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Motionless In White
Scoring The End of The World
Interview by Yara Al-badri
After an unanticipated break, Motionless In White have returned with their most developed album yet. There comes a point, where an artist meets their match and creates what's close to perfection. Scoring The End of The Word is a body of work that conjures up a decade’s worth of emotions and turmoil, as the band grew personally and professionally. It’s a treat for fans that have followed the bands personal journeys and successes over every release since Infamous. Leaving easter eggs for dedicated listeners, fans will hear Motionless In White like never before, with vocals fit for ballads on tracks like “Werewolf” and “Porcelain.”
Read/Order our June issue with Motionless In White on the cover HERE
Photo by Ashely Von Helsing
The clean vocals in songs like "Porcelain" and "Werewolf" positively surprised me. I am wondering, were you taking lessons in preparation for the album or was this a talent you’ve been hiding from us all along?
Hiding? That's funny, I wish I had hidden talents that were coming out on our records!....No, I don't think it was something I was storing in the background of my vocal ability. It was more so, touching on things that I really love that vocalist do that I've never actually tried. When I hear a song like “Werewolf” my immediate thought is bands like Muse or artists like Michael Jackson, which are the two biggest artist influences for that song. I was always like, I would love to try those things, but there wasn’t a clear moment to really go all out with it. That's it, just a longing to try something new that I love listening to and want to participate in…I’ve spoken to a few people that have heard it and they all pinpoint that song. Which of course, is great because it’s the band's favorite. It relives a lot of stress, to know that people are as interested in it as we are.
The record feels like a journal entry. Was there a reflection process, that then turned into this record? Or did writing this record give you the opportunity to reflect?
Both happened simultaneously - Some of these lyrics are a product of me finding out who I am - “How do I feel about myself?” “What do I wanna say about my experiences and the emotions I’m feeling at that given time?” Others were essentially observing myself and saying, “This is a pattern of my behavior that I wanna write about.” Because it’s either destructive to myself, or I find it’s something that I wanna change, or even hate. I seem to find the greatest lyrical motivation, in things that are painful and or sorrowful. I don’t know why, but I'm motivated by those things in an art sense more than anything! That's just how it is for me, and that's what I use to carry myself into a writing session.
It feels like a great deal of growth happened on this record, musically and personally.
I think so too, it feels that way for us in the band as well. We sit back and listen to it and we’re like, “Who are we?” Normally during a writing process, you know so much of the final product that you’re not really surprised at the end…With this record we were like, what just happened?
Photo by RockCandy
I noticed in “Porcelain” and “Masterpiece” there's a theme of apology, in a genre hyper focused on burning bridges - Could you elaborate on this feeling of atonement?
Absolutely, over the course of the pandemic, I’ve looked deeper into myself than ever before. There's a line in “Masterpiece,” “As I modernize my antique ways” - I felt that was very true over lockdown. It was like, I need to look into these patterns of things that I have done, that have been destructive to myself and people around me…I wanted to do my best to learn from those mistakes and become a much more developed, and emotionally mature person. But in-order to do that, I have to forgive myself for what I’ve done to myself. That’s what “Masterpiece” is, a letter to myself asking for forgiveness and acknowledgement that I've hurt myself more than anyone. I have stopped myself from experiencing happiness that I feel like I could or I deserved.
A lot of songs that I love are those moments where bands air that out. In ways that cut deep and connect with you, because it’s exactly what you’re feeling in that moment. That's the type of stuff that I've always felt the most comfortable writing. I don't know if that’s because I connected to other artists that write that way, but I really wanted that to be my style as well. It feels really good to write your feelings out on paper, stand at a mic, sing them and express them to people. It’s a really intense cathartic feeling.
This was the first Motionless In White record that made me pay attention to what you were saying beyond being a great record or a killer song.
I love getting to see the full spectrum of how a song or an album can be interpreted. I believe that this one is the most provoking, in the way it can be interpreted. There's something about it that commands attention on a level that’s not an accompanied sound to your daily experience.
Photo by Rhyan Maldonado
“The Prozac’s gift wrapped with a smile, the cash grab never goes out of style,” are lyrics from “We Become the Night.” Were these lyrics more of a personal tone or a larger social commentary?
Very much a social commentary on the pharmaceutical industry and the way things are marketed towards people…More so the treatment of the symptoms, not the root cause of the problem.
I feel that there is a parallel here between “We Become the Night” and “America,” socially. Would I be right to think this?
I’ve always felt like I tried to put my social commentary, or my opinions on what's going on in the world into our songs where it makes sense…it’s more heavy on this record than ever before. The events of the last 2 years, commanded to find a way for Motionless to make a statement in where we stand in all this. “We Become the Night,” “Red White & Boom,” and “Slaughterhouse” are all songs that tie back to the same mentality that the track “America” has. What I think is sad is [that] Infamous is 10 years old this November and look at where we’re at.
Myself and a large sum of your fans were younger when Infamous was released, not yet completely conscious of politics and the magnitude of those issues. It’s crazy to see the same conversation making its way back around 10 years later, where we now fully understand.
I know that people love to throw the “keep politics out of music” statement around. But I grew up listening to punk, I loved when bands had something to say. To me there's a lot going on right now, that really requires bands to step up and use their platforms to promote positivity, and use that energy to change the world for the better. We have the ability to speak to people on a larger scale than most…I just want to be on the right side of things.
I noticed that you drew back to “America” in “Red White & Boom,” with the lyrics “The land of the free the sick and depraved.” This paired with a politically charged single like “Slaughterhouse”had me wanting to know, are these themes of social justice something you wish you had explored on earlier albums, like “Infamous,” or are they a commentary on our world today?
To say that I wish I did earlier, is to say that I wish I personally were more aware and active in trying to consume information. We gotta admit, I’m a white guy and I had a privilege, where myself and others like me didn’t have to seek out that information because it’s not in your face every day. As the years have gone on, I've become more acutely aware of the world and what is the full spectrum of life on planet earth. If you’re able to step outside of yourself and your own experiences, you can see that a lot of people are hurting and suffering from a multitude of different injustices.
I wish that I much earlier turned my ear onto what was going on, instead of being so focused on what I was doing musically with my friends. Right now is where I'm at and there’s no better time than now to take the knowledge I've gained to express my statements…“B.F.B.T.G.: Corpse Nation” is attacking groups like QAnon. Groups that spread misinformation, and really only promote negativity, hatred, false information and all of the most deep-rooted negative things in our country, in my opinion.
Photo by Rhyan Maldonado
One of my favorite things about Motionless, is the parallels between albums. In “Burned At Both Ends II,” you say “Leaving you behind left me aimless, standing in the mirror and I feel like I’m faceless.” Right away the Infamous album cover came to mind, and how hollow and hurt “Burned At Both Ends” feels. Is the reason we got a part 2, redemption for the feelings of the person who wrote the original track?
Yes…I felt very similar to how “America” is a 10 year look back to what's happening, where we’re at now vs. 10 years ago. A decade is a good point to stop and look at the before and after. Because I touched on that in relation to “Infamous,” we got “America” to“Slaughter House,” etc. I wanted to do that on the personal side as well. “What is the overall arc of the emotions of the personal songs on this record?” “What song in our catalog feels the most connected to that?” By far for me it was “Burned At Both Ends.”
The point of that line was to reference where I was and who I was at that point. My struggle up until 2018, when our song “Disguise” came out I felt like I was addressing the point where I was going to take control and make the effort to put an end to that side, that “face” and it [all] comes together in ‘’Disguise”...that line in “Burned At Both Ends II.” It’s a way to kind of reference 10 years, a couple years, and now. I like to tell stories through songs and fans get to kinda watch my life unfold through these lyrics.
I went back and listened to the original “Burned at Both Ends” after hearing part 2, it was interesting to see the parallels to an extent experience the emotions that were put into that track, then and now.
I share that with you. I also went back to that song and re-listened, when I knew that was gonna be the track that had that very specific “part 2” attached to it. I tried to put myself in that same exact spot again. I think of all the songs that Motionless have had that have been ahead of their time, in a sense it was ahead of its time in that it’s addressing something about my life that here we are 10 years later, and it feels the most connected out of anything in our catalog. I thought that was amazing, to look back and reflect. I remember writing that song during a thunderstorm, on a screened in porch in Florida sweating my ass off and just really being in a dark place, I felt like I was right there again, it was so cool.
Fan Question: From the sound of “Cyberhex” and from Mick Gordon being featured on the title track, can we assume you guys were influenced by Mick & DOOM for this album? What other artists or games inspired you as well?
DOOM is a massive influence for us. Having him be a part of the album was a dream come true, to work with someone who you feel you share the exact same vision with.
“Cyberhex” was a huge influence on the aesthetic of the band. It was taking things that we loved from a genre, that we felt was very connected to what we wanted to do musically, and blending them together to create this cool like “gamer metal” type of thing. I’m really happy that the pandemic allowed us to think outside the box. I wanted to try to create something that felt larger than just our reality. Those games create that realm for you, you feel like you’re in something larger than life. I wanted the album art to give the same vision to people when they saw it.
Are we seeing these themes of video games and dystopian worlds within the record due to the pandemic, or musically, was this a universe you’ve been wanting to explore for a while?
I think it’s a little bit of both, I love the aesthetic and the desolation that post-apocalyptic and dystopian realms evoke in me. It wasn't too thought out in the sense that we wanted to define it as something specific, we just wanted to do what represented what the album is and the world that we felt we were heading towards and visually represent that in a way we’re comfortable with.
The lyrics all speak to a sense of renewal. It sounds like it’s a negative title or that songs are very sad or angry, but it’s not about the end of the world all together. It's the end of the world as it is right now, we're going to, out of the ashes, build a better world and step away from it. Though it is post-apocalyptic, it is a world that is going to be created out of the ashes of the previous one.
The lyrics “Landmines composed in command lines, amplify or die, it's us or them” stuck out to me - Could we touch on that?
That song feels like “This is it, we’re at the front lines of the resistance of what's happening. We are going to be the ones to change things and prevail, as cliche as it sounds. This record was the first one I walked away from and felt like it was an exclamation point at the end of it, rather than just a period…It’s a record that this year really needs, it’s the one for us.
Scoring The End of The World encompasses the trials and triumphs of a person whose personal journey has taken them on a road of growth not yet experienced. New characters and new emotions all in a new world. Scoring The End of The World is hands down Motionless In White’s best work to date. The record itself can be taken in so many directions by listeners, it’s a timeless piece that touches a multitude of emotions. A fan could listen to the album for years to come, as each story of their personal journey unfolds and still find something that speaks to them.
My hope is that in a decade we can take a look back at this record whilst reflecting on our personal and professional growth once again. Until then, Motionless In White, congratulations on such a beautiful body of work.
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Photo by Rhyan Maldonado
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