The Motion Epic are an exciting Synth Pop band, who music I dug the moment I heard it. I knew I had to interview them for the site. Read on.
1. How did The Motion Epic come about?
The Motion Epic started when Pat decided to follow his passion for 80s music and release some songs that were heavily influenced by that sound and the modern synthwave movement. He worked with Andreas, the band’s original producer and longtime mix engineer, to release the first two albums based on a combination of old demos and new material. With Nick and Aaron joining the band, the following albums captured a more complete sound of 80s Top 40 hits – a sound the band is unapologetically in love with.
2. Are you happy with the response to your music?
We are overwhelmingly humbled with and thrilled by the response to our music. Our fans are loyal, enthusiastic, and are in constant conversation with the band through social media. It’s impossible for us to state how grateful we are for our fans and their support.
3. How does a song start for you?
Most of the time the core trio of Pat, Nick, and Aaron will get together at one of our home studios in Austin, Montreal, or Reno for a week or two for a marathon review of whatever song ideas/demos we’re all the most excited about at the time. We’re usually slimming about 50-60 ideas down to about 8-10 for a given album, so we move through the initial phase pretty quickly and just set aside anything that isn’t making us jump out of our seats for a later time. We always end up writing one or two (or more) brand new songs while we’re all together in the same room though.
4. What inspired the song Heartbreakers?
Heartbreakers was one of Pat & Andreas’s demos from a while back. The band had toyed around with it for a few years, but the time seemed right when we were putting together the tracklist for High Rollers. We were in a mood to lean a bit in the pop direction, drawing mostly on the idea of combining Phil Collins and Michael Jackson into our more rock-friendly sound for the album. It’s probably the “poppiest” song we’ve made in a few years, but when you’re writing an album about having a good time at the roller rink… sometimes you just want to dance.
5. Has your songwriting evolved from album to album?
We like to think that it has. It certainly has in the sense that the first two albums were written and produced entirely by Pat & Andreas, and the rest written and co-produced with the full band. Earlier on the songs had a thematically darker tone in both lyrics and production, with a shift to a more uplifting mood on Boardwalk, then moving to a balance between the two and a more arena-rock style production on “America” and “Saturday Night”. High Rollers marks another shift, incorporating an airier, lighter pop style throughout.
6. How did working with Michael Oakley come about?
Michael Oakley is an icon of the genre. He undoubtedly receives a massive amount of requests for collaborations on a regular basis. We knew that going in, but we had this itching feeling that the track (Runaway) was just too good of a platform for his talents to not reach out and ask him to be part of it. Amazingly, he enjoyed the track enough to want to contribute!
7. How important is social media to you?
It would be impossible for us to exaggerate how important it is. The majority of our fans interact with us through social media, specifically Instagram – and since our fans are most of our motivation, we spend a ton of time on social media as a result. We use social media for everything from announcements to private conversations with fans that are kind enough to reach out. We LOVE talking to our fans, so we encourage anyone who ever wants to ask us anything, or even just say hi, to hit us up.
8. Do you write out of inspiration or when it comes to you?
Yes. 😉
But seriously, it’s anytime, any place, any way. All three of the core members are never NOT working on new ideas of some kind or another, so it’s just about weekly that we’re sharing mp3’s and organizing demos into folders on our hard drives. We have a massive library of song ideas at our disposal (we’re very blessed). We couldn’t stop writing if we tried.
9. What’s next for you?
We’re going to be focusing on making sure High Rollers reaches as many ears as possible for the time being, as well as engaging with our fans (old and new) about their reactions to it. We’re super excited to have finally shared the album with the world, so it’ll be hard to get us to shut up about it for a while. That said, and without giving too much away, we have plans to get started on the next album sooner than most people would probably expect…
10. What does 2025 have in store for the band?
Aside from sharing the new album with the world – we’d love to be able to hit the road and come play for our fans around the states (and beyond). We all have touring backgrounds but never get much of a chance to do that with this band, and that’s something we want to change. We had the pleasure of playing some shows in the Northeast in 2023, and to say they were a success would be an understatement. We’re eager to do some more of that. Like we said, we love our fans – getting to meet them in person is the greatest reward out there for us.
