Some musicians love all their old albums, while others refuse to revisit anything they’ve done in the past. Then there’s Chris Motionless, who kind of hates all his work leading up to Infamous.
“I wouldn’t say that I hate anything we’ve done… I just hate some of the stuff we’ve done,” the totally candid vocalist says, laughing.
Sure, Motionless might not be pleased with the work he’s put out in the past, but rather than get discouraged, or simply give up, the vocalist uses his dissatisfaction as inspiration to continue the band’s evolution.
“For me, this band is about creatively wanting to accomplish things that have made me discontent with stuff in the past… I don’t regret anything we’ve done, I look at the things we’ve done and wish I could have done certain things differently… I guess I just see things a lot more negatively than I do positively,” he says with a laugh.
Perhaps the vocalist is so willing to talk about the dissatisfaction he feels towards some of the music he’s made in the past because he’s so happy with what the band have achieved on their second long-player, Infamous.
The record has the band move away from the quasi-gothic metalcore of their debut full-length Creatures and find a richer, more diverse sound.
A maelstrom of industrial grooves and new wave of American heavy metal hooks offset by the band’s penchant for theatrics, Infamous sounds like White Zombie at a Tim Burton-themed Halloween party.
So, apart from Motionless’ displeasure with some of the older tunes, what led the band to try and pursue different styles on Infamous?
“My main desire for this record was to get out of the quicksand pit that I feel we were stuck in. I always thought that we were doing something that was different and putting a spin on a genre where a lot of the bands were doing the same shit… When I listen to Creatures, I hear all of our influences and all these things that I put into the record that I knew set it apart from all of these other bands. And yet, I still see on iTunes when I look at the related artists list, we’re being compared to all these bands that I in no way supported us being related to. I was like ‘fuck!’ I really felt strongly that we were doing it differently, but there we were in that fucking pit of band after band after band who sound the same. I just didn’t want to be a part of that with this record.”
“This record, it’s just balls-out, straight up what the f**k I wanted to do. I did not care what anybody else would say or whether the fans were going to get pissed off with it being different… I really think this album is a good step out of that pit.”
Talking about the bands in this ‘quicksand pit,’ Motionless is careful to say that he’s not ‘shit-talking’, but that it gets to him when he feels that fans misunderstand the band’s intentions. And it really does seem to get to him.
“Urgh!” he moans in frustration, “people think that we’re everything but what we actually are. It sucks. And I’m hoping that the new record is going to get a lot of shit, but be compared to bands like Marilyn Manson and Slipknot. I’d be at least happy if we were being compared to those bands rather than in the past were we’d get grouped together with band X, Y or Z.”
Before Motionless In White could get away from X, Y and Z, they had to deal with the departure of guitarist T.J. Bell, who left the band to play with Escape The Fate. Following Bell’s departure, bassist Ricky Horror was promoted to guitar and new member Devin Ghost was given bass responsibilities. Talking about the line-up change, Motionless doesn’t mince words.
“T.J.’s a piece of shit and although the parting of ways with him wasn’t exactly smooth, I’m just glad that he’s out of the band and out of our f**king lives. That way we can stop having a drug addict alcoholic in the band. Without him we’ve been going uphill.”
Discussing the band’s past members, contemporaries and discography, Chris Motionless seems a little sour. But for all his negativity, the incredibly passionate musician is decidedly positive about where the band are going with Infamous.
“Switching around the line-up has worked out great and I think that where we are now is finally where we needed to be all along.”
