Group

Motion City Soundtrack

Minnesota pop punk band

From: Minneapolis, United States
Since: 1997–present
Rating: ★ 3.5 (2 votes)
Releases: 28

pop punk
punk

About

Motion City Soundtrack is an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1997. The band's line-up consists of vocalist and guitarist Justin Pierre, lead guitarist Joshua Cain, keyboardist Jesse Johnson, bassist Matthew Taylor, and drummer Tony Thaxton. Over the course of their career, the group has toured heavily and released seven studio albums, the majority on independent label Epitaph Records. The band's sound, usually described as pop punk and/or emo, makes notable use of the Moog synthesizer. Pierre mainly handles the band's lyrics, which often touch on themes of anxiety, alienation, relationships, and self-destructive behavior.

The band was founded by Cain and Pierre, and took several years to form a stable lineup. I Am the Movie, the group's debut album, was released in 2003. Their commercial breakthrough, Commit This to Memory, arrived in 2005, and its follow-up Even If It Kills Me (2007) was similarly successful. For many years, the band was a staple of the Warped Tour. They briefly signed to major label Columbia for My Dinosaur Life (2010), but the label dropped the band shortly after and rejoined Epitaph for Go in 2012. Its follow-up, Panic Stations, arrived in 2015. The group disbanded the following year, but they announced a reunion in 2019, issuing their seventh album, The Same Old Wasted Wonderful World, in 2025.
The staff of Consequence ranked the band at number 75 on their list of "The 100 Best Pop Punk Bands" in 2019. In 2025, Terry Bezer of Screen Rant included the band in his list of "10 Forgotten Pop-Punk Bands Who Deserve To Be Better Remembered".

From Motion City Soundtrack on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Members

Joshua Cain 1997–1997, 1997–1998, 1997–2016, 1998–2001, 2002–2002, 2019–now · original member bass guitar, synthesizer, piano, keyboard, background vocals, guitar
Justin Courtney Pierre 1997–1998, 1997–2016, 1998–2001, 2019–now · original member synthesizer, piano, keyboard, guitar, lead vocals
Jesse Johnson 2001–2016, 2019–now keyboard, piano, synthesizer
Tony Thaxton 2002–2013, 2016–2016, 2019–now background vocals, drums (drum set), percussion
Matthew Taylor 2002–2016, 2019–now background vocals, bass guitar
Andrew Gruhn 1998–1998 · former synthesizer, piano, keyboard
Claudio Rivera 2013–2016 · former drums (drum set)