WATCH: Motion City Soundtrack's Shock Sessions Part 1

(Make sure to visit ShockHound on 2/3/10 for Part 2 of their rocking Shock Sessions performance)

WATCH: Our video interview with Justin and Matthew

Interview by Courtney Lear
 
About this time last year, things weren’t looking so hot for Motion City Soundtrack. The Minnesota pop punk quintet had an unfinished record on their hands — and, worse yet, a broken drummer.
MCS skinsman Tony Thaxton spent the first hours of 2009 in the ER after falling off of a curb and onto his arm, a fairly necessary body part if you’re a drummer. But many surgeries, uncertain doctors visits, and home nurses later, Thaxton is all healed up and the band’s fourth full length My Dinosaur Life has finally been released.
     Their most fully realized and ass-kicking effort MCS effort to date, the hook-heavy album — produced by Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus — is filled with one potential single after another. Nearly 10 years into their career, it may prove to be the band’s big break into the mainstream, but the guys don’t seem particularly committed to the idea of riding the radio waves. Motion City Soundtrack is more the type of band whose lead singer goes on impromptu cross-country acoustic treks, and happily plays fan-favorites from their debut album — songs that many other bands would have tired of long ago.
     Before delivering an energetic sing-along Shock Session (which you can check out above), bassist Matt Taylor and caffeine-pumped frontman Justin Pierre sat down to dish on the power of the Internet, the birth of the dinosaur, and why Phish and Pantera are partially to thank for where the band is today.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Last year posed some pretty big hurdles for you guys, namely Tony Thaxton’s broken arm. How did that affect the writing and recording process for My Dinosaur Life?
 
MATT TAYLOR: Well, it pushed it back a little bit, but the awesome thing was that he was still able to come in and play drums. He played drums in a cast. He killed it.
 
JUSTIN PIERRE: It was crazy. He did all the cymbals. Then he did all the drums.
 
TAYLOR: Kick and snare. Then he did fills. That was just for a demo, but still, he was fightin’ through it.
 
PIERRE: We tried many things until we discovered the Internet. What that allowed us to do was send ideas that originated from one person to another using the World Wide Web. Then the person that it was sent to could create something of their own and put it on top of that, then send it back or to another person and so we started sending songs around that way. I’d say half of the record was written that way, and then half was written before Tony broke his arm. It was a very interesting experience writing this record.
 
SHOCKHOUND: What does My Dinosaur Life mean? You guys have been a band for almost a decade now, but you’re not feeling prehistoric, are you?
 
PIERRE: Is that an old joke?

TAYLOR: Yeah it was. I detected that as well.
 
PIERRE: I detected a few things there. My Dinosaur Life was a phrase that just took on a life of its own. I just kept saying it over and over and over because I liked the way it sounded. I think that it allows itself to have several different meanings, and I’m all about that. As many times as I can, I try to do that in lyric writing as well. So, whether you look at it from the point of something that went extinct, that is no longer valid, versus something that wouldn’t really make sense in today’s society — like feeling out of place with the world around you, feeling out of place in your own skin, or feeling old — there’s just so many different ways of looking at it, and that’s what I liked about it…it didn’t have any one meaning. Would you concur?
 
TAYLOR: Well put.
 
SHOCKHOUND: My Dinosaur Life is your major label debut on Columbia, was there any added pressure or worries about creative control?
 
TAYLOR: I haven’t felt anything like that, have you?
 
PIERRE: Not yet.
 
TAYLOR: Not yet, yeah. It’s been very smooth, the transition. When we signed to Epitaph in 2003, we were actually talking to majors as well, but we decided to go the indie route to just learn about the business in general and build a fanbase on our own, stay in a van on tour. I think that helped a lot, and I think our label realizes that. We’re not little babies that they have to come in and push around and tell what to do.
 
PIERRE: We’re big babies that need to be pushed around and told what to do.
 
TAYLOR: There’s like a mutual respect I think, between the label and the band.
 
PIERRE: Yeah, and I think if anything — I think it’s fair for me to be perfectly frank right now — but if something is going to succeed or fail, you might as well do it the way you want it to. I don’t mean to knock the last record we did, but I know on my own I was attempting to do something specific, which I feel like I would have been happier with the outcome if I hadn’t done that. So I feel on this one there was a specific attempt to not do anything specific, if that makes sense. It was more like, let’s just write songs like we used to do and see what happens. We probably had upwards of 30 to 40 ideas that became songs, then we cut it down, and the 12 songs we liked the most were the ones that made it to the record, and it felt good to have that sort of jigsaw puzzle of ideas. It’s very ADD I think, listening to the songs for this record. We didn’t really get any interference from the label. We just kind of handed it in and they were like, “Yeah, this is great!” So far, so good.
 
SHOCKHOUND: This is the second album with Mark Hoppus producing. What does he bring to the table that made you want to work with him again?
 
TAYLOR: For me, it’s comfort. The most important thing for me in the studio just feeling comfortable and relaxed, and just feeling like you can go in and he trusts what you’re going to do, and he allows that experimental portion so you can just go in and try things out. For me it was like coming home this time, and I think we all kind of wanted to feel like that this time.
 
PIERRE: I think that was the best thing that could have happened, to work with someone we had worked with before. That allowed us to be more of ourselves, especially with him. I’d say out of all the people we’ve worked with, he did the least amount of hovering. What’s good about him is he kind of lets you do your thing and just sits back and just watches it all happen; then when he says something, his ideas are really smart and warranted, he’s not just going to come in and change things around for the sake of changing it to fulfill his own needs. The jokes are nice too. He’s very funny.
 

SHOCKHOUND: There was a little Moog drama on the comment boards when your song “A Lifeless Ordinary (Need A Little Help)” was streaming online. Some fans lost their minds that there wasn’t enough Moog in there. What’s your response?
 
TAYLOR: There’s Moog in there, it goes [makes synth sound] then it goes out, but it’s there and there’s piano.
 
PIERRE: Our first record, I think we had a little piano in there, but mostly it was Moog. Since then we’ve tried other variations of the piano; whether it’s an organ or a piano or Moog, there’s a bunch of different things, but there’s more of a variety. So I’d say in a sense these people are right, and in another they’re wrong.
 
TAYLOR: Plus, you get to see [MCS keyboardist] Jesse Johnson play a tambourine live now.
 
PIERRE: He’s learned a new skill.
 
SHOCKHOUND: The keyboards are obvious on “Pulp Fiction.”
 
PIERRE: That’s all keyboards. I think there’s eight keyboards.
 
TAYLOR: Yeah. [Laughs] I think there’s very little guitars and band on that song.
 
PIERRE: I don’t know how we’re going to do that live. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone.
 
TAYLOR: We need a Moog choir.
 
SHOCKHOUND: “Pulp Fiction” also has the great line, “The plot sucks but the killings are gorgeous.”
 
PIERRE: Thanks! I made that! [Raises hand]
 
SHOCKHOUND: Are you guys big Tarantino fans?
 
PIERRE: Yeah, actually. I remember being in my first attempt at college, at Morehead State University, and I’d seen Reservoir Dogs. Well, actually I lived in this place that they called the Beer Can because it was this huge, cylindrical dorm and there was a friend who told me, “Hey, there’s this movie coming out called Pulp Fiction and you’ve gotta see it, but check this movie out first.” So we watched Reservoir Dogs and then the next day saw Pulp Fiction and it was just like Bam! Quentin Tarantino! Then he was everywhere and I really liked him. Then I believe there was a guy named Mike White — I’m getting off on a way, way crazy tangent — and he was like anti-Tarantino for this reason, this reason, and this reason. He had this whole thing against him and I was like “Oh yeah, that’s crazy. He’s totally stealing stuff from other people and putting it into his own.” Then I realized that’s all anybody does. I’m guilty of it myself. What I like about [Tarantino] though, is that you can tell he’s like the biggest nerd on planet earth and he just wants other people to see what he’s into, like, “Check it out! Check it out!” That’s exactly how I am so, I feel like — not to compare myself to him — but I’m exactly like him…[To Taylor] That was supposed to be a joke, but you didn’t laugh.
 
TAYLOR: Oh, I’m sorry I was looking at that cord.
 
PIERRE: Although, I just realized you probably brought him up because the name of the song is “Pulp Fiction,” but it has nothing to do with the movie Pulp Fiction.
 
TAYLOR: You are quick. [Laughs]
 
PIERRE: To be totally truthful it was more of a reference to a style of writing than the movie Pulp Fiction. There are a certain amount of authors that I totally dig, like Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, or the oldest living, most kick ass writer of pulp fiction, Elmore Leonard. It was like this weird story in the vein of that style of writing. This guy [points to Taylor] sent me an idea, the original idea of the song was like this techno song. I call it a techno song, but it was really just like computerized craziness and he sent it to me. I was in Japan at the time, so there’s a lot of Japanese words that made their way into it. It was like this free flow of thoughts and ideas. That’s how it started, then when we actually decided to use it as a song I went that same direction with the rest of it, and kind of kept it this weird sort of story of words that may or may not make a whole lot of sense to anyone who’s listening, but to me it tells a specific story.
 
SHOCKHOUND: Speaking of movies, it was just announced that you’re contributing a track called "Always Running Out of Time” to Almost Alice, the album inspired by Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland adaptation. What is that track about?
 
PIERRE: I tried to tie in, lyrically, a bunch of ideas from the most familiar version I have [of the story], which is the Disney animated one, but there’s also a version that gave me nightmares as a child, which was a made for television musical. I don’t know if it was the girl from Poltergeist who was in it, but it was both books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. When I was in high school, I was that weird kid who carried around the Alice book in his book bag. That was like a month-long thing; I was finding myself continually like every month. So, that particular story has been important to me growing up. Plus, I think Tim Burton and his movies, well we’re all big fans. So when the opportunity presented itself — am I talking too much?
 
TAYLOR: No, no you’re doing awesome.
 
PIERRE: I drank a lot of caffeine before this. [Laughs] As far as, basically what it’s about is what most of our songs are, of a sad and nervous nature, but with little bits of that particular story weaved into it. Would you concur?
 
TAYLOR: Yes? [Laughs]
 
PIERRE: I don’t even know what I said there!
 
SHOCKHOUND: Your new video for the single “Her Words Destroyed My Planet” features you guys in an auditorium, competing in a science fair with a bunch of elementary school kids. Where did the concept come from?
 
PIERRE: [Video director] Isaac Rentz, he came up with the idea, and we were like, “Yeah this sounds good,” and we liked his prior work. I will say that to date that’s the most fun I’ve had, it was like easy fun. We only had to do one thing, which was to learn a dance sequence, which we may or may not have pulled off. I don’t know.
 
SHOCKHOUND: What were you like in elementary school?
 
TAYLOR: I don’t know. I was an average kid.
 
PIERRE: I was above average. Yeah, I’m just going to cut you off.
 
TAYLOR: Yeah? Jealous.
 
PIERRE: I excelled in the maths and the languages.
 
TAYLOR: I was more of a spelling guy.
 
PIERRE: I remember everybody was watching the World Series, no what’s the one before the World Series?
 
TAYLOR: The Championship series?
 
PIERRE: Yeah, I don’t know if it was Atlanta or Detroit, it was somebody versus Minnesota and everyone was watching [to see] if the Twins were going to go to the World Series, which they did and they won that year, but I remember I was doing math homework. I was sitting at my desk and everybody else was crowded around the TV. That’s what I used to be like, but that all changed when I discovered the band Phish and marijuana.
 
TAYLOR: Oh, you’re not really kidding are you?            
 
PIERRE: Sadly, I’m not. I sort of think those two things go hand and hand, but that only lasted a few months. That was after the Alice in Wonderland in the book bag, then it was Phish, then it was something else, I think it was metal, Pantera maybe? Who knows?
 
TAYLOR: Wow, what a transition, Phish to Pantera.
 
PIERRE: It’s a long story, but now it’s out there in the world