Southern California melodic rockers Movements have had a whirlwind of a career in such a short span of time. They signed to Fearless Rcords in 2015 after just one local gig and their singles ‘Nineteen’ and ‘Kept’ from their debut EP ‘Outgrown Things’ amassed over a million streams on Spotify and they’ve been touring nonstop. Along the way, they wrote and recorded their debut album ‘Feel Something’ which was produced by Will Yip (Tigers Jaw, Title Fight, Turnover, Citizen) and just recently was released. We caught up with vocalist Patrick Miranda during a stop over in Toronto while out on tour to discuss their quick rise to success and how they approached their first album.
Andrew: So how’s things on your end?
Patrick: Things have been great, things are going really well. Tonight we’re in Toronto just hanging out getting ready for the show and whatnot.
Andrew: Well obviously you have the new album that’s just come out, “Feel Something”. This is your first full length album right?
Patrick: Correct.
Andrew: So a first full length album is a very special thing for a band’s career, how did you get into the writing and recording for this and what were some of the things you wanted to achieve with it?
Patrick: It was definitely a really long process. We started writing “Feel Something” almost immediately after our first EP “Outgrown Things” came out and that was the Spring of 2016, so we really had been writing for a while. We probably wrote for over a year and a half just to kind of really make sure that every one of the songs that we put into this record went exactly that we wanted it to be and it represented the band in an appropriate manner. We wanted to make sure that our music grew, we wanted to make sure that we added a little bit of progression in our sound. Not necessarily a change because I still believe that Movements still sounds true to what we’ve always been but I do think there is a little bit of more mature, well rounded tone to the whole record. Not only lyrically but as musicians we’ve all grown and we’ve learned how to write with each other much better and we’ve learned to, I guess just be a better band. So we wanted to take all the things we considered to the writing and to make sure that we were growing but that we weren’t growing too much so that our fans could grow with us.
Andrew: Yeah I guess that’s one of the things that any bands strives to get, is to grow and mature and evolve. How do you feel about these songs now that some time has passed since it was recorded and released and put out there? Do you still feel 100 percent happy with how they have come out?
Patrick: Absolutely, yeah. We’re more happy with this collection of songs than we’ve ever been about basically anything. We all put so much work into all these, have literally put our hearts and souls and blood and sweat and tears into every single one of these songs, we spent so much of our effort and our time creating something that means so much to us. It’s great to have it out now and finally be able to see the reaction and sort of see how other people feel about it and how they are going to apply it to their lives and their situations. Honestly I don’t think there is anything I would change about this record, sure I definitely think for the next record I think we would want to do differently just so we don’t put out the same record twice. So ultimately I really do hope that this record is the strongest that we’ve ever been and we’re all very proud of it.
Andrew: There’s a quote from a recent press release and it makes me intrigued about it as it’s quite interesting, I don’t want to read the whole quote but it basically talks about the album and how you wanted to make people feel not just certain moods but just feel a mood which obviously goes to the album title. What was the inspiration behind that? Was there anything in particular that made you decide you wanted people to be really moved by this album?
Patrick: Absolutely! I think my biggest beef with a lot of music these days is that there’s not much substance to it. I feel like a lot of what you hear on the radio and not just the top 40 hits or whatever is popular in the mainstream world but I think a lot of our scene is fake, and obviously I’m not going to name any names and talk bad about them but I feel there’s a lot of gimmicks in our world and we’ve never been a band who has ever tried to cash in on any sort of gimmick or any sort of thing that makes our band our band. So with that being said, I wanted to make sure that what I was writing and what we’re writing in the end was real and honest and not just songs that are strictly happy, feel good songs and on the other end of that, not just songs that are depressing and messed up just for the sake of being depressing and messed up. Because there’s that whole “Bad boy culture” that’s really popular right now and I think that’s a little wrong because I think some people have tried to cash in on the idea that depression and anxiety and mental illness are trendy and I really dislike that. So I wanted to make sure that what we were writing was real and regardless of what it makes you feel, the idea behind it is I just want people to hear it and experience it. Not just listen to a band and just listen to these songs, I want them to experience and really genuinely feel each and every song.
Andrew: Yeah it’s an interesting take on things because obviously because of the way the music industry is now and how bands sometimes go for the easy way out and try for those big hit songs. How do you feel about the way music is being done now? Because it seems to me that you guys have this, I wouldn’t say old school approach, but something about it makes you want to listen to these collection of songs as an album and not so much picking random songs. Or am I completely off base on that?
Patrick: You’re absolutely correct, 100 percent. That is really important to me, I’ve always been the kind of person who strictly listen to albums. If I’m going to put on a band, I’m going to listen to a single record all the way through and that’s how I listen to my music. I’m not the type of person who can just shuffle something and I’m a firm believer that albums are curated and put together in a way that are meant to tell a story or give off a feeling or have some sort of structure and it’s something that bands and artists put a lot of work into, like how a record feels from start to finish. So all of these songs I would say are all pretty different, they all have unique vibes but we spent a lot of time going through a lot of different track listings and options so we could really get a solid, well rounded album experience and not just have certain songs that are going to be picked out and put into a greatest hits or whatever. We’re not trying to have that one hit, we want every one of our songs to be all hits if you know what I mean. I guess that’s a little unrealistic sort of idea because the reality of the situation is there is always going to be 1 or 2 songs that just get more popular and that’s totally okay but the idea is still there. Every song is in it’s place for a reason and it’s meant to be listened to from front t back.
Andrew: I definitely like that idea and hopefully the idea of listening to an album like that comes back in a much stronger way [than now]. One of the other things I read about you which is completely amazing is the fact that you were signed to Fearless Records a couple of years ago after just 1 local gig. Can you tell me the back story behind that and what exactly happened?
Patrick: Yeah so when we were first starting out we had released our first few singles on the internet without playing a show and we were working with a little Youtube channel called Dreambound and actually a lot of Australian artists are on this Youtube channel. It’s how we found out about Eat Your Heart out for instance who are our label mates now and are a phenomenal band from Newcastle I believe. Anyhow so we were working with Dreambound and we put out our first video and other singles and we were just trying to use that platform to really start pushing our music and really getting our name out there. So when we got offered our first show we had already got quite a lot of buzz surrounding us which was really cool, we really didn’t expect to have as much as we had. I think there was a lot of luck involved, the right people heard the things that we were doing which was cool. So our first show we actually had scouts from a couple of different record labels come and watch our set and almost immediately afterwards, we were setting up meetings to go talk to different labels up in Los Angeles. So that was really cool for us, we definitely didn’t expect it to happen as quickly as it did. So once we did have our meetings and whatnot and hear out the different labels options and who we wanted to go with, we ended up choosing Fearless Records. They’ve been really good to us, we’ve been really happy that we stuck with them and the fact that they took a chance on a band that really were nobody when they decided to find us, I guess we owe a lot of our success to them for sure which is cool.
Andrew: Yeah that is quite amazing and especially with the way things are now, I mean I guess anytime in the music industry to get a label interested is quite difficult but to get it so quickly like that must be really thrilling for you guys so congratulations on that. Also congratulations on the new album, have fun on tour and hopefully we will see you down under at some point as well.
Patrick: Yeah we’re definitely trying to get to Australia at some point next year. We’re not sure yet but I guess it may be Fall [Autumn] for you guys as it will be either Spring or Summer for us but we’re going to get down there at some point, you can definitely watch out for us at some point in 2018.
