Gothic metalcore outfit Motionless In White's brand new album Disguise is out now. Find out what frontman Chris Motionless had to say about the record including his favourite track, and when we might expect an Australian tour!
Stream Disguise now on Spotify and Apple Music or order the CD from the official Maniacs store and receive a signed card with your order.
Are you excited for fans to hear your new record Disguise?
What's interesting about this one is we haven't been finished with it so long that I've been losing my mind. Previous records we've had them done months before the release date, but this one I think we only finished the mixing process like a month and a half ago, and that's been helping. The longer the wait, the worse it is, so right now I'm ok. I'm very excited to get it out there.
Have you ever had the experience where by the time it's out there you're over it already?
I would say that's happened on one of our records, but unfortunately, that was due to other reasons that weren't based around the album. The record sadly leaked a month early. It was a very big change of record for us and it was a massive ordeal for about a month when it leaked to when it came out. I lost all momentum and excitement over it. I was kind of dead inside about it for a little while, but that's the only time when that's happened.
How did the concept for the Disguise cover art come about?
I wanted us to really have something that I felt closely related to the title and the main common thread of the lyrics. After a few ideas here and there I contacted this really amazing artist by the name of Zac Dunn. I was in love with his art and I just felt like the second I saw it I knew I wanted him to paint the artwork, I just didn't know what. Once I had the idea, I worked it out with him.
Another really cool thing about it is that there's actually two covers for the record. There's the main one and there's the alternate one and they both speak to a different portion of what the lyrics and the title means to the band. It was pretty easy once we knew what that thread was going to be.
The creature from the album artwork appears in the Disguise official video. What does that character represent to you?
The character is that person you feel like when you feel like you have to wear a mask or a disguise and not really show your true self. We just call it "the ceature". This creature that's been used, abused, damaged, broken and has all these feelings of just absolute sadness and sorrow and despair. I know that a lot of people I've spoken to that enjoy our band feel those kinds of feelings and emotions on a daily basis and when I was working on the lyrics to the song, I wanted to represent those feelings as a visual entity.
What's your favourite track on this record?
I keep gravitating toward a song called Undead Ahead 2. It's one of the heavier songs on the record and I keep going to that one because I'm a sucker for throwbacks. I love when anything in the world is a throwback like an old-school feel, and that song was absolutely made to be a throwback to our first record Creature.
The tracks Disguise and Brand New Numb have a nostalgic sound to them. They remind us of the goth-industrial tracks from the late 90s and early 2000s. Did you draw any inspiration from that era of music?
That style of music is the era of music that I am most inspired by and most influenced by. If it's late 90s to mid-2000s, that's my favourite stuff. Whether it's Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, Korn, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, I just feel like that's the best era of music in that style. We try to incorporate that in our music now because I don't hear any newer bands doing that kind of stuff. It's just something that we love and we want to have our music centered around.
It makes me very happy that you said that. As long as it's coming across to some people who get it, then I couldn't be happier, so thank you for making my day.
What did you do differently on Disguise compared to Graveyard Shift?
This is to me the most similar record to another record we've done. I feel like every record that we've put out feels pretty different to one another and this one, to me, feels pretty similar to Graveyard Shift. It just feels more refined and more mature and all the other dumb shit that bands say about their new record every time it comes out.
I really think that we paid attention to the fans' feedback more on this record than ever before. We really wanted to create a record that felt like it was everything that we wanted to do but recognised that our fans are very outspoken and they often have a lot of unheard ideas that should be heard and that's something that we took into account on this record.
You've been playing a couple of the new tracks live, which ones are you finding resonate most with the crowd?
We were sort of nervous about playing the song Brand New Numb live. We felt like the fans might not really react to it, so we started our last tour playing Disguise and it went over really well. About halfway through the tour, we were like "alright let's try Brand New Numb and see how it goes" and it was awesome. The fans went crazy and it definitely shocked us, because we just were not expecting that. I'm still blown away by that stuff.
When are you guys coming back to Australia?
Right now I think the rest of this year is pretty booked up with touring. We have a Euro/UK tour at the end of the year and then I think we're going to do some stuff in the states. I would say that the target is the first half of next year absolutely. We started our headliner on Graveyard Shift in Australia - I wouldn't say that we'll end our headliner for Disguise in Australia, but I think it will be somewhere in the middle this time.
Are there any bands that you'd like to come out here with?
Ice Nine Kills would be a really cool band to bring out. Our new bassist is formerly from that band. Their guitar player helped produce the new record, so we're really good friends with them and I think that would be a really cool pairing that fans would like to see.
Listen to Motionless In White Now.
