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You've always had a way with words and expressing those beliefs uniquely. Can you explain your talent for songwriting?

Thiessen I don't know. For me it was a self-educated skill and I'm still trying to find a way to find a better song. I see it like painting. You find art that you like and create something like it, but you don't rip it off. I look at some [musicians] for lyrics, like Paul Simon or Mike Herrera (MxPx), and let them influence me. A lot of it comes from the spirit. I'm a huge fan of Jon Foreman (Switchfoot) and how he writes, getting the brain and heart to work together.

As time goes by, though, you get better at your own skill. The more you do it, the better you get at it without ripping things off. Yet I think there is definitely a science to it. Look at a poem—it might rhyme, it might not. Some tricks I've learned are that clever rhymes make you sound smart. So for me, say there's an idea I have that becomes one line to a song. I'll want to set up that point with a rhyme in a line before it. You come to find ways to deliver a line—to deliver a point better—and leave the reader with something. It's a blank canvas that you can do what you want with it.

What was inspiring you to write on certain topics for this record?

Thiessen There are a couple themes. I always write about what I'm going through, and there are a couple things about forgiveness on the record—about making sure we're not holding any grudges against people. Writing is the way I vent about how I'm getting over being hurt. Though one person or another did hurtful things, I'm smart enough to know that I can't hold a grudge against them forever. I use growth and grace to push myself there. I also have a good thing going with my girl, and I couldn't really help but write about that too.

Forgiveness and girls … how do you balance the happy songs with the roughly honest ones on a record?

Thiessen The songs are potpourri, and sometimes they seem like a thrown-together mess [laughs]. The fans that know our band best kind of expect that. The song sequence [on Five Score] came out as a result of playing around with it. I liked "Forgiven" and wanted it up front, and "Must Have Done Something Right" is the first single, so that had to be near the top as well. We mix up the serious with the sugary happy. If all of our songs sounded the same, it'd be a very boring record. That's why punk rock bands usually throw in an acoustic ballad—it's always nice to stir up [the angst] with something more lighthearted.

You mention "punk rock band." What, if anything, has influenced any evolution in sound on Five Score?

Thiessen I don't know; it kind of picked our sounds for us. We definitely have the pop songs and are influenced by that, but we've also incorporated more piano and we use banjo on stage in live shows. We feel that almost everything's been done in some way, so we like to try new things. But we really don't consider ourselves innovative.

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