Perpetual Motion

After a return to their spiritual label/home Epitaph Records and a series of dates where they played their entire back catalogue, Minnesotan alt. rockers Motion City Soundtrack released their fifth album, Go, earlier last year. Solidifying further an already popular sound, Go isn't the only good news for fans of quality, pop punkish rock. Excitingly, MCS will return to antipodean shores for 2013's edition of Soundwave, and lead guitarist/ vocalist Joshua Cain says he's looking forward to the quality that Australian punters bring to the shows.

“We love coming down there. We've always had a really great time. We've been a bunch of times. We've played Soundwave twice and we've been there also another two or three times. So, this is our fourth or fifth time. We love it. Audiences at these things feel kind of like audiences on the Warped tour. Everyone's there to have a great time. There's probably three or four other bands on the bill that you're totally in love with. It's fantastic to play to people who are so stoked to be there.”

Well-known as an extremely hard-working outfit, Motion City Soundtrack have long toured literally like there was no tomorrow. Interestingly, Cain cites a lack of good American radio as one of the prime reasons. “You know, it's pretty hard to get music on the radio here in the US. We've had some random bits of success here and there with things like that, but the way to really make your name here is touring, so that's kind of what we've always done. You know, we didn't consciously say to ourselves 'Let's be a really hard-touring band.' It just came about by necessity, really.”

And will Cain and the rest of the band get to see any of the other shows while they're at Soundwave? This year's line-up is arguably the best ever. It seems there are a couple of 'minor' acts in particular Cain is keen on catching… “I'm definitely going to be seeing Metallica. You know, some cities you just fly in and fly out and you don't get a chance to see anything. But as a guy who grew up in the '90s, seeing Metallica is something I have to do. I've never seen them before so it's definitely on the agenda. We're also stoked Blink [182] are going to be there. We hang out with Mark [Hoppus] a lot, so it'll be great to see him. Yeah, and there's just a whole bunch of other bands we're looking forward to seeing as well.”

While they are on stage, as opposed to moshing to Metallica, what can punters expect from a MCS live show? With five albums, there's bound to be a lot of punters who've only heard them on record. “You know what? What they'll see is a bunch of guys who really love what they do. And I think that comes across in the music. I mean, to me it feels like I'm making a bunch of mistakes when I'm up there on stage, but I'm told it sounds all right.”

Immediately after this interview was over, Cain and the rest of the band were due to do an online chat from their hometown of Minneapolis on the Soundwave website. To say that he was feeling some trepidation is possibly an understatement, but his carefree attitude in the face of it reflects something of the appeal of his band's ever so slightly devil may care music. “Oh yeah, that's right. That's midnight our time so it's going to be something, that's for sure. We got all turned around yesterday because we thought our manager had organised the interviews for then, but it was actually today. But of course, it's still yesterday here and it's tomorrow where you are, or something like that.

“Intercontinental, cross timezone rock'n'roll? What could possibly go wrong?”

Motion City Soundtrack will be playing the following dates:

Saturday 23 February - Soundwave, Brisbane QLD
Sunday 24 February - Soundwave, Sydney NSW
Monday 25 February - The Hi-Fi, Melbourne VIC
Thursday 28 February - The Factory, Sydney NSW
Friday 1 March - Soundwave, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 2 March - Soundwave, Adelaide SA
Monday 4 March - Soundwave, Perth WA