Movement Metropolis Soundtrack grows into center age : NPR

Some folks may need a tough time remembering the identify Movement Metropolis Soundtrack, however for super-fans of early 2000s pop-punk and emo music, the band’s screeching synth and idiosyncratic lyrics are unforgettable.

Movement Metropolis Soundtrack first made their mark with the track “The Future Freaks Me Out,” which speaks to the anxieties of early maturity and the way self-medication is usually a type of self-destruction.

Now, greater than 20 years after that launch, the band is again with a brand new album — The Similar Outdated Wasted Fantastic World.

Because the title suggests, it is not precisely a departure from the band’s distinctive mix of advanced pop-rock preparations and darkish subject material, nevertheless it does showcase an evolution for a bunch who provided the soundtrack for many individuals’s adolescence.

Lead singer Justin Pierre’s self-deprecating, humorous fingerprints are throughout this new album and its first single is an absolute return to type.

So why did it take a decade since they first broke as much as launch new music?

“I can’t be wrangled. That is one reply,” Pierre says.

Clearly, Pierre may be wrangled, or there can be no new album to talk of, nevertheless it’s at the least a part-time job for guitarist Joshua Cain.

Nonetheless, it is that very high quality that helps Pierre write good music.

“The explanation ‘why now’ is that I really feel like there was sufficient for us to be impressed to jot down, proper? There [were] durations of our life the place we had gone in to jot down a document and Justin’s like ‘I am tremendous comfortable, I do not know the way to do that any extra.’ I imply, what do you write about whenever you’re ****ing having the very best time of your life?” Cain says.

Whereas Justin Pierre nonetheless struggles along with his psychological well being, he is developed higher instruments to take care of it, and he is extra self-aware.

“I feel that this may be the primary time I’ve ever achieved this, however I used to be fully dysregulated at rehearsals in the future,” Pierre says, talking to his bandmate. “I feel it took me an hour and a half to get it collectively, however I do not know when you knew that was what I used to be doing.”

“Sure, I did,” Cain replies.

Pierre continues, “Often I simply permit myself to be in an anxious, chaotic fiddle everyone else. And I simply realized, like this 12 months, that that was affecting folks for 30 years.” Pierre jokes, “I am a really gradual learner.”

Pierre has all the time been trustworthy about his points on previous albums, social media and with the brand new track “Melancholia.”

Its refrain is a sequence of questions.

Why do not you say what you are going by?What’s inside you?

What you wanna do?

Why does it look like you wanna damage?Pierre says the track is certainly some kind of inside dialogue, however factors out these questions are additionally common. He is seen this from followers.

“Individuals would write messages saying, ‘I’ve this, too’ and ‘I’ve this as effectively,'” he says, “and I’d assume ‘wait, what do you imply too ? And as effectively ?'”

Pierre wasn’t conscious that each one the issues followers have been saying to him have been what he was saying to them, by his music. “However what’s actually cool is that they have been all proper … they heard one thing I used to be doing, and I realized about who I used to be by the followers.”

Cain provides that “Melancholia” can also be kind of the end result of the non-public tragedies he and others and the band have gone by within the final ten years.

“You understand we have had folks we all know in our lives lose folks that do not inform them that they are struggling, and … perhaps [they] ask these questions later,” Cain says. “I really like that track… it is so quirky and goofy, however unhappy. It is a actually attention-grabbing track on the album.”

When Movement Metropolis Soundtrack launched their debut album, George W. Bush was in workplace and music streaming was in its infancy. They hand-packaged CDs inside floppy disks and bought them out of their van. It has been a minute, however though they’ve toured with mega acts like Fall Out Boy, whose frontman Patrick Stump additionally contributes to this album, and have a loyal fan base — their identify nonetheless hasn’t caught on.

It is a reality Pierre and Cain joke about with the monitor “You Know Who The **** We Are.” It is a memory a few “evening that everybody nearly died” at a home celebration that each Pierre and Cain attended once they have been youngsters, earlier than they even actually knew one another.

“[Joshua Cain] was, in the course of the day, at this child’s home. I assume his dad and mom have been out of city,” Pierre begins. “I arrived at evening … and, effectively, everyone took acid after which this dude type of appeared out of nowhere, and he stated his identify was … Riff.”

Pierre says, wanting again, he is undecided if everybody noticed the identical acid-fueled apparition, however that on the time it felt like everybody had “simply the weirdest, craziest evening.”

This “Riff” was finally kicked out of the home after throwing potted crops and attacking partygoers, Pierre recollects, “After which we ended up chasing him down the road with skateboards and stuff… in order that’s how Josh [Cain] and I nearly met.”

Cain’s not so certain about that, however he does know the way the track received its identify.

“We would have liked to provide you with a bio,” he says. The band did not need to rehash all their historical past, “and that Movement Metropolis Soundtrack grows into center age : NPR was our official, ‘you realize who the **** we’re,'” Cain says.

“Simply so silly,” Pierre laughs.

Cain and Pierre say they’re now rather a lot nearer to determining who they’re — at age 49. As for the long run?

“Sure, the Future [still] freaks me out,” says Justin Pierre, “however I additionally must imagine hope is a factor that also exists.”

Movement Metropolis Soundtrack’s Similar Outdated Wasted Fantastic World is out now.