California emo quartet Movements have cemented themselves as one of the most loved acts in their field, and they’re ready to break some boundaries. The band are currently on a largely sold-out co-headline tour of Australia with British punks Boston Manor, which will see them play an impressive eight dates across the country – the first time both bands have made the trip since 2018.
We caught up with frontman Pat Miranda to chat about the tour and more.
What inspired the idea of a co-headline Australia tour with Boston Manor?
We have toured with Boston Manor a handful of times, from Warped Tour 2017 until we did our first US headliner – we had Boston Manor as direct support for that tour. And then Boston Manor had us as direct support for their latest UK headlining tour. We’ve just become really close friends with them over the years, and every time that we toured together, it’s just such a good time.
I think that our fanbases really coincide very well with one another. So, when it came down to touring Australia, basically the idea came from when we were on tour with them in the UK last year. We all had so much fun that when the end of the tour rolled around, we were like, ‘We have to do this again’. Obviously, we haven’t been to Australia in so long, I was hoping that we would still have a little bit of buzz over there. I’m very happy and relieved to see that we do indeed have that buzz, and that people are gonna be coming out to these shows.
When did you first meet Boston Manor, and what’s your best memory together so far?
Oh man. So, we met Boston Manor on Warped Tour 2017. We were playing a smaller stage called the Full Sail stage, it was mostly just younger up-and-coming acts in the scene. So, you know, it was us, Boston Manor, Trophy Eyes, Knocked Loose, and Creeper. A handful of just really, really good bands, but that hadn’t really broken out yet into the scene as much.
We were on Warped Tour and there was an off day somewhere in Texas, and we all met up at this little creek area where you could go and you could rent a tube and float the river. It was like a two-hour float where they take you on a bus and you get dropped off at the entrance point to the creek and then you float down it for a couple hours. There’s rapids and there’s rope swings and there’s all this fun, cool stuff around. We had a really great time.
Everybody got super drunk. I don’t drink, but everybody else got really drunk (laughs). We just had an absolute blast. And I think Henry from Boston Manor to this day says that it’s one of the best days of his entire life, and that he wanted to get it tattooed on him.
The last time you toured Australia was in 2018 at smaller venues. Where are you most excited to play this time?
I’m really excited just to go back to Australia in general, I don’t think I have one particular place that I’m the most excited about. I mean, last time that we were there, I truly loved every single place that we went to, everything was just so different and so interesting. And obviously going to a different country for the first time is always so overwhelming, but you know, very much in a good way because you’re experiencing all these new things.
And so, I think the last time around was such a whirlwind for us that I’m almost more excited to go back now because I think I’ll have a better answer to that question after this tour. You know, I’ll kind of know what areas and stuff that I really like or that I really wanted to go see.
That last run was with long-time friends Eat Your Heart Out, who are jumping on board for a few shows again. Have you checked out any of the other supports for this tour?
Yeah, we have actually. I mean, obviously Eat Your Heart Out are great friends of ours, we’re super excited to have them on a few of the shows. But we actually went and handpicked all of the support bands that were on these tours based on recommendations from local promoters and whatnot. But yeah, we basically had a bunch of bands submit to play these shows, and we went through and listened to them and chose the ones that we really enjoyed. And truthfully, it was hard to narrow it down for a lot of them because there were a lot of great bands that submitted to play these shows.
2022 single “Cherry Thrill” is an absolute bop and a different sound for Movements. What can fans expect from the next project?
We were listening to a lot of The Killers, a lot of Arctic Monkeys, and even Gorillaz, just stuff that we wouldn’t have necessarily maybe tried to do before. Even a lot of pop music, you know, we just took different inspirations and tried to really break that glass ceiling a little bit, and try to make something a little bit new that I think that, at the end of the day, Movements fans will still enjoy.
They might not be exactly what they’re expecting, and it shouldn’t be. These are songs that definitely stand on their own and are certainly, like I said, a departure from what we have historically done, but with the bones and with the soul of what we’ve always put into our music. Just sort of put together in a different wrapping with a little bow, and presented in a new way.
Will there be any other new tracks in the setlist?
Unfortunately not. We’re not putting any of the new stuff on this tour setlist just because none of them will be out yet, and we really wanna wait until it’s out and in the world before we start playing them. We’ll be playing Barbed Wire Body and we’ll be playing Cherry Thrill, obviously, but none of the new stuff, not this time around.
What’s your favourite Australian band and album?
See, this is a tough question because there are a lot of Australian bands that I really, really enjoy. This might come maybe as a little bit of a surprise to our listeners, but there’s a band from Australia, they’re like a blues rock band called The Teskey Brothers, and I’m obsessed with them. Their album Run Home Slow came out in 2019, and they’re an absolutely phenomenal band. I mean, they sound like an American blues rock band, but they’re from Australia, and you’d never be able to know that. They have this one single called So Caught Up that really drew me in. I started listening to them through that and I’m just in love with it.
There’s another band very much in a different realm of music, also from Australia, called Vancouver Sleep Clinic. They do very chill, kind of electronic, lo-fi sort of stuff that’s just downtempo and really, really pretty. But, you know, there’s so many sick bands and sick artists from Australia, it’s hard to narrow it down! And obviously, I can’t talk about Australian bands without mentioning Trophy Eyes or Eat Your Heart Out and Ambleside, all of our friends’ bands that we love so much, they’re all great.
You can get tickets to the remaining shows that are not already sold-out HERE. Follow Movements on Facebook and Instagram for regular updates.
