Having been a part of the Soundwave Festival a couple of times now, Motionless In White are returning to Australia for their first arena tour as supporting act on the Big Ass tour with The Amity Affliction and A Day To Remember along with co-supports by The Ghost Inside. We spoke to vocalist Chris Motionless to discuss the tour and how the band plan to use this tour as a stepping stone for bigger things to come.
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Andrew: So have you guys been on tour recently?
Chris: Yeah we were actually supposed to still be on tour in the UK right now but due to some unfortunate events, that is not happening so we're just off at home until our upcoming Australia run.
Andrew: Well it's good to see you coming back to Australia again. I guess you've been to Soundwave but you've never actually done a club tour right?
Chris: Yeah I mean that's what I've been telling everyone is actually the highlight of this trip to Australia for us is the fact that we finally get to experience what it's like to play in clubs or any enclosed place in Australia, we're really excited about that.
Andrew: This is a fantastic tour with some great bands in the lineup so you must be excited to be part of this whole package.
Chris: Yeah, currently I think the major concern for every band at this point...I think every band was looking forward to the tour...now everyone is at a loss due to the recent developments of all The Ghost Inside guys. I'm not sure if you're aware of what happened with them.
Andrew: Yeah [Note: The Ghost Inside was involved in a bus accident where band members were critically injured and 2 crew members died]
Chris: I think the bands are going to go out there and try to have as good a time as we can regardless of the unfortunate events with those guys. We're still really excited to be there and make the best out of, like I said, finally playing an enclosed environment in Australia which we're really looking forward to.
Andrew: Yeah I know the fans are pretty excited about this. Have you guys toured with any of these bands before?
Chris: Yeah we've actually toured with all three of them. We did a full U.S. tour with A Day To Remember last year and we were actually on The Amity Affliction's first U.S. tour that they ever did a few years ago and those guys are all really great. I mean the reason we like being on this tour so much is just because we know ahead of time that all the bands are filled with really great people which is not exactly always the case. There's always a band or two with some people that you know are the kind of people that you don't want to be on tour with but with this one, all the guys in all the bands are stand up dudes so we're really excited to be asked to be a part of it. It feels like it reflects well on us too, the whole package is a bunch of bands that get along and they're good guys that make us feel like that's how we're perceived by the other bands so very grateful for that.
Andrew: Yeah absolutely. It can be quite difficult I guess if you are not getting along with some of the bands so it makes a difference if you are friends with the bands. So what can we expect on this tour from you guys?
Chris: Well for us it's a little challenging on a tour like this, for us in particular because we're opening the tour and it's not exactly as if we have an hour long set and all this production and whatnot. So for us in a situation like this tour, we're reduced down to just being on stage doing what we do. We just try to use that to our advantage. We realize that a lot of people that are at the shows don't really know who we are and may have only heard of us but never seen us before, so it's kind of a little extra motivation to really...We're probably only playing for 30 minutes a night so that's 30 minutes that we're going to be going fucking hard as we can to really get that show and to really do whatever we can do in 30 minutes to win over the crowd. Like I said, it's a little challenging when you don't really have anything on your side besides just you guys on the stage but I also feel like there's a certain level of excitement that we're going to feed off of from the fans that are going to be new, that are going to be excited to see us so it's going to be a very good couple of shows for sure.
Andrew: Yeah obviously it's a great opportunity to pick up new fans along the way which I guess is one of the benefits of being a supporting act on a big tour like this.
Chris: Yeah I mean we've only ever headlined I think the U.S. 3 times now, we've done the U.K. 3 times now. We've unfortunately never had the chance to headline in Australia, I think this tour is probably going to change that for us. It does give us something to look forward to post-tour where we're going to be playing to these new fans that might come see us if we do the headliner and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the next time we are in Australia on our next record cycle, is an actual headliner. We love supporting and we love getting in front of new people every nght but there just comes a time where each territory needs a headlining show and Australia has really been choked up for one and we need to make that happen. So this tour is a great setup for that or sure.
Andrew: Yeah exactly, it's the goal of any band, is to become the headliner of any tour. I guess you guys are still touring on the back of the latest album "Reincarnate", how has that being going over with the fans so far?
Chris: So far so good! We've been able to do Europe, North America, South America. We've covered a lot of ground off of this cycle of this record and it seems like it's been pretty well received in comparison to our last record that we put out. I mean there's some songs on that record that people really enjoyed but as a whole, I think the new one has by far surpassed the reception by fans so that's been really positive. It makes us feel like we're going in the right direction as a band right now, it's the direction we want to be in. So to see that it's been received well is great and I think that Australia is like the last territory that we need to go to, to make sure that fans are happy. We're going to finally see the reaction to these new songs and that's really exciting for us to kind of give us a better look at where we want to go in the future. So it's good, it's been great.
Andrew: I do want to ask you about a particular song on that album, "Puppets 3". There's a guest vocalist, Dani Filth from obviously Cradle Of Filth, on there. How did that come about?
Chris: Yeah he does sing on the song, it sounds like a total shot in the dark! I mean we're all massive Cradle Of Filth fans, we've all been influenced by them and by Dani for years now and when we were writing the song, it was like...we always like to have people that we idolize, feature on our record if possible and we've been fortunate to have had that on past records. So we kinda wanted to shoot a little bit higher for this one and just kinda put it out there to management to see if we could get Dani to be on the song and he was actually very receptive towards it. He did the song and it came out great and it was already awesome enough that he did the song but what took it to an astronomical level of awesome for me is when we actually met him. We ended up doing a tour in Europe with a different side project that he has called Devilment and he was just so nice, one of the most welcoming guys ever! You would think a guy like that who has been doing it for a while might be a little bit jaded and over being as nice or welcoming to some band, especially younger bands. But he was just so cool, it really made me feel like the song had something extra and the fact that meeting this guy that I look up to so much and he was being such a nice guy to us was really special for everyone. So that's going to be a monumental moment in not only my career but life so I'm very happy about that.
Andrew: That is good to hear! I had the opportunity to talk to him a while ago when "Hammer Of The Witches" came out and you are absolutely right, he is one of the nicest guys to talk to and a fantastic guy. It's not surprising that he's on your album because I do hear a little influence from Cradle Of Filth in your music so I guess it's good to have one of your heroes in your music like that.
Chris: Yeah that's one area of the band that has been extra curricularly fortunate in that, not only are the people liking our songs and whatnot for what they are as our band but then to have the amazing opportunity to have all these people that we really look up to, sing on our songs throughout our entire career. I don't know how we are pulling it off but it's working and I'm not complaining! I'm not going to question it, I'm just going to look forward to who might be next and be really excited about that.
Andrew: Well do you have anyone in mind that you would love to have on your next album?
Chris: At this point I think it's a unanimous decision that we would really love to have Ville Valo from the band HIM on one of our records. We're massive fans of the band HIM and of Ville, I think everyone in the band has been listening to HIM since we were fucking teenagers so that would be a pretty epic moment for us. We actually were fortunate enough to have been asked to do a small mini U.S. tour with them last year and that was pretty fucking monumental again for our career so having Ville on a song would really take shit to the next level for us. He's totally my number one at this point.
Andrew: Well hopefully it will work out for you and we will get to see him on your next album then. So with the big tour in a couple of weeks, do you have any last words for the fans out there?
Chris: I'm just really excited to be coming back to Australia man, it's unfortunate that it seems like it's only every 2 years that we get to come there and just know that we would be coming there at least once a year if possible. It's just not the way the cards fall unfortunately with how busy we are worldwide but I think that this tour is going to mark a new chapter in us and Australia's connection together and we're going to start seeing them a lot more often. There's not going to be the wait for Soundwave, we're going to start coming over there on our own to do some shows and start making a little more effort to get over there when it's not for Soundwave etc. We're coming, I think together everyone is going to make this tour really positive for our band.
Andrew: Good luck on the tour, hope it works out really well for you guys and we will see you in a couple of weeks. Thanks for your time today!
Chris: No problem man, thanks for having me!
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BIG ASS AUSTRALIAN TOUR 2015:
The Amity Affliction, A Day To Remember, Motionless In White, The Ghost Inside
Dec 10 - Auckland Logan Campbell Centre
Dec 12 - Sydney Qantas Credit Union Arena
Dec 14 - Perth Arena
Dec 16 - Adelaide Entertainment Centre
Dec 17 - Melbourne Rod Laver Arena
Dec 19 - Brisbane Riverstage (SOLD OUT)
Dec 20 - Brisbane Riverstage
Tickets and tour details can be found at BigAssTour.com.
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Interview by Andrew "Schizodeluxe" Massie on November 28th 2015
