultan Pasha, he’s Bengali and he lives in Camden. He makes these incredible attars, a sort of Middle Eastern version of perfume with no alcohol. It’s like a pure perfume and uses a lot of oud, a lot of musk. But he is also a chemist, so he’s got this old world tradition with new-school skills. So when the Osmothèque [international scent archive] in France needs a recreation of a long gone perfume he’ll make it. There’s also a great perfumer that I was actually texting with today called Elizabeth Moores, her perfume company is called Papillon. And there’s a great perfume store in London called Bloom. Wonderful perfume store. Run by an extremely harsh Russian woman.
That’s who you want to run an indie perfume store.
She’s the only one in London that carries this Thai perfumer named Prin. He has a summery one that I wear a lot called Tom Yum. It’s basically tom yum soup, but you don’t smell like soup! It just has those ingredients as a fresh cologne, like ginger and lemongrass and galangal and stuff.
I mean, I’m too obsessed with perfume. It’s wrong. When I was in Paris, I went and took a little trip to Serge Lutens’ Palais-Royal store. He’s like the godfather of niche perfume, and he built everything in the store himself. It’s so beautiful. I went in there and tried a hundred perfumes. I was like, I know I’ve smelled these all before but I’m here, I’m doing it.
You’ve got to! it’s like going to a museum or something.
It was a beautiful day. Can I smell your 1969 perfume before I go by the way?
Please.
(Takes it from the table and smells). Ooh. Okay. It’s actually way more interesting than I expected. I have low expectations for new perfume brands. The TikTok trend has really dumbed it down. I wish it weren’t the case, but so many of the new brands are just recycling the same old stuff, it’s a bummer. But this is good. It actually reminds me of Serge Lutens a little bit. It’s got depth.
Thank you for reading the 178th issue of Tone Glow. Thursday on Saturday.
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