Motion City Soundtrack

Motion City Soundtrack
Place of origin	Minneapolis
Genres	punk rock

Motion City Soundtrack
Motion City Soundtrack performing in Washington, D.C. in 2012
Background information
Origin	Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Genres	Alternative rock pop punk emo indie rock pop rock
Years active	1997–2016 2019–present
Labels	Epitaph Columbia The Boombox Generation Modern Radio
Members	Justin Courtney Pierre Joshua Cain Jesse Johnson Matthew Taylor Tony Thaxton
Past members	Joe Skinner Andrew "Andy" Whitney Andrew Gruhn Austin Lindstrom Joel Habedank Matt Potocnik Sidney Burgdorf Claudio Rivera
Website	www.motioncitysoundtrack.com

Motion City Soundtrack is an American rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1997. The band's line-up consists of vocalist and guitarist Justin Courtney Pierre, lead guitarist Joshua Cain, keyboardist Jesse Johnson, bassist Matthew Taylor, and drummer Tony Thaxton. Over the course of their career, the group has toured heavily and released six studio albums, the majority on independent label Epitaph Records. The band's sound, at times described as pop punk or emo, makes notable use of the Moog synthesizer. Pierre mainly handles the band's lyrics, which often touch on themes of anxiety, alienation, relationships, and self-destructive behavior.

The band was founded by Cain and Pierre, and it took several years to form a stable lineup. I Am the Movie, the group's debut album, was released in 2003. Their commercial breakthrough, Commit This to Memory, arrived in 2005, and its follow-up Even If It Kills Me (2007) was similarly successful. For many years, the band was a staple of the Warped Tour. They briefly signed to major label Columbia for My Dinosaur Life (2010), but rejoined Epitaph for Go in 2012. Their most recent effort, Panic Stations, was released in 2015. The group disbanded the following year, but they announced a reunion in 2019.

History

Formation and early years (1997–2003)

The band was founded by guitarist Joshua Cain (left) and vocalist Justin Pierre (right).

Motion City Soundtrack was formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1997 by singer-songwriter Justin Courtney Pierre and guitarist Joshua Cain. Previously, the duo had separately played in a number of bands. Cain was in a group named the Saddest Girl Story, and recruited Pierre to join as a singer. In its early years, the group went through several lineup changes. Through these, Cain and Pierre would often have to take over keyboard duties during shows. Their next two releases, both extended plays—Kids for America and Back to the Beat—were released the following year.

Over the course of the early 2000s, the band continued to tour and shuffle through members. In late 2001, while touring in Milton, Pennsylvania with the band Submerge, they convinced two of its members—bassist Matthew Taylor and drummer Tony Thaxton—to join Motion City. Thaxton initially took about a year to convince to join the band. Johnson had never played the keyboard before but Cain taught him the parts that had already been written. They recorded much of their debut album, I Am the Movie, in ten days. Initial copies were hand-packaged inside floppy disks, which were sold out of the back of their tour van for a year.

The band began receiving offers from various record labels, including Universal, Triple Crown Records, and Drive-Thru Records, and they performed at industry showcases. Motion City became part of a slew of Epitaph signings, including Matchbook Romance, Scatter the Ashes and From First to Last, amid concerns the Southern California label had strayed too far from its roots, and seemed "a little too emo."

Breakthrough and success (2003–2006)

After signing with Epitaph, they recorded three new songs with the bands Reggie and the Full Effect and Ultimate Fakebook for a triple split EP which was never released. The new songs were added to the second release of I Am the Movie, followed by an inaugural stint on Warped Tour 2003. The band continued to tour heavily into the next year, with US dates alongside Rufio, Mae, and Fall Out Boy, A European leg—titled the "Totally Wicked Awesome Tour"—featured the group with Sugarcult, the All-American Rejects, and Limbeck. Cain invited Hoppus to produce Motion City's sophomore album, and he accepted. The album, Commit This to Memory, was recorded at Seedy Underbelly Studios, a suburban home converted into a studio in Los Angeles' Valley Village region. It was written partially in their hometown of Minneapolis and in Los Angeles, during a period in which Pierre was seeking treatment for alcohol abuse. Commit This to Memory was the first album by the band to feature material crafted by each musician in the group, as previous releases had featured songs written in the years prior to each member joining. During its recording process, Motion City embarked on their first headlining tour, titled "The Sub-Par Punk Who Cares Tour 2004". Pierre estimated that by 2015 the album had sold nearly 500,000 copies. The band's music videos found regular rotation on networks such as MTV2, and the band also performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The group continued to tour constantly, It was followed by dates on the Warped Tour 2005, Following completion of the album, Pierre entered a rehabilitation program for alcohol and drug abuse.

Even If It Kills Me was released on September 18, 2007, and represented a large leap from the group's last chart performance: it peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the magazine's Independent Albums chart. "This Is for Real" became their best-charting single, peaking at number 48 in Australia. Cain later felt that the band placed far too much emphasis at the time on "numbers and trajectory instead of the creative process." After the release of that EP, the band toured on the Honda Civic Tour with Panic at the Disco and Phantom Planet, In September, they headlined on The Left Handed Forms of Human Endeavor Tour.

Motion City signed a multiple-album deal with Columbia Records several months before releasing their previous album. Following the move, the guitarist Joshua Cain said, "It just felt right to make the move when there was the right interest there." Their next album saw the band reunite with producer Mark Hoppus, and the album was mostly recorded at his studio in North Hollywood, Opra Music, between April and June 2009. Hoppus said that the band wanted to follow in the tracks of Commit This to Memory, but to push things further. Pierre later recalled that the atmosphere in the studio was more loose than their first time working with Hoppus. After completing the album, the band toured with Blink-182 on their reunion tour, and Pierre undertook a promotional tour called On the Dino Trail wherein he performed acoustic sets. and it represented the band's all-time best chart performance, peaking at number 15 on the Billboard 200. and they released a music video for the single "Her Words Destroyed My Planet". The group embarked on a large tour with Say Anything between October and November 2010, and premiered a self-shot video for "A Lifeless Ordinary" during that time. Columbia dropped the band later that year,

Middle years (2012–2016)

After being dropped by Columbia, the band set off to Brazil to support All Time Low in January 2011. They subsequently began recording their fifth studio album with producer and longtime friend Ed Ackerson at his studio, Flowers Studio, in Minneapolis. The band recorded on their own time with their own resources, which both provided comfort and a sense of nervousness to the group. "We just felt like it was like we were just taking our time and just kinda living life and not worrying about too much other than getting together and making music," remarked Taylor. Pierre has since looked back on Go with mixed emotions, citing it as his personal least favorite album by the band. He noted that he was struggling with dark thoughts and felt that the band's collective misery translated to the record. During that time period, they searched for a label to release Go, ultimately returning to Epitaph. Go was released on June 12, 2012, and received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics. Its chart performance represented a large drop-off from its predecessors, peaking at number 46 on the Billboard 200 and number eight on the Independent Albums chart. The group spent much of the remaining year on the road, including dates in Asia in mid-2012 and a headlining US tour in October and November.

Drummer Tony Thaxton departed the group in March 2013 following battles with depression, due in part to their ceaseless touring schedule. The band enlisted longtime friend Claudio Rivera of Saves the Day as their new drummer, and released a one-off single with him, "Inside Out", in celebration. and went on a co-headlining tour with Relient K that November.

Motion City playing their penultimate show at Riot Fest in 2016.

The group recorded their sixth album, Panic Stations, over two weeks at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in June 2014. The group collaborated with producer John Agnello, well known for his work with Dinosaur Jr., Walt Mink, and Sonic Youth. The album was largely recorded live. The album's release was delayed by over a year, however, due to the birth of Pierre's daughter. In the interim, the group embarked on a tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of Commit This to Memory between January and February 2015, playing the album in its entirety. The band later extended this anniversary tour, and further toured the album between June and August 2015. Panic Stations was released on September 18, 2015, to positive reviews from music critics, but it debuted even lower on music charts than its predecessor. and saw the release of a split 7-inch between the two bands.

As the band entered 2016, Cain felt the future for the group was bright: "We're not done yet. I think we got more music in us," he told Substream Magazine in January 2016. Two months later the band announced their break-up with a statement that read in part, "We have no idea what the future holds, but for now we are done." In interviews later that year, Pierre detailed the band's reasoning, noting that their exhaustion with touring and growing families contributed to their decision: "We’ve done this one thing constantly for so many years nonstop. We all wanted to have something else to look ahead to in our lives." The band embarked on the So Long, Farewell Tour across North America between May and September 2016 with original drummer Tony Thaxton returning. It concluded with a sold-out show at the Metro in Chicago on September 18, 2016. The group performed 36 songs — some dating back to their 2000 EP, Back to the Beat — while both Thaxton and Rivera sat in on drums.

Reunion (2019–present)

During their three-year break, all of the members moved to different states and pursued different interests. Pierre continued to record music and tour as a solo act, issuing his debut effort In the Drink in 2018, which Cain assisted him in producing. The following June, the band announced their reformation with a U.S. tour. In an interview, Pierre explained their inactivity had given rise to an "excitement" to focus on the band again. The tour, named "Don't Call It a Comeback" for a song on their debut album, took place in January 2020. Thaxton returned to the band in an official capacity for the tour. The band were scheduled to travel to the U.K. for the Slam Dunk Festival that May, but plans were shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The five-piece will continue to tour in 2022, celebrating the seventeenth anniversary of Commit This to Memory.

That same year, the group released three new songs. The first, a cover of Fountains of Wayne's "A Dip in the Ocean", debuted on Saving for a Custom Van, a tribute compilation celebrating the life of musician Adam Schlesinger. Midway through the year, the quartet issued a previously unreleased track, "Crooked Ways"; it was recorded a decade prior and submitted for consideration for inclusion in the Twilight film saga. Author Stephenie Meyer, in a blog post, suggested it was inspiration for her novel Midnight Sun. Lastly, the group recorded a cover of Ed Ackerson's "Wired Weird" for a tribute album to Ackerson, who produced their 2012 album Go and died in 2019. Cain has claimed there is "no official plan" for further music, though he believes the band is not entirely finished making new music. In an Instagram livestream, Pierre hinted at the future possibility of the band releasing new music while answering a viewer's question. Pierre responded, "I would like that. I'm not sure if anyone else would, but I would."

On the 2022 'Commit this to Memory' tour it was announced that Motion City Soundtrack will be creating new music, with the opportunity to appear on the new recording is offered as a benefit of the VIP tour tickets.

Musical style and influences

Music

[[File:Jesse Johnson Moogstand.jpg|thumb|right|Keyboardist Jesse Johnson's signature "moogstand" in 2008. Sunny Day Real Estate, AllMusic additionally credits bands such as Weezer and the Get Up Kids as influences, among others. Pierre quoted Waits that "all anybody ever does is imitate their favorite artist—badly," adding, "we're just regurgitating all the crap we listened to in the late '80s and early '90s, the music that got us into playing music in the first place." Johnson became known for his signature "Moogstand" in live performances, which consisted of a handstand on the instrument. emo, Pierre characterized the band's music as "dirty, fast, happy, emotional rock songs." It has been described as having a "distinctly unified and identifiable style." Subsequent releases varied in style. My Dinosaur Life, for example, saw the band attempting to emulate their favorite post-hardcore acts, such as Archers of Loaf and Dinosaur Jr. For the record, he intended to simplify his lyrics to enhance storytelling and he drew inspiration from Tom Waits, Ben Folds, and John K. Samson's writing styles. Their next album, Even If It Kills Me, was Pierre's first "written completely sober, after battling drugs and alcohol for years;" consequently, the record is more optimistic and less self-loathing. My Dinosaur Life has lyrics relating to relationships, procrastination, and Pierre's own desire for a life away from his self-destructive behavior. Much of the lyricism on fifth album Go is consumed with death and "the eventual demise of everything." The idea that "nothing lasts forever" is one of the album's most important points. recognizing performers that have played sold-out shows or have otherwise demonstrated a major contribution to the culture at the iconic venue. Receiving a star "might be the most prestigious public honor an artist can receive in Minneapolis," according to journalist Steve Marsh.

On October 31, 2017, the band's hit single, "Everything Is Alright" received an official gold status by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Band members

Current members

• Justin Courtney Pierre – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1997–2016, 2019–present), keyboard, synthesizer, piano (1997–1998, 1998–2001)
• Joshua Cain – lead guitar (1997–2016, 2019–present), backing vocals (1997–2016, 2019–present), bass (1997, 2002), keyboard, synthesizer, piano (1997–1998, 1998–2001)
• Jesse Johnson – keyboard, synthesizer, piano (2001–2016, 2019–present)
• Joe Skinner – lead guitar (1997)
• Andrew "Andy" Whitney – drums (1997–1998)
• Andrew Gruhn – keyboard, synthesizer, piano (1998)
• Austin Lindstrom – bass (1998–2000, 2001–2002)
• Joel Habedank – drums (1998–2000)
• Matt Potocnik – bass (2000–2001)
• Sidney Burgdorf – drums (2001)
• Claudio Rivera – drums (2013–2016)

Discography

Main articles: Motion City Soundtrack discography and List of songs recorded by Motion City Soundtrack

Studio albums

• I Am the Movie (2003)
• Commit This to Memory (2005)
• Even If It Kills Me (2007)
• My Dinosaur Life (2010)
• Go (2012)
• Panic Stations (2015)

References

• Motion City Soundtrack at AllMusic
• Motion City Soundtrack on Facebook