“The world is a crazy place – come and escape with us”: Inside the glorious return of Motion City Soundtrack

Welcome to the site of a pop-punk resurrection job for the ages.

On the left side of a sofa in their manager’s Brooklyn office sits Justin Pierre. Still very much rocking the freshly-electrocuted mad professor hair and black-rimmed glasses, the Motion City Soundtrack frontman is casually quaffing some juice. Were it not for the fact that he often charmingly puts his hand up before speaking like a very polite student, he would look like the punk science teacher you wish you had at school.

On the right, sat beside him, is the man Justin describes as “the general of the band” – Joshua Cain, lead guitarist and co-founder of MCS, and current owner of a supremely impressive beard plucked straight from the pages of Norse mythology.

At different times today, the duo will wax lyrical on a host of topics, including shout-outs to The Carpenters, Flaming Lips, saxophonist Roland Kirk (“that dude fucking wails, three saxes at once!”) and the 2002 Nicolas Cage film Adaptation. In the immortal words of Olaf, they are very much a pair who finish each other’s… sandwiches – Justin always ready to chime in with a quick addendum, or Josh to pick up a thread and run with it.

This riveting match of word tennis is all such a far cry from the solemn moment which broke a lot of people’s hearts – your correspondent’s too, FYI – in 2016 when Motion City Soundtrack came to their “bittersweet realisation”.

“We have no idea what the future holds,” they said in a statement. “But for now we are done.”

So it was that the brakes were put on one of the greatest and most distinctive bands of the post-millennium, one that had graced us with classics like Commit This To Memory, Even If It Kills Me and My Dinosaur Life – records with candour, intelligence, heartbreak and humour to burn, not to mention some of the best pop-punk hooks ever conceived.

A lot of factors led to them issuing that statement. A changing, streaming-led music industry. The demands of family life. Years of touring taking a toll.

“We realised how burned out we really were, and how much growth we needed to do on our own,” reflects Josh today on the painful decision.

“I’m a very slow learner – I tend to have feelings, but I don’t know what they’re related to,” adds Justin. “I now realise, ‘Oh, I needed to slow down’ – which I didn’t. I won’t talk for anyone else, but it’s just been a lot of therapy and a lot of working on myself and trying to figure out how, exactly, to be human, be a good husband, be a good dad, be a good friend. Things like that. I’m still very far away from a lot of that, but I think I’m closer to it than I’ve ever been. So it was very helpful to take a break.”

Not that they were ever too far apart. The pair worked on Justin’s 2018 solo album, In The Drink, but gradually the feeling took hold that what they had once needed time away from was, actually, exactly where they needed to be.

“I really kind of didn’t know who I was, and I was going through a little bit of a crisis of, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’” remembers Josh. “I didn’t know what I was doing that period until I came to this resolve of, like, ‘Wait, no, I made this band and this music my life! I don’t need to run away from this – this is what I am.’ My identity is connected to this band.”

“This band” have dabbled here and there since that hiatus. Reunion shows started in 2019. One-off singles. But now they are back back. Behold: The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World, the first new MCS album in 10 years which arrives on September 19 via Epitaph.

And a fucking fantastic new album at that. This is not by chance. It sounds exactly like the record the band – completed by bassist Matt Taylor, keyboardist Jesse Johnson and drummer Tony Thaxton – conspired to make.

“I said that we had to make an album that we cared a lot about,” explains Josh, recalling the plan of attack. “It didn’t matter how well it did, but if we wanted to continue to do what we were doing, even the ‘nostalgia’ thing, we had to have something fuelling that fire.”

Said fire is raging on The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World, from the lead single She Is Afraid to Justin’s wild solo that plays on title-track – one that, Josh carefully explains, completely eclipses his own really cool passage playing at the same time.

“I’m sorry that I fucking bulldozed over your guitar part,” says Justin, putting a conciliatory hand on his friend’s shoulder.

It’s a record you could spend hours talking about. As well as being an all guns blazing return, it features Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump, Deanna Belos of Sincere Engineer, Mat Kerekes from Citizen and two of Justin’s favourite authors. At the end of our conversation, K! asks if there’s anything that’s not been covered.

“How long do you still have?” Justin grins, though it’s unclear if he’s joking or not.

Buckle in, then, as Justin and Josh talk you through one of the most anticipated returns of recent memory, taking in grief, learning how to be human, and how they now have enough Patrick Stump a capellas stockpiled to make a whole album…

It’s the name of the closing song on the record, but what was it about The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World that made it work as a title for the first new Motion City Soundtrack album in 10 years?
Josh: “For this record, we already had an idea that we were talking about ‘being alone in a crowded room’. But The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World was one of the last things written for the record – Justin brought it in and played it and when that line started popping up, to me, it was saying, ‘As much as I feel like something’s so bad right now, or something’s so good, it’s all happening in the same place that we’ve always been in.’ I think it’s the fact that now we’ve lived a lot longer.”
Justin: “We’re aging! If it’s okay for me to say, a lot of us are experiencing things for the first time that are really fucking horrible, some of us are experiencing a lot of existential crises. It’s hard, but it’s also just life, and these things happen. A lot of that wove its way into this, because we’re also celebrating the fact that we’re still alive, and that we get to do this for a living.”
Josh: “It’s kind of the best time of my life, and also the worst time. I lost my dad very recently, and then I lost two brothers a couple years ago. Even before we started this record process, I was already in a long grief, but I was also diagnosed with ADD and taking meds – it was changing my life and making me exercise and be healthy and not be bogged down by my own brain at all times. My brother Brian, I lost him and Pat, my brother, later. I’m literally having the best time of my life [getting the band going again], and yet I lost family. So when I heard Justin say ‘Same old wasted wonderful world’ it was a juxtaposition [that resonated] – no matter what I’m feeling, the horrible things that are happening, or positive things, everything is just happening. You just think of an imaginary movie where everybody’s singing this song together about the same old wasted wonderful world, and smiling and crying at the same time. It’s beautiful that we get to experience this, that we’ve had the experiences we have, and learned how to deal with it.”
Justin: “There’s a phrase from the movie Down By Law that Roberto Benigni says, like, ‘It’s a sad and beautiful world’ or something. And I love that. I don’t know if that had any influence – maybe somewhere subconsciously. But I also want to give a shout-out to Brian: he introduced Josh to all the music that he listened to as a kid. He named our band. He named our first record. The first music video we shot was in his house… and we trashed his house. The dude was incredible. I’m not related to him, but I felt it hard, too.”

And Justin, you had your own health stuff going on, which you’ve spoken about on social media…
Justin: “I try not to compare things, because everybody’s pain is their own right, and it’s all relative. But yeah, most of mine is anxiety ridden. I’ve got a lot of shit that’s ongoing, as I think we all have, and I too was diagnosed with ADHD. My journey through that is not great, and I think I’m almost finally well medicated, but now I have to deal with the anxiety factor, and just learn how to be human and learn that I’m probably a lot different than most people. And I didn’t know any of that. It’s been a fucking wild ride writing the thoughts that are in your head into songs and having kids hear them, relate to them, but actually know what I’m saying, and then send their words back to me and tell me who I was and who I am. Now, I’m actually getting the diagnoses and learning about that stuff, and trying to develop the skills to just function in the world so I’m not pissing everybody off at every moment.”

On that topic, before you released Panic Stations, very detailed conversations about mental health were nowhere near as common in culture as they are today, let alone in pop-punk songs. Yet you were singing about medication, depression, anxiety, OCD and so much more for years with a real disarming honesty. Does any part of you ever feel like you were too ahead of the curve – like you might have been a bigger band if the timing had been different?
Josh: “I mean, we’re so lucky. I don’t ever want to sound like I’m complaining about anything. We have great fans. We set out to do a thing that was going to be real, we didn’t want it to be something where we were trying to become millionaires. We just wanted to have a normal life, have a family, a house… Our goal wasn’t ridiculous, right? We wanted to just have a life making the art we make and build a relationship with an audience that respects each other and we did that. So, I’m not complaining that our band has had a series of bad timing or luck or getting in our own way. It just happens. You can always ask ‘What ifs?’ to yourself, and there’s a lot of those in our career that I can go through that I don’t because it’s stupid. I am really happy with where we’re at right now, and the record we made. It was a real hard record to make. I’m really proud of it. I’m not trying to be overly excited or think it’s better than it is. People have been really positive about it, but it could fail. People could not like it. I just hope that there’s a world that this actually comes out in! It’s been such a weird time.”

What inspired lead single She Is Afraid?
Josh: “The weird thing about our band is that some songs are written in a traditional way, but even when Justin writes a song, he starts a guitar part and he just starts spewing nonsense, whatever comes out of his mouth. He was singing ‘she is afraid’ and then he started building the song off of that idea, and then it presented itself and what he was going through the last few years.”

There seems to be a lot of that on the record..
Justin: “Even if I don’t know what I’m writing about, as I’m writing and recording it I refine it, and then I understand what it is that I’m doing, and that has been a really wonderful thing to sort of trust myself without knowing myself. And the really cool thing is, even once the record was finished, I’m like, ‘Oh shit, this is actually about this!’”

So, has your approach to writing lyrics or music changed for this new record?
Justin: “I feel like I’m still doing that intuitive thing that I always did, but [I used to get] sidetracked by thinking I had to be something at a certain point in our career…”

Who were you trying to be?
Justin: “I think it was the imaginary pressure to be as good as I thought people were saying we were, and somehow I just believed that, and so I was always feeling like a failure. The best thing about this record for me is that I don’t give a shit what people think. If they don’t like it, fine. Who gives a shit? I want to die knowing that I made art that I liked. But I want people to love it.”
Josh: “Yeah, don’t get us wrong – please like the record.”

One of many things to love on it is Particle Physics, which is not only an absolute banger but it was co-written with Mr. Patrick Stump, as well as featuring his vocals. How did that happen?
Josh: “Patrick is one of the earliest people that came to a show of ours as a fan and reached out to us before we ever knew about Fall Out Boy or met the band. That’s where we met. We’ve been friends for a super-long time, but just through the career of our bands, and them being astronomically huge and super busy it gets hard to stay connected in the proper way, unless you’re around each other all the time or on tours together.”
Justin: “We reconnected recently through a fan who’s become a friend, and that was really cool, because we both realised that we thought the other person hated us – we just don’t return phone calls or texts!”
Josh: “The Band World is weird, because sometimes you’re so busy you forget that someone texted you and people like us get in our own heads. We’re like, ‘Well, maybe they don’t like us. I don’t want to bug them!’”
Justin: “But we actually like each other! We’re friends.”
Josh: “Basically, we had been talking with Patrick about stuff, and I was like, ‘Hey, sometimes we have these songs that I fucking love, and then we can’t land a chorus – can I send you a couple of ideas, and maybe you can come up with something?’ So I sent him a couple of ideas to check out. He did one of them and sent it to me, I was like, ‘Oh, this is fucking cool!’ It’s not actually a song that we have on the record right now but then the next day, Patrick goes, ‘Hey, this was in my head all day, and it feels like a song that you guys would have written, but you just haven’t.’ That’s the way he put it. He sent that song, and he was like, ‘I don’t know, I’m not that great at lyrics.’ But it was great, the lyrics are fucking great. It was what we needed, because a lot of the stuff we had been writing was kind of serious for the record and this is fun.”
Justin: “He fucking killed it.”

Of course, you do realise you’re going to have to write a Fall Out Boy song for them now…
Josh: “Oh, we’re gonna!”
Justin: “Just so you know, Patrick wrote the lyrics to the chorus, and Josh kept on me to find the right kind of goofy, confused-type lyrics for the verses. And I went through so many of those. It did take a lot of work – this is a me thing, but I couldn’t sing someone else’s lyrics and melodies, and it took me a fucking long time to, like, integrate that into my body. But I’m so glad that I had the time to do that because I think Patrick was incredible. And I don’t know why he doesn’t write more lyrics!”
Josh: “Then we were like, ‘Hey, Patrick, we really want you to actually sing this song with us – why don’t you sing with Justin and harmonise?’ And so he did these amazing harmonies. We could release an a capella version of just Patrick’s parts! I would love for us to do more with him.”
Justin: “It’s like a spiritual experience. Can I just give a shout-out to all the other singers we had? Mat from Citizen sings on two songs, Deanna from Sincere Engineer, oh my god, the way that her voice gets – I wish I had that rasp! And I had two of my favourite current authors involved in different ways. There’s an author named Melissa Lozada-Oliva, who sings on Mi Corazon – she’s the response voice you hear in Spanish. And then the author Richard Chiem is just amazing – he’s got a short story called I Will End Your Bloodline, and I asked him if it was cool if I used that as inspiration and he said, ‘Oh, fuck yeah, brother!’ I cannot recommend his book King Of Joy enough. It is fucking crazy, and it would make an incredible movie. And Melissa Lozada-Oliva has written so many good books, but the latest one is called Candelaria, and it is fucking crazy.”

So now you’ve officially wrapped the record, how does it feel?
Josh: “I’m just glad that we can play music and continue to do that. And we’re lucky to be able to do that. We want to give people a great way to express themselves and be emotional. The world is a crazy place. So come be angry with us. Come be happy with us. Escape with us. Whatever it is, we’re happy to be here and be doing it.”
Justin: “The biggest thing I have taken away over the years of doing this is that I don’t think we have any assholes as fans. We got very lucky, because most of our fans are really fucking cool. They have a lot of empathy. They understand each other, differences and all. I’m just fucking grateful that that happened. And I don’t know why that is, but it's been amazing.”

Finally, UK shows, please? Yes? Go on, you know you want to…
Justin: “I’m just gonna put this out here because I really want this to happen in 2027: I was talking to Josh [Caterer] from the Smoking Popes at a show and we decided that we’re gonna tour in the UK together. So we’re going to figure that out. Talk to the people in charge about it! For us, it would be 20 years of Even If It Kills Me, and for them 30 years of Destination Failure.”
Josh: “This is not a thing that’s official!”
Justin: “No! But let’s get it out there, try to make it happen on your end where people read it and go, ‘We’re hyped!’ TV shows go away all the time, and then the fans bring them back, so fuck it: if you want to see Smoking Popes and Motion City Soundtrack play together and do Even If It Kills Me and Destination Failure and other songs, let’s fucking make it happen!”

The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World is due out on September 19 via Epitaph

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