Motion City Soundtrack
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24.12.2012

Motion City Soundtrack

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Motion City Soundtrack have just realigned themselves with Epitaph, the label they were initially with from 2003 – 2008. “It’s awesome,” Cain says warmly. “We’re really stoked to have found them to be so awesome… to be like family. It’s a good environment to be in.” During the group’s formative years, Cain organised a lot of the practical managerial tasks which came in the form of booking gigs and coordinating equipment and so on. Even when with a major label, though, he still sees all those things as integral to the definition of playing in a band. “It takes time,” he explains. “I don’t think you ever relinquish all your control, and it’s not really a control thing necessarily. More like, you know, we kind of oversee. Our management and label and stuff is more just about guidance; helping us go in the right direction.”

This idea was an inherent part of the choice to release a series of videos explaining the stories behind each song from Go, the band’s fifth album released this year. Previous album My Dinosaur Life (2010) was also accompanied by a few explanatory clips, but not in this sort of depth. “I think at this point content is so important,” Cain says. “We’re on a new label and we want to make sure we’re staying engaged, and keeping people interested. We want people to know about the songs, what the art is, not just us making a record [or] making music to put it out there to get people to come to shows or something. You know, it actually means something to us.”

Many of the hooks and licks from Go were written while the boys were on tour, and Cain admits that it can be troublesome catching the ideas as they pop out because it isn’t planned. “I think it’s just like, when inspiration happens, it happens,” he explains. “We’re not really overly trying to write; if we want to sit down and make a record then writing on tour is not the best. We try not to force it.” There’s no advanced set-up, either. “[Singer] Justin [Pierre] uses his Voice Memo a lot, on his phone actually,” Cain says. “He ends up having like 50 ideas that are all 30, 40 seconds, and horribly recorded. We have to kind of pick through them.”

Throwing around new ideas doesn’t necessarily change the way the band performs on tour, but Cain says that keeping sets compelling, from the band’s point of view, isn’t a huge problem. “We’ve been lucky because the audience makes the shows so much fun. I think without that, without the crowd kind of singing along… I think I’d get really sick of playing some of these songs, like Everything’s Alright. It’s just the crowd’s reaction, it’s like a kind of high.” There are things they can do themselves, to keep it sharp, as well. “We kind of change our set though, every night, randomly. We try to keep it as fresh every night as we can. The only time we [can’t] is if Justin’s voice is getting hoarse and we need to like, back off a little bit. Then we can maybe play a few songs that we know are easier for him to sing. But that’s if we’re under duress! So I’d say, usually we’re mixing things up as much as we can.”

The band’s clips are always pretty beautifully produced, but the one for recent single True Romance is in a new league. It’s in the vein of Sugar Water, the 1995 gem from Japanese duo Cibo Matto. “Justin and I had this idea of doing a video backwards, I think,” Cain ponders. “My brother Jesse [Cain] is the one that directed it. He kind of embellished it and made it his own. It kind of flips in the middle, and you can’t tell kind of thing, it’s all shot backwards, it’s really weird,” he says awkwardly, clearly struggling to explain the method. “I think [he came up with] the most complicated version of [the idea],” he laughs. The video primarily features Pierre, but you can spot Cain thrashing away as a busker in one of the street scenes. “Yeah, we’re all in it just for a little bit, tiny bits, here and there,” he chuckles.

To pinch a line from Timelines, one of Go’s standout tracks, I enquire whether Cain ever wonders how he got to here? The band has achieved incredible popularity and reach since its inception in 1997, building its reputation through tireless touring, and releasing top-quality albums on a steady basis, showing real progression as a group. “I don’t know! I think that hard work and dedication is about the only thing that I know that we did,” he says slowly. “It’s a crazy thing. I have no idea what happened. We made it this far; it’s a long way.”

BY ZOË RADAS