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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Motion City Soundtrack
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 30 March 2010
Starting out in 1997, Motion City Soundtrack are a pop-punk band from Minneapolis. With only two of the founding members remaining, the band now consists of original members Justin Pierre and Joshua Cain, plus Matthew Taylor, Thony Thaxton and Jesse Johnson. Motion released their debut single ‘Promenade/Carolina’ way back in 1999, followed by two EPs, and then a debut album, ‘I Am The Movie’, in 2002. Support slots with the likes of Blink 182 followed, and three further albums were unleashed over the decade via their deal with Epitaph Records. Now signed to Sony’s Columbia, they have just released their latest LP ‘My Dinosaur Life’. We caught up with Justin Pierre to ask the Same Six.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
It was truly by default, mainly because I wasn’t really any good at anything else, like sports or friendship making. I played the saxophone in my school band to start with, but eventually graduated to guitar and learned how to play Metallica songs via tablature books. I started my first band with fellow outcasts in high school. It was called Whatchufunado? True story.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
The last couple years of my life. Although, I didn’t know that at the onset. It is quite fascinating to me that the order of the songs on the record traces an almost perfect trajectory of my life, from the recording of last album ‘Even If It Kills Me’ to the beginning stages of this one.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
One of us will have a song almost put together, and bring it to the rest of the band, and we tinker until it is completed. Or somebody plays an idea to the rest of the group, and we all just instinctively join in and come up with the song on the spot. The latter method happens a lot less often, but does happen from time to time. Usually we struggle to get songs finished. There are a lot of tracks that don’t make the cut.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Too many to name, but a handful of my favourites include: Tom Waits, Ben Folds, Pavement, The Flaming Lips, Jawbox, Sunny Day Real Estate, Superchunk and anything else from the early to mid 90s.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
“I apologise for what you are about to hear”. Then I would say: “Just kidding”. Then I would pause for a brief moment and add: “But not really”.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I hope that it allows us to continue touring and doing what we do. That’s always been the goal.
MORE>> www.motioncitysoundtrack.com
