Curse the Day You Knew: Motionless In White

For the past two years Pennsylvanian goth rockers, Motionless In White have played off all they can of what's left of their EP starter "When Love Met Destruction" (2009). Now that they are on the brink of releasing their debut full-length "Creatures" it’s all left in the hands of the creators known only as Motionless In White. Leading vocalist Chris spoke to me via email to discuss the band’s current plans, what is to become of them and where it will all end up next.

1. First let’s just get the basics down and introduce yourself to an audience who may not have heard of your band yet. How did Motionless In White begin and what was the motivation for creating this project?

Chris:  We started actually about 6 years ago with a way different lineup as a result of meeting each other in school and then wanting to start a band. Over the years we've had a lot of lineup changed to get where we are now and our motivation has always been the same since day one. We wanted to really try and do something different that no one else was doing at the time to try to define our own sound. After writing tons of songs over those years I feel like we finally got the job done with our new record Creatures.

2. How about touring it seems like that’s all you've been up to since your EP "When Love Met Destruction" was released in 2009. Where do get the time to write new material?

Chris: Yea we've been touring almost nonstop for a long time. We usually tour for a month and then break for a month then tour then break so it’s like a rhythm we have going and in all those month breaks is when we have time to write everything.  Our drummer, bassist Ricky and I wrote everything for the new record in all of that time off and then as we got closer to recording we spent a lot of time crammed in the van getting some last minute sorting done. It was hectic but we work really hard for what we do and didn’t want to waste a second on trying to make this record as good as it could've been.

3. Speaking of "new" material your debut album "Creatures" is due out on October 12th how does it differ to your EP?

 Chris:  It's just so much more evolved than any of our earlier stuff.  I feel like in the past we always knew what we wanted to do but couldn't quite achieve it… kind of like when you’re having a conversation with someone and know what you want to say but can’t figure out the words ya know? We finally just really pushed ourselves to trim the fat and not just let things slide cause they we're "good enough"... we wanted every part of every aspect to be perfect and I’m happy with it. There are a lot of different musical elements within each of these songs where as in our past work it was more so we were doing different things but each song has a specific style. It's a lot heavier and a lot faster.

4. How have the fans been reacting to the new material positive or negative responses?

Chris:  So far so good. The tour we are on now is our second tour playing new stuff and the song we have called “Abigail”, seems to make the crowd go off harder than any song we played live ever. It’s rough to play songs to people that they don't know but this song doesn’t seem to matter cause people just go insane regardless instead of just standing there waiting for the next song that they know.

5. Can we expect to hear a lot of the new stuff on the upcoming tours you have lined up?

Chris:  Yep… we are mixing a good amount of old with the new. I feel like we've been playing these songs for two years and people have seen us multiple times so it's a good opportunity to put some new ones in the list to change up the monotony.

6. What about those tours you got two back to back? The Entertainment Or Death Tour w/ Black Veil Brides and William Control and then the Average Guys With Exceptional Hair Tour, what do you hope to accomplish with all of this touring?

Chris:  I just want to get the new record out there. I don't care about the actual sales aspect of making money off of our music but I really do want kids to buy our record to get it out there and get these songs to people. I'm really proud of this record so I want these two tours to help distribute our music to as many people as possible.

 7. Could you tell me about "Creatures" is there a story behind the title and the artwork?

Chris: “Creatures” is about our fans. We wanted to give the people that support us the assurance that they are being acknowledged as the reason that we are a band and making music. I feel like too many bands take their fans for granted and don't do enough to show them how much they mean and I want to be that band that lets them know that we aren't doing this for god or for any other reason except for them. I feel like a majority of our fans are kids just like us who have a hard time making it through the world because of the way they look or music they listen to, so the artwork is supposed to symbolize that we are a unified mass of people (or in this case creatures haha) and we are all rising up together.

8. What can be expected from listening to this album? Did you try anything new?

Chris: Yea this kind of goes along with what I said earlier about feeling that we defined our sound as a band. Everything you are going to hear is unique to our band that I feel like when you listen to it you will know that it’s MIW. So many different elements of music have been put into these songs that I think it will defy labeling us into a genre.

9. How does it feel to be a part of the Fearless Records family?

Chris:  Really awesome. I've mentioned in other interviews before about how we knew before we signed that Fearless had a really good reputation for treating their bands great instead of many of the labels you hear horror stories about. We are an extremely honest band and wanted to sign with and extremely honest label. I can't say that I think we would belong anywhere else.

10. Can we expect a new music video anytime soon?

Chris: I HOPE SO!!! We really want to make one for our song “Abigail”, but I guess we’ll have to see how the record does first.

11. Last year you did a cover of Rob Zombie's "Dragula" why?

Chris: That was while we were writing our record and were still a long way away from recording it and we felt that people were starting to get bored with our songs we already had online. It was coming up on Halloween time and we figured what better of a way to do something special than to record a cover as like a "Halloween present" to our fans. We almost instantly all decided on Dragula because that song is SO badass and fits our band really well and Rob Zombie is a big influence of ours. I was really nervous about how I was going to pull of the vocals but I just went in there with the intent to kill and I guess I did a good enough job since people thought that it wasn’t even me singing it haha.

12. So what else can be expected from Motionless In White as far as the rest of this year goes? How about 2011?

Chris: We're just going to keep touring and playing as much as we can and pushing this record.  We’ll have our month off in December and going to work on a new set list and just get ready for the upcoming tours afterwards. Our biggest hope for 2011 would be Warped Tour for sure.

13. Do you have any last words?

Chris:  Just want to say thank you so much to the people who have been helping support this band! It means the world to us to be able to do this stuff with music and we hope everyone will pick up the new record when it comes out!