It’s a Go with Motion City Soundtrack

The American band Motion City Soundtrack is the latest foreign act to visit the country for a concert tonight at the Sky Dome of SM City North EDSA.

MANILA, Philippines - The guys of Motion City Soundtrack are founding members Justin Pierre (lead vocals and guitar) and Joshua Cain (lead guitar and backing vocals), with keyboardist Jesse Johnson, bassist Matthew Taylor and drummer Tony Thaxton. The band has sold almost 600,000 records in and out of the US throughout its career. It scored huge success on Independent Albums Charts with such studio releases as Commit This To Memory, Even If It Kills Me, My Dinosaur Life, spawning hits like Hold Me Down, Broken Heart and Disappear, respectively. As Motion City Soundtrack plays before a Filipino audience for the first time, one can expect a performance-level that “feels fresh and ready to go,” to borrow the band’s words in describing its latest studio album titled Go.

“We’re just so excited to be going there… I’m really excited to go there because I’ve never been there before. We’ll be there for a short, brief amount of time and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to explore, but we’re kind of in and out, but I’d like to do that,” Justin, who was calling from their home base in Minneapolis, Minnesota where the band was formed in 1997, told The STAR in a recent phone interview. The band’s Philippine stop forms part of a slew of concerts in Asia and Australia.

Justin also excitedly talked about how Go came about and what sets it apart from the band’s previous works, not just in terms of content, but also of inspiration.

He shared, “The main thing with Go is that we didn’t have a label at the time that we were making it. We have parted ways with Columbia Records and we just decided to pay for the album ourselves. In terms of the content, I think we were into some kind of indie-rock phase… that’s kind of where we were at making the record.”

He continued, explaining in part what reviewers have said about Go as a retelling of intensely personal experiences: “And I was very much in touch with mortality and I tried to figure out how to live each moment, which I don’t know if I’ve mastered that yet. But I’m working on it so there’s a lot of it going on in our record and that’s kind of like the biggest difference. It’s still punk but I think it has more in trying to reach people with more universal lyrics and a little less experimental lyrics, but not overdoing it.”

As for the creative route that Motion City Soundtrack takes, it usually starts “with Josh and myself. I tend to write parts of the melody then I try to put words. I would record some parts to a song and I just send it to Josh, he’ll do the guitar part then Matt will program. We’ll draw ideas, and send parts of a song to each other,” said Justin.

“We’ve sort of been doing that the past couple of years through the Internet. But oftentimes when we get together we’re just… somebody will start playing something and if it feels right. we just sort of jump in and we’ll just know it’s something we wanna work on. It’s rare that one of us writes the whole song. Sometimes, Josh would write the whole song guitar-wise finished and we sort of fill in our parts.

“But it’s become more of a team effort in the past few years than it was before…Usually the melody comes first, then the words. We sort of mumble along to the melody, and a word or two comes out, then I kind of get an idea of what it might be and I follow that, figure out what it’s about.”

Motion City Soundtrack, though often called alt-rock or indie-rock mainstays, has also been dubbed by fans as pioneers of the pop-punk genre, but for Justin, “I don’t necessarily know that we are pioneer for anything. But, I know that a lot of people have referred to us as a pop-punk band.”

The band, apparently, doesn’t give these labels much a thought. “I don’t know if it matters to me so much what people call us. Especially pioneer, I don’t think that’s actually the case. I think we’re just trying to write music that we find interesting and we are creating anything new.”

When The STAR got curious as to the other artists he’s listening to and asked what’s on his current playlist, Justin bared his diverse musical tastes.

“I would say a woman by the name of Jenny Owen Youngs, a wonderful musician who writes amazing lyrics. She has a way of explaining thoughts and lyrics that when you hear one of her songs, you’ll go, ‘Oh my god, I’ve had that experience and you put it so well’ and so she’s really good in that way. Another one is this hip-hop artist from Minneapolis called POS (Stefon Alexander). Amazing. He’s doing something totally new and fresh. There’s a band called Now, also from Minneapolis, they kind of remind of the early ’90s sort of thing.”

Does he think that artists and bands have better chances of breaking in to the industry right now, especially with the presence of social media which the music biz has been, in recent times, turning to for the next sensation — as compared to how it was like when Motion City Soundtracks started some 14 years ago?

Justin reacted with a laugh, “I don’t know. I feel like when we first started playing music, there was this saying that only 0.01 percent bands that play music get signed to a label, so…”

Meanwhile, opening for Motion City Soundtrack is new local band She’s Only Sixteen, which released its self-titled debut EP a few months ago, earning a warm reception from music fans and critics.

She’s Only Sixteen is composed of Roberto Seña (vocals/guitars), Andrew Panopio (guitars), Anjo Silvoza (bass) and King Puentespina (drums).

“We are thrilled to open for Motion City Soundtrack, one of our musical influences,” said King in a press statement. “It will be an awesome night of good music.”

The show is produced by CNCA Media Concepts — the same people behind Jay Sean Live in Manila, Gin Blossoms Live in Cebu, Adam Lambert Live in Manila and Creed Live in Manila — together with Redstone Productions.

(Tickets to the Motion City Soundtrack concert tonight at 8 are priced at P1,850 [Free Section Standing]. For tickets, call SM Tickets at 470-2222 or buy online via https://smtickets.com.)