Jesse from Motion City Soundtrack
 
Coming out of Minnesota, what is the local scene like there?
Umm, honestly, I really wouldn't know because I'm never there, but to the best of my knowledge, we have some friends that play in some pretty good bands. One of them is called Cardinal Sin. Obviously in the past there have been some. Husker Du and like a lot of influential punk bands that came from there but as far as what's going on now, honestly were never there were more on the road then we are at home.
 
What is your favorite song to play live?
I like too playing a song called Time Turned Fragile off the new record. I think its fun I just like the way the song goes and I think it has a lot of interesting parts in it. Its one of the songs I get to play the piano as well as the Moog.
 
What do you think is the best city to play in?
That's a tough one there's been quite a few cities that have always treated us really well. Chicago is definitely one of them. Jersey has always been really good to us. Detroit, like a lot of the Michigan area shows like right in the Midwest there where we've played so many shows Milwaukee where we always hit when we start and end our tours have always been really really good to us. Philly has always been really good.
 
What and who are your biggest influences?
As an entire band, kind of like mid 90s rock. Pixies, Dinosaur Jr., Superchunck, Jawbox, Fugazi, kind of like that group of music I think as far as the band as a whole. I mean every individual person in the band obviously has different ones but I think those fit. 
 
How do you think you've grown as musicians since releasing I Am the Movie?
Well I think there's probably 2 parts to that. One is we did it ourselves. We went in with or own money and credit cards and everything and maxed everything out to make the record. This is before Epitaph even stepped in. What that taught us is when we went in to make that record, Ed Rose who did the record was really, wanted to make a good record so he made us play really well, like do it over, and I think that really showed us the degree that we had to get better as far as musicians and really work on playing our songs really well and making them sound really well, and then I think as after we released the record especially on Epitaph. We toured so much doing 200 some shows a year, like 270 shows I think we did one year and I think that made us better musicians just the fact we were playing so much and really trying to figure what makes a good live show. There's the idea of being energetic, but if your too energetic sometimes you don't play well. We want to be able to play well but not stand there like a statue. So we're trying to find out where everybody fits in as far as putting on a good live show. You can play miraculously perfect but you might be boring if your not having a good time and enjoying playing.
 
What has it been like playing Warped the last couple years?
Hot and sweaty. Yeah we've been at it the last 4 or 5 years. 4 years. And each time we've gotten a little more dates. I think the first time was only like 3 days, and then 8 days, and then a month. This last tour we did almost the whole thing. Its gotten easier, the first 2 years were really difficult, like all these things we didn't know we could go do. Like we didn't know we could go get water and go pay to eat. We didn't know anything we could use so literally we had an ice chest and had a van and ate peanut butter and jelly and sat in the sun and at the merch tent everyday. Like we had no idea that you could go anyplace in the back so as we learned, showers and all the other parts of Warped Tour its gotten much easier to do. There's a certain core group of people that usually work Warped Tour. The people who run water, production, the people that do catering this whole infrastructure of Warped Tour. For doing it for a couple years becoming friends with them and really looking forward to seeing them is really cool.
 
What was it like working with Mark Hoppus?
It was good. We went into the situation of Mark producing our record kind of blindly because were really the first band he's produced, so there was really no track record for us, but we had done a couple of tours with Blink like Japan and Europe so we spent a lot of time with them and we talked with Mark a lot about music and bands he was influenced by. We had similar things because were really not that far in age. Were a little older than you would think and he's a little younger than most people probably think so the age difference in what we grew up on was very similar and that made us feel really comfortable. He had a lot of the same opinions and views on sounds of records and like pop songs and other stuff. It was awesome. He worked his ass off. He was there every day. He had a lot of suggestions but was never pushy which was amazing. He would be like ?hey try this? and we would try it and sometimes we would be like this is awesome or we'd be like this isn't our style and he'd be completely fine with it. He always said our name would be bigger on the record than his.
 
Commit This To Memory has sold roughly around 100,000 copies, how does that make you feel?
 Its amazing. It's something I never thought would even happen. I think were at 98 or 99(thousand) with I Am the Movie. I mean, we've all played in bands before. I don't think any of us have ever sold 1000 records of anything in our bands, even if you put them all together. Its quite an accomplishment. Its really awesome that there's actually that many people interested in listening to it and coming to shows or whatever. It's really cool.
 
How is this tour going (Nintendo Fusion Tour)?
Good. Its probably one of the larger full tours that we have done. We've done bigger shows, but we'll only get a week of touring. Consistently the shows are huge. What's really cool is were not necessarily playing to our fans which is a little different from doing our headlining tours. There's definitely like a core group of people that know who we are that are awesome but there are kids here to see other bands that have no idea who we are, and gives us the opportunity to play to new people and have more people like us. So that's pretty cool. We've know The Starting Line and Fall Out Boy, and we've known all these bands, its fun being around friends.
 
What is the best tour that you have been on so far?
 The best tour we've been on, umm, probably, doing the Blink 182 tours in Europe and Japan were pretty amazing. We're playing historic places that you've heard of like, The Who playing, like playing Wembley Arena. That's pretty cool to do that. I mean we have had a lot of fun doing much smaller tours. We did a tour with the Weakerthans that was super small places. We have toured with Sugarcult quite a bit. Awesome people, we always have fun hanging out with them. Those are pretty good.
 
How does it make you feel having your video played on Mtv and even being nominated for an MtvU award?
There's different ways to look at it. By the time you get to the point as a band and get the opportunity to be played on Mtv, on the radio, or any sort of mainstream thing bands do there's always a form of backlash from the fans. We get emails and stuff saying why, but the thing I think most people don't understand is, when I was a kid all I did was watch Mtv all day every day before I went to bed. All I did was want to play in a band, so for us , its an honor to see yourself in the situation you grew up idolizing. Sometimes the fans don't see it the same way.
 
What does Motion City Soundtrack mean?
Absolutely nothing honestly. Josh, our guitarist, his brother was thinking of names for a store, and I believe Motion City Soundtrack was a name he had for a shop. I don't know what he was going to sell. Josh heard it, and at the time, the band was looking for names, and we took it from him.
 
When did you start playing the Moog?
I started playing the Moog 3 weeks before we recorded I Am the Movie. I had always played bass, and Josh and I worked at the same restaurant in Minneapolis, and my band had just broken up and they were looking for someone to play keyboard. He asked if I ever played keyboard, I said never. Its grown from there.
 
Has anyone gone to college or is in college?
We've all gone to college, I don't know if any of us have made it beyond a few semesters. I know Justin went to a 2 year college for 4 years. He's still a few credits from getting a degree. All of us have been distracted by playing in bands. If I ever have time off I would like to go back. School has always been something I've enjoyed, but music was always one above it.
 
What do you think about playing radio shows?
Radio shows are often a bit awkward. We played a show in Chicago with Nas. The thing about radio shows is they are cool because they're entertaining, people are coming out to have a good time. Its interesting some of the bands you get to play with. 
 
How's living on the bus?
It would be awesome if I was by myself. Cram 12 people in a 50 foot space its not as relaxing. 12 peoples dirty clothing and trash, it's a lot better than a van. Its alright. We recently went from a van to a bus. The bus is more applicable for a long tour or in the winter, but we still use the van for shorter tours.
 
When you guys aren't on the bus, what kind of cars do you have?
I don't own a car. Matt doesn't own a car. Justin doesn't own a car. Shit, Josh doesn't own car either. Josh usually drives the van. So I guess Tony is the only one that owns a car. I believe it's a Toyota. My girlfriends car is the one that I drive.
 
I would just like to thank Jesse, Motion City Soundtrack, Josh Terry, Teeter Sperber, and Stunt Company Media for making this possible.
 
Interview conducted by Matt Steinhauer, Jamee Hagelberger, and Nick Zimmer