Motion City Soundtrack: Homecoming

21 June 2012

by Poppy Reid

Just a few years ago, Motion City Soundtrack were cordially courted by big wig execs at Columbia Records, with promises to take the Minneapolis band from a spot on a Punk-O-Rama compilation to the pointy end of the Top 40 charts. But it was only three years and one album later when the Sony BMG subsidiary dropped the band.

“It happened really fast, before we felt like we had a chance to really get going, it was very sudden,” Motion City’s bassist, Matt Taylor tells TMN over the phone. “It was a good experience it was just really short.”

After their fleeting stint with a major label Taylor, along with guitarist Joshua Cain, frontman Justin Pierre, keyboardist Jesse Johnson and drummer Tony Thaxton were left to shop fifth album Go. Appositely, the band decided to exclusively set up meetings with independent labels.

“It’s just a different ball game with the music industry the way it is,” says Taylor. “I don’t know that we would have gotten the kind of deal with a major this time around.”

Clearly put off by the handling of previous record My Dinosaur Life - which peaked at #50 on the ARIA chart - the band settled again with long-time label Epitaph; a welcomed decision by the label’s founder Brett Gurewitz, who had always saved a spot for the five-piece.

“Brett has been nothing but amazing to us as a band and as people. He always said if you need a home, come back. And that was when we left his label to go to a major label!

“Obviously he wasn’t letting pride or anything get in his way,” Taylor sounds surprised. “We just felt like that was really special, so it made sense to go back to them.”

As far as press interviews go, Taylor is the most emphatically realistic of the bunch; although his view of the music giants has become somewhat chinked in recent years, he’s honest about the reasons for taking that road and he doesn’t stand alone when addressing the dwindling value of pop-punk to the big four.

“I don’t know that majors are willing to offer the resources,” Taylor muses. “Coming back to a place like Epitaph who are more concerned with putting out music, it seems like they’re more willing to take a chance on art than a major label. A major is more concerned about the dollar sign sometimes and that’s obviously what we got caught up in,” he admits. “Maybe we didn’t measure up to what they expected; that’s why our term with them ended so short.”

Perhaps this is one of the reasons behind Boombox Generation, the label the band started “without any specific goal in mind.” The venture ultimately became an independence buffer, used to release Go in conjunction with Epitaph. Taylor assures us they’re not about to become a one-stop music generating shop though. “We’re not ready to sit down and become a company and crunch numbers and work out a marketing plan within our band. We just want to get the name out there and have Epitaph on it as well as a cool co-joint venture.”

Unfortunately, with Epitaph holding a greater percentage of the reins it wasn’t the band’s choice when the album leaked, the second time it has happened with the label. Go’s false start didn’t cause nearly as much upset as 2005’s Commit This To Memory though, which leaked three months before its set date and “was a different time when people were still actually buying music.” But for the nostalgic five who thrived in an age where their dreamy pop was delivered to their fans encased in equally light-hearted artwork, a digital leak took all the sheen away.

“We were upset at first because it has a due date, that’s the date that your baby will be born, the date you had in your head when people will hear it. All of a sudden it’s out and people are getting it from a website that’s streaming it,” he fusses. “They’re downloading it and it doesn’t have the packaging and it’s not beautiful like you wanted it to be. But now it’s out and people have been saying how much they like it on social media so now I’m really happy - at least it wasn’t the demos that leaked,” he laughs nervously, as not to jinx it.

Despite what the marketing team behind Motion City Soundtrack would have you believe, their sunny blend of hook-laden pop and honest-to-goodness rock isn’t just that nowadays. After all, with members sitting on the wrong side of thirty, one can’t expect or much less even want more numbers about that juvenile relationship you wish you weren’t in. This year’s Go touches on mortality, loved ones lost and even the admittance of Pierre’s own self-loathing.

“This time around we’re at a certain age, we’re in our thirties and I hate to admit that but we’re starting to think a little more about life in general and how quickly things are seeming to fly by now… [Go is] about life and the fact that we need to really enjoy it while we have it.”