Larry Heath recently had the chance to sit down with Soundwave bound Motion City Soundtrack‘s Jesse Johnson, while he was at home in Brooklyn, to talk about playing the festival in the past, surviving Hurricane Sandy, writing on the road (and off), favourite records of 2012, plans for 2013 and more…
How is everything in Brooklyn? I was over there when everything was ravaged, a little over a month ago now, is everything alright?
Yeah we faired pretty well, we’re a little more inland. We have some friends who didn’t fair very well who were staying with us for a while, but the properties there are somewhat getting back to normal now.
What a crazy time that was.
Yeah we did pretty well, it was pretty crazy.
Well, you’ll be coming to much sunnier skies in a few month’s time, I think it’s your third time playing Soundwave?
That sounds about right.
How have your experiences down here been in the past?
Really great. It’s been a lot of fun, every time we come and play Soundwave and visit Australia.
You’ve released a new LP since your last visit obviously, but more recently you released the sixth volume of the Making Moves series. How is that progressing along, it seemed to be an experiment more than anything else, at least at the beginning…
Yeah, we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into with that one… we just thought it’d be an interesting thing to do. I think it was really cool that we worked with the bands that we did in the studio. The process and seeing the inner workings of other bands, cause we’ve been doing this for so long that we know how we do it but it’s really interesting seeing how other bands work, interact with each other, who takes what roles…. It was really interesting to see that.
Looking forward to 2013, what can we expect from you guys other than your Australian tour?
I believe we’re going to Japan and spending more time in the States. We’re constantly writing, so trying to figure that out. We try to be productive and release albums about every two years. We’re looking forward to hopefully keeping on doing that. So we have a lot of touring and a lot of writing to do.
Are you the sort of band to tour and write at the same time, or do they have to be separate?
I would say, as far as writing goes, probably 75% when we’re not on tour… there’s a lot of working on stuff and working on ideas at sound checks though. So it does happen but it’s just not sit down and write and focus as we’re on tour.
It’s going to be interesting to see what comes next in the Australian shows. Have you got anything in store or is it too far away to be thinking about it?
You know I’m not really sure yet what we’re going to do. Every time we’ve done Soundwave in the past we’ve done shows with other bands. The last time it was really fun cause it was with Jimmy Eat World and RX Bandits and that was really fun, not only playing there ’cause we love all the bands, but just hanging out with people and meeting some people we didn’t know. I’m pretty excited to see who we’re doing sideshows with this year.
Have you heard any rumours of who you might be paired with or that hasn’t really started yet?
I don’t know yet, maybe Metallica? But probably not.
Hey that would be awesome. Its such an amazing line up every year, but this year in particular, is there anyone you’re particularly excited to share the stage with?
Metallica. I’m very curious to see what they’re shows like these, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen them.
You definitely get to see a lot of bands on the road, Soundwave is no exception. Looking back at the last year, have there been any support bands that you guys have had on the road that you have been keen to support and show the world?
Well I’m always trying to mention a band that’s also from Brooklyn, they’re called Great Big Pile Of Leaves. They have opened for us, actually opened quite a bit. I just saw them play their own show with HelloGoodbye last week. They’re such a great technical band and really professional.
Looking back the year in music, do you have a favourite album of the year?
There’s a band that’s just released an album, about a month or two ago a band called METZ. That’s what I’ve been listening to the most lately.
Speaking of not touring, it must be nice to have a bit of down time at the moment especially heading into the holiday season.
Yeah it’s good to be home, we were out for a little over two month I think.
What’s the hardest thing about the long touring jaunts?
Just spending time away from family, everything else is pretty good. But missing your partner and family and friends, it’s pretty rough sometimes.
It must all be fairly routine now, you must have a bag ready to go for every trip.
Yeah I just don’t unpack it!
Well when you come down to Australia for Soundwave, one thing I do like about that tour is bands actually get some time off. Is there anything you haven’t done in Australia though that you might try to do this time, like hold a koala bear, stand in front of the opera house?
Yeah we’ve done the opera house, the koalas, the kangaroos, the wallabies. Went to the zoo, a couple of zoos actually. The thing is, if there’s something fun to do, we’ll go and do it.
Well we’re really looking forward to seeing you down here, for Soundwave once again, it should be a very interesting tour. And fingers crossed you get the Metallica support!
Oh yeah that would be really cool!
———————
All the Soundwave Festival details you need are here: http://www.soundwavefestival.com/
