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 TeenSpot.com had that chance to meet up with the guys from Motion City Soundtrack while on their tour with Blink 182 throughout Europe. Gary Lancaster talked with Motion City Soundtrack before the show at The London Hammersmith Apollo. TS: = TeenSpot (Gary) MCS: = Motion City (Jesse(J) and Matt(M)) TS: Hi there, could you introduce yourselves and tells us what you do in the band? MCS J: Hi, I'm Jesse Johnson and I play the mogue... er, keyboard, in the band. MCS M: ...and I'm Matt Taylor and I play the BASS. TS: Could you tell us a little history about the band... how you all ended up together? MCS M: It's kinda funny that you've got Jesse and I to interview because actually niether one of us was originally in the band. It was already established quite awhile before we joined. < At this point Jesse's cell phone starts moo'ing... after a 5 minute break we begin again > MCS M: So yeah... we both kinda joined in about 2002. Josh and Justin were the original members but I think they formed... '97 or '98. I'm not sure. Long before we were on the scene. TS: So under what circumstances did you two find yourselves ending up playing with the band? MCS J: I joined because Justin used to sing, play guitar AND play keyboards. So he didn't have alot of time to do anything, so they wanted somebody to take over keyboards so he could play more guitar. TS: In which case I guess the name is nothing really to do with you guys? MCS M: Unfortunately not..! TS: Do you know how exactly it came about though?  MCS J: Yeah I think he was going to name a shop after it but they beat him to it. TS: You've got a very distinct sound... infact one of only two bands I've heard as of late that include a mogue. (The other being The Reunion Show) - Could you attempt to define how you sound? MCS J: We're just a rock band...... with... keyboards! TS: What do you think about this whole "emo" thing? MCS M: It's just... it's just yet another unnecessary word that categorizes a rock band. It's stupid. Name me a rock band that's not emotional. TS: That is exactly what Tim from Allister said! MCS J: Yeah I think we think pretty much the same... but err... umm.. sorry? hah TS: Now alot of young musicians are interested in how exactly bands like yourself go about getting signed. Could you tell us how exactly it all worked out for you? MCS J: Fortunately we got real lucky... there was another band, friends of ours, MatchBook Romance and they got signed to Epitaph. They basically told their managers and label contacts to go to our website and have a listen and they did... luckily enough they liked what they heard. That was really about it. Obviously they came to our shows and we had meetings with them but the first encounter was really due to our friends in Matchbook. Real good friends! TS: How are Epitaph treating you? MCS M: Very well... I think they are a good level to be at. An independant label but they have the capital to act like a big player. TS: Do they give you the freedom that you'd like?  TS: Lets talk about the tour. This UK tour is obviously huge in terms of capacity... how does it feel playing infront of 15,000+ fans every night? MCS J: Honestly, it's not that different other than the fact that we have more room to move around... you just kinda, or atleast me personally... I try to play as if its for 50 kids. Giving it all i've got at each show. TS: It must be especially weird considering that the last show you played in London was for around 1300 people. Then the first show back in the country, the first night is for 20,000. MCS M: Yeah i mean it's quite a shock but to me, a show is a show. It's all good. TS: What do you guys think has been the most memorable moment so far? MCS J: DEFINATELY getting the Manchester crowd to clap. The entire venue... it was like I dunno. Somewhere between 16 and 18,000 people all clapping along which was pretty cool. TS: Do you ever get nervous before going on stage? Any rituals you have to cope before a big show? MCS M: I do at every show. Right before we go on. Once we're up there and I'm playing it's fine, I guess it's just that natural fear that we all have. I just try and stretch some. MCS J: I have a ritual! I go to the bathroom about 20 times. I'm always pacing too and fro too. TS: Too and fro the bathroom? MCS J: Yeah..! TS: So ok, If you could being ANY band out on tour with you now, who would you like to bring? MCS J: Umm.. theres a really good band from MN called Cardinal Sin. Real good. Theres a lot of good bands. MCS M: Yeah... Bedford Drive, from Detroit!. I think both the bands are currently in the process of making records now anyway so hopefully we'll be hearing some of their stuff soon. TS: Do you have any plans post tour? MCS J: Yeah... a little bit of time off. Couple of weeks. Recoup time. Yeahhh. Uh. some writing. We have to write for the next record... we're probably not doing it for another couple of months but we've got to start writing some tracks for it. MCS M: We've also got a few tours that we're figuring out at the moment. Um, for later in the year that is. We're just trying to place everything in order so we can work out what to do next. We wan't to get as much touring in as possible. TS: I noticed that you had to cancel a few dates of your US tour in order to accompany Blink over here. MCS M: Yeah... it half sucked that we had to cancel that tour because the other bands kicked ass but this was one of those opportunities that we would have been stupid to ignore. TS: Ok. Let's talk about the album... "I am the Movie' of course. Does the name mean anything? MCS M: Huh... well, we kinda... I dunno, when we get that question we like to just leave it to speculation. MCS J: It's more fun that way. People make their own minds up about it. I'd say yes, there is a reason behind the name but it wouldn't mean anything to anyone really. We just like to leave it open. TS: Do you have a favourite and least favourite track from the album? MCS J: Hmmm... Mine would be... probably Autographs and Apologies as my favourite and probably... Cambridge as my least. TS: Why's that? MCS J: I dunno hah TS: A lot of bands pick songs that are the biggest crowd pleasers... MCS J: Actually I think Autographs is one of the least crowd pleasers, but I guess we don't really play it alot. TS: Now... Modern Chemistry... it seems to have quite a strong feel about it, is there a story attatched? MCS M: I think it's really just Justin [lead/vocals] attempting to deal with just... pressure in his life y'know. Just a song about trying to be ok and cope with everything that life might throw at you. TS: Does he cope? MCS J: I'm not sure haha, you'll have to check that out yourself. TS: In regards to the new record you mentioned earlier... how is this coming along? You say you've not started it yet but you must have some ideas? MCS M: Yeah... I mean we're constantly writing new material anyway when ever we get a chance... we've got about 8 tracks written so far. We don't know where we're going to record it or who will do it but we're aiming to write about 30 to play with before we start shortlisting tracks for the album. TS: Is it true that you put all of the songs you had written at the time onto 'I Am The Movie'? MCS J: Yeah actually it is... well, nearly... we removed one and added three... that was pretty much all the material we had written at the time. Crazy stuff... Just shows how it can work out. TS: Do you guys have a favourite website? MCS J: I go to thescout.net pretty much every day to see whats going on... MCS M: I haven't checked the internet for so long haha. I don't really have a favourite site but I usually go to punknews.org to just check up on the news... see whats happening. TS: How important do you think the internet is in regards to promoting bands? MCS J: The internet is INSANELY important. We probably wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for the internet. We definately embrace it. TS: How do you feel about file sharing? MCS J: I'm fine with it. TS: Illegal file sharing? MCS J: Doesn't bother me. I just feel that if I download a song from a band that I don't know who they are, and that I've never heard, and I like that song, I'll go and check out buying their cd. Or more importantly I'll go to one of their shows and maybe buy a shirt or something. It's weird to me because in my opinion all it does is create fans. TS: I downloaded a couple of tracks but I got myself a CD. That's what it comes down to, right? MCS M: Well, not necessarily... even if they don't buy a cd, they may come to your show and like I said, buy a shirt... tell their friends etc... it's all promotion. TS: There's a lot of confusion about how you can best help support your favourite bands... MCS J: The best way you can do it is to go to the shows. Buy some merch. Of course we make some money from CD's... but it's more about keeping the label afloat and allowing us to have the freedom that we do. Buy the CD's to support the industry. Go to the shows and buy the merch to support the bands! TS: Well ok guys. Thank you very much on behalf of TeenSpot... That's all I've got for you so good luck tonight. MCS: Thanks alot!
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