PropertyOfZack sat down with Tony Thaxton from Motion City Soundtrack just a few weeks ago for a brief interview. Tony and I discussed the 4 Albums. 2 Nights. 7 Cities, Motion City’s departure from their major label, the environment that their new album was created in, and more. Read up and enjoy, it’s a good one!
This is the third stop on the discography tour. How were the first two cities?
They were good considering I didn’t know what to expect. We started in LA and it went really well. It was a really fun way to start, so I hope it continues. It’s so spread out. We even had a few days off where everybody went home and then we’ve had random shows and lots of days off. We started it two weeks ago and this is only the first city. I’m looking forward to tonight though. It should be fun and we have lots of friends coming out.
Motion City played the first three albums one time in Chicago before Dinosaur Life was released, but this is the first time you’ve done a tour of your albums. Was it daunting learning everything over again?
The first two records are kind of easy because even though those are the oldest songs, for years those were the only songs we had so we played all of them and played them a lot. Doing the second night, our catalog got bigger so some of the songs got lost in the mix as far as live performances go. Now we have a few shows out of the way, but the LA show [Laughs]. There are a handful of songs that we’ve never ever played before on those albums.
Have fans been going all out for the shows so far?
It’s been great. It’s a weird tour, but that makes it fun. The super fans are really excited about it, but the more casual fans aren’t as into it. The people that are coming out are the hardcore fans and are having a really good time.
Was this just the perfect time to do this tour considering there’s a little bit of a stand-still on releasing the new album while you figure things out?
Yeah, and we haven’t really toured this year. We did Brazil and some college shows. This is really the first US tour we did this year.
In terms of everything that’s going on now – When did it sort of become apparent that you guys were splitting with the label?
I honestly can’t remember. I think it was at the end of last summer. It was nearly a year ago now. I don’t think any of us were too surprised by it or anything. Everyone was cool with it. I think we didn’t necessarily see it coming, but we weren’t surprised by it either.
Many would say it was quite ballsy for the band to record this whole record out of your own pockets without label help. Was there anxiety through that whole process?
Maybe a little bit, but kind of not. We knew that we were just going to go in and make a record and do what we wanted and make it how we wanted to make it without dealing with outside comments.
POZ: Was it freeing to do it that way?
Tony: We were lucky in the past. We never got anyone too heavily involved trying to make us change things. We’d get notes here and there, or you at least had to get demos approved. I know everyone says they’re excited, but I’m really, really excited about this record.
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