#37: Tony Thaxton of Motion City Soundtrack and Bizarre Albums
"It’s rare that I’ll go, 'Hey that’s a good name!' It’s more sort of like, 'That’s a band name.'”
Members of touring bands, particularly ones who spent years working their way up from small venues and grinding it out on the road, have seen some shit. I never tire of talking to them, because they always have a few incredible, funny, humiliating, or otherwise entertaining stories. They’re also good resources for Band Name Bureau, because they’ve encountered a lot of other bands along the way. Take Tony Thaxton of beloved pop-punk outfit Motion City Soundtrack. The band doesn’t spend as much time on the road at this point in its career, there was a time when Thaxton was effectively homeless, just living on people’s sofas during the short downtime between tours. His life is a lot more stable these days, having settled in Los Angeles in 2007 and become a podcast host and producer of note. He hosts Bizarre Albums, which looks at a different such record every episode (wait, the Rock-afire Explosion made an album?), and produces and appears on Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend. He also plays in the deeply silly band Don’t Stop or We’ll Die, which is worth a whole separate interview.
Band Name Bureau: Do you remember the first time you ever noticed a band name as being especially good or bad?
Tony Thaxton: I feel like I always notice the bad ones more than the good ones. It’s rare that I’ll go, “Hey that’s a good name!” It’s more sort of like, “That’s a band name.” I feel like the bad ones stand out a little bit more. I almost feel like it was on an episode of The Wonder Years, where I thought it was made up for the show as a kid, and then realized later in life that it was actual band: I always thought the band name Strawberry Alarm Clock was very stupid. [Laughs.] That’s one of those instances where it’s just like, “Let’s just put some words together.”
BNB: Do you think it’s better to have a bad, memorable name or an unobjectionable one that’s just there and easily forgotten?
TT: I would for sure say it’s better to have the unobjectionable name, because while I will remember the bad names, if it’s really stupid—and this is probably shitty of me, but I’ll just fully admit it—it kind of makes me not even want to bother checking you out.
BNB: Have there been band names that have stopped you from checking out a band?
TT: Yes, and I technically did hear this band, but only because it was forced on me. They’re probably nice guys, but I always had a strong dislike for the name Diarrhea Planet.
BNB: Oh yes, classic. I wrote about them for one of the subscriber-only editions of this.
TT: Of course! How could you not?
BNB: It’s an objectively terrible name.
TT: I have to assume that’s what they were going for—I would hope. [Laughs.] That kept me away. I’m not gonna lie.
BNB: You mentioned on Alison’s podcast that Motion City Soundtrack is a name that you aren’t embarrassed to say. Have you been in bands where that was the case?
TT: Kind of, but never anything too bad. My band in high school—that actually lasted quite a while beyond high school as well—we had a couple of different names. At one point it was just Merge, and then we wanted to change it because Merge Records and all this stuff, but we couldn’t come up with anything, and we just changed it to Submerge. Not the worst name in the world, but not great, either, and I think everybody thought we were a hardcore band with that name.
BNB: I was just gonna say that’s a total hardcore name.
TT: Yeah, but we were not a hardcore band, not at all. It did not fit. [Laughs.]
BNB: You joined Motion City Soundtrack in 2002, about five years after they formed. Do you know if there were other names in contention when the band started?
TT: [Laughs.] Yes, I have heard stories of this. The ones that I can remember are not good, and I think that’s why they didn’t choose them. [Laughs.] Although this name kind of is amusing, it’s not a good name: One of them was Belt Weather.
BNB: Okay…
TT: And then I believe they also had Yukon Cornelius. [Laughs.] Again, I don’t know that any of these were really, seriously considered, but I’ve definitely heard stories about this before. I think there’s a few others, but those are the only ones I can pull off the top of my head.
BNB: Motion City Soundtrack is a solid name, but that said, it’s also three words and six syllables, and it’s probably been mangled a lot.
TT: Oh for sure, there’s a lot of things with the name. When the first record came out on Epitaph, we were getting stories of a lot record stores wrongly putting it in the soundtrack section. And then on top of that, we would show up to shows a lot of times, and the marquee or we’d see flyers or something that said “Motor City Soundtrack” a lot. But my all-time favorite, and I actually have the flyer on my refrigerator currently, was when we were opening for the All-American Rejects—this was like 2003, I think—at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Around the venue we saw some flyers for the show hanging up, and it said, “All-American Rejects plus Motion Man.” [Laughs.]
BNB: Not even the right amount of words! [Laughs.]
TT: Somebody just gave up so easily: “What was that? Motion something? Motion Man? Yeah, I guess, sure.”
BNB: People wouldn’t have any idea that was you if they were following the band.
TT: I mean, at this point we were no one anyways. No one was coming to see us, but still. That was the only time in my life that I went to the production office, not to complain, but to ask if they had extra flyers because I needed one.
BNB: There’s an entry for Motion City Soundtrack on tvtropes.org, and it has citations for lyrics or whatever, saying, “Punny name: The band’s name could possibly be a play on the term ‘original motion picture soundtrack.’” First, that’s not a pun. They just share a couple of words.
TT: Oh yeah, there we go. It was right there in front of me. That was another thing that would happen a lot. We’d get billed as “Motion Picture Soundtrack.”
BNB: Do any names stick out from all of your touring?
TT: The ones for some reason that amuse me are when it’s just one word, and it’s just like they literally looked around the room. Because I can remember three off the top of my head that always amused me. There was Klae—and I believe that was spelled K-l-a-e—and there was Pipe, Egg, and my personal favorite, Rug. [Laughs.]
BNB: Yeah, those are certainly… words. They just wash over you, in one ear and out the other.
TT: Pretty much, but for some reason they’ve just made this impact on me. I just feel like I’m never going to forget them, because they’re so, just, whatever. They were all local bands and, again, I’m sure nice people. I’m not meaning to make fun of anybody here, but it amuses me.
One that does stand out, I had seen an old promo shot in a club for a band called Chips and Sal-ska.
BNB: Oh wow.
TT: That’s one of my favorites that I have seen.
BNB: What are some of your favorite bands?
TT: Well, I love Braid, and then from that scene, I also love Q and Not U and the Dismemberment Plan, but then I also love Ben Folds Five and Ben Folds’ solo stuff, and I’m also a big Beatles nerd. I know it’s a boring answer, but it’s the truth. Those are some of my favorite-favorites.
BNB: Braid could totally fit the Rug, Egg, Pipe “here’s a word” scene. But there’s something about Braid that felt very of the time. Maybe it’s just because I was there and associate it with the Midwestern emo world. If I saw it now, maybe I wouldn’t have that same reaction.
TT: Yeah, totally. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m so used to it that I don’t think about it. But part of me does feel like, though, that it’s at least—I don’t know if “interesting” is the right word, but I can’t think of anything better—it’s slightly more interesting than Rug. It’s better than that at least. [Laughs.]
Most names I just sort of take it as, “Well that’s their name,” and I don’t put too much thought into it generally. Maybe that’s just the dumb guy in me, I don’t know.
BNB: I think also because you’ve spent so much of your life immersed in music and being around so many bands that you’re desensitized a little bit.
TT: Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll also throw in that I’m probably a dumb guy too. [Laughs.]
POST-SCRIPTS
If you’ve ever hear Tony talk about drummers on podcasts, you’ve undoubtedly heard him shout out Damon Atkinson of Braid and Hey Mercedes. I love the dead silence that follows when Tony mentions Damon, because no one has any idea who he’s talking about. But Damon’s super good!
Long ago Motion City Soundtrack covered Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair” for A.V. Undercover (first season?)—a fitting choice, considering singer Justin Pierre’s hair.
Motion City Soundtrack will be on tour in January. They’re always a good time—just see this 2009 review I wrote of their three-night stand in Chicago for Spin. PRETTY DEFINITIVE.