Brett Islaub - The Mission in Motion (07/04/2012)
The 59th Sound spent some time with Brett Islaub, front man of punk rock outfit The Mission in Motion and got the low down on their pending album and single release ‘Control’, Brett’s dream to tour with Tom Petty and how Circa Survive member Anthony Green became an unlikely guitar tech during a Soundwave set.
How did you come up with the name The Mission in Motion?
It was actually something that Kenny our guitarist came up with, a really long time ago and every time I get asked this question the story of how it came about it kind of dilutes. I believe we were throwing names back and forth and he kind of just said that like maybe he’d had it in his head for like a week. We were all throwing back ideas and he just came out with it, everyone’s like yeah cool that works we’ll do it and over time it kind of got meaning to it, like a message about us working hard as five people towards a common goal and it kind of stuck.
The band was recently part of the epic awesomeness that is the Soundwave Festival 2012, how did you find the whole experience and what were the highlights?
It was ridiculous, it was mind blowing, I think it’s the most fun you can have on tour in Australia, seriously, I think it’s a credit to the organisers and everyone who sorts out the festival that it was so well looked after and every band just felt so welcomed and it was such a great tour to be on. I mean in terms of us being on it, it was so ridiculous to walk around catering or walk around the stages, meet and talk to people we grew up listening to or still listen to, or people who inspired us it was such a crazy kind of tour.
In terms of stuff that happened there were a few stories that involved Anthony Green from Circa Survive who was probably one of our good friends on the tour that we met on the tour. In Perth we had pedals fall over while we were playing, I think I ran over to Kenny and I kicked his pedals over while I was mid sweet rocking move or whatever the hell I was doing and Anthony Green saw it on the other side of the stage and just comes running in front of how ever many people and just gets down on his knees and puts it all back, it was hilarious!
Best roadie ever!
Yeah and I remember looking to my right thinking ‘Holy shit that’s Anthony Green like guitar teching for us’, that was a cool thing, to meet people like that, that we listen to who just turn out to be the most incredible people is something that’s inspiring to us as a band, but yeah the whole tour was just incredible.
There’s been mention of a second album release scheduled for August, how is the writing / recording process coming along for that?
Its coming along well, we just finished a new song last week which is actually going to be the next single. We’re working on it as we’re kind of on and off touring and so it’s coming along not as quickly as normal but I mean that’s a good thing. We get to sit back and listen to the songs that we have created and decide whether or not we like this bit or that part. That’s the good thing about it, we can kind of really stand over the songs and discuss what we like about it and what we don’t, as apposed to having two weeks to record a record and then turning it out really quickly and then going ‘Holy shit I really don’t like that part in that song’ and then it haunts me for the rest of my life.
So I mean in that way it’s going really well, I’d say over half the record is done right now, we’ve got a couple of songs that need to be recorded and a couple of songs that need to be written. We’re mostly happy with it I think, in terms of our opinions we think it’s the best record we’ve ever done
How do you think this album will pan out compared to ‘Somewhere Safe’?
I think this album will be better, for lack of a better word or a more eloquent word, I think it’s going to be bigger, there are a lot of things that we didn’t try on ‘Somewhere Safe’ that I kind of wish that we had have and those things are on this record. There are a lot of heavier parts and things like that, everyone progresses in a band and it’s always going to be that way, but I think that the more we write together and the more songs we push out, the better it’s going to be in terms of song writing.
There are also some things about ‘Somewhere Safe’ that I didn’t love in terms of little parts to songs I wish I could change and I haven’t really come across any of those in the new songs that have been finished. I’ve been listening to them back a ridiculous amount to decide whether or not I like them and I haven’t found a problem with any of them yet. So from a personal point of view that’s something that I really am quite proud of the fact that I’m not overanalysing and I’m not sitting there going ‘Oh this part , that part’, I think that’s a positive thing from my perspective of how the record’s going to turn out.
You’ve had a chance to tour with some excellent artists including Senses Fail, You Me at Six and We The Kings, is there anyone you’d like to share a stage with that you haven’t yet?
There are like a million people that I want to share the stage with that I haven’t yet but if I had a dream list there would be bands that would probably be bands that wouldn’t suit the dream list.
Oh! So what are a couple?
Umm my all time, if I could tour with anyone, I would kill to open for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, because they are my favourite band and I am completely obsessed with Tom Petty. There’s a band from the U.S that have been one of my favourite bands for years called Hot Rod Circuit who broke up a couple of years ago but recently reformed, they’ve always been a massive thing for me they have a record called ‘Sorry About Tomorrow’ which is probably my favourite album of all time. I would kill to tour with those guys, but yeah the list is ridiculous I could go on all night.
What challenges do you think you’ve faced as a band since your first EP release ‘A Curse, A Calling’?
How much time do you have? A lot, we’ve dealt with line up changes, these are all things that every band goes through. I think in the early days there was a lot of self doubt in terms of is anyone going to like this, if we go on tour are people going to show up, I think that they are the main concerns in the case of struggling internally as a band. I think just writing better songs and pushing our selves to be a better live band and things like that I think they’re the main challenges. As people say you’re only as good as the last thing you did, we always strive to make the last thing we did the best it could possibly be. I think that’s a work ethic we really pride ourselves in as a band and I think it’s something that’s important to us to not be a fashion band or like have a ridiculous hair cut but not be able to play our instruments properly. I think we pride ourselves in being a band that’s honest and really cares about what we do and the quality of the things that we put out.
Your latest release ‘Control’ has been getting regular airplay on Triple J, how are you feeling about the attention your music is receiving?
I feel really good about it, it’s never something that we expected, I mean back when Triple J started playing ‘New Skin’ it was something that kind of took us all by surprise and we’re like ‘oh shit, they’re playing us on the radio what’s going on’. Thankfully everything that’s been released since then has been put on high rotation and Triple J have had us in for like a version and the doctor on Triple J came out and watched us for Soundwave and things like that.
The support they’ve given us as a band we’re incredibly thankful and grateful for, but at the same time I think it wasn’t anything we ever expected or anything that we ever felt that we needed to keep going as a band. I mean it’s definitely nice that people who are just on facebook and things like that saying ‘oh I heard you on the radio’ or occasionally we’ll catch the song on the radio and I’ll be like holy crap, that’s definitely an added bonus but not nothing we ever expected.
Speaking of Triple J, that cover that you did, by The Naked and Famous ‘Punching in a Dream’, why did you decide to do that particular song?
We had a couple of ideas we were throwing around in terms of what song we wanted to do for it, we were just finishing up a tour when our manager called us up and said at this stage you’re going to do a Like a Version show make sure you have something. We threw around a bunch of ideas and then went to Far our guitarist’s house and recorded a couple of the cover ideas that we had and we weren’t sold on any of them. Then Far called me one day and was like ‘dude have you heard this punching in a dream song’ and I was like ‘yeah I’ve heard it’ and he was like ‘what do you think about it’ and I was like ‘yeah it’s pretty good’ and he’s like ‘I reckon we could do a really good version of it’ and I was like ‘are you joking?’.
I didn’t really understand how it was going to work in terms of how it was going to sound and what way we would interpret it or anything like that, and then he sent me a recording that he recorded in his house of him doing it. I was just like ‘holy crap that sounds really good let’s do that’ and it just kind of spiralled that week and then we did it the week after, that so yeah it all came together pretty last minute.
You’ve announced the ‘All Work No Pay’ tour coming up in May with Jonesez, are you looking forward to heading out on tour again? What can fans expect from these shows?
I’m never not looking forward to going out on tour it’s kind of like my holiday every time I go out on the road which is awesome, but yeah we’re always happy. I mean I would tour 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year if I could. Going out and getting to play music and getting to connect with people, we’re pretty lucky to be five guys that can drive hours across the country and have people show up. I think that’s always going to be something that’s exciting for us, it’s never going to be like ‘oh no not another show’, it’s always going to be like ‘holy crap, there are so many people coming to watch us play, more than there was on the last tour’ I think that’s kind of the way we look at it.
In terms of the show there’s going to be a few new songs, I know that for sure we’re going to put in some songs from ‘Somewhere Safe’ that we haven’t played for a while. We played pretty much the whole record for the first album tour and then after that we dropped a bunch of songs, now there are even some songs we haven’t ever played. Just fine tune the live set so it’s the best that it can be and hopefully go out and have a really good time.
It seems the band is in favour of touring single releases prior to album releases, any particular reason why you tend to do that?
We did one for the single ‘New Skin’ and then the record came out and we went out on the album tour and then we toured the two singles that came after that. With the new record, there were two songs that were recorded for the album first off the bat and that was like well we still got to write half of the record and we still got to then track half of the record so we need to give anyone who cares about our band something in the mean time.
If we had time to record new stuff all the time and release it then we would, but anyone who waits around or cares enough about our band to ask us when the next song or when the next record is coming, we kind of want to give them something straight away. I think that was the decision behind releasing ‘Control’ and going back out on tour for it, because if we pre release the song then that’s the best excuse for us to go out on the road and that’s what we’re looking for. So yeah that’s pretty much the deal behind why we’ve released ‘Control’ and are going out on tour for it when the record’s not due for a while.
What’s next for The Mission in Motion?
We’re going to go out on this tour and then we’re going to finish this record and then we’re going to get organised in terms of releasing it and then once it’s released we’re going to go out on tour and play anywhere that’s going to have us. We kind of want to do the biggest tour that we’ve ever done, just play areas that we never have before and see how it goes and just really give the record all that we believe it’s going to be worth. Then after that we’ll probably tour a lot more for like a year and start working on another record.
It’s been excellent talking to you, have a great night!
Thank you so much for talking to me, you too.
Nazia Hafiz
How did you come up with the name The Mission in Motion?
It was actually something that Kenny our guitarist came up with, a really long time ago and every time I get asked this question the story of how it came about it kind of dilutes. I believe we were throwing names back and forth and he kind of just said that like maybe he’d had it in his head for like a week. We were all throwing back ideas and he just came out with it, everyone’s like yeah cool that works we’ll do it and over time it kind of got meaning to it, like a message about us working hard as five people towards a common goal and it kind of stuck.
The band was recently part of the epic awesomeness that is the Soundwave Festival 2012, how did you find the whole experience and what were the highlights?
It was ridiculous, it was mind blowing, I think it’s the most fun you can have on tour in Australia, seriously, I think it’s a credit to the organisers and everyone who sorts out the festival that it was so well looked after and every band just felt so welcomed and it was such a great tour to be on. I mean in terms of us being on it, it was so ridiculous to walk around catering or walk around the stages, meet and talk to people we grew up listening to or still listen to, or people who inspired us it was such a crazy kind of tour.
In terms of stuff that happened there were a few stories that involved Anthony Green from Circa Survive who was probably one of our good friends on the tour that we met on the tour. In Perth we had pedals fall over while we were playing, I think I ran over to Kenny and I kicked his pedals over while I was mid sweet rocking move or whatever the hell I was doing and Anthony Green saw it on the other side of the stage and just comes running in front of how ever many people and just gets down on his knees and puts it all back, it was hilarious!
Best roadie ever!
Yeah and I remember looking to my right thinking ‘Holy shit that’s Anthony Green like guitar teching for us’, that was a cool thing, to meet people like that, that we listen to who just turn out to be the most incredible people is something that’s inspiring to us as a band, but yeah the whole tour was just incredible.
There’s been mention of a second album release scheduled for August, how is the writing / recording process coming along for that?
Its coming along well, we just finished a new song last week which is actually going to be the next single. We’re working on it as we’re kind of on and off touring and so it’s coming along not as quickly as normal but I mean that’s a good thing. We get to sit back and listen to the songs that we have created and decide whether or not we like this bit or that part. That’s the good thing about it, we can kind of really stand over the songs and discuss what we like about it and what we don’t, as apposed to having two weeks to record a record and then turning it out really quickly and then going ‘Holy shit I really don’t like that part in that song’ and then it haunts me for the rest of my life.
So I mean in that way it’s going really well, I’d say over half the record is done right now, we’ve got a couple of songs that need to be recorded and a couple of songs that need to be written. We’re mostly happy with it I think, in terms of our opinions we think it’s the best record we’ve ever done
How do you think this album will pan out compared to ‘Somewhere Safe’?
I think this album will be better, for lack of a better word or a more eloquent word, I think it’s going to be bigger, there are a lot of things that we didn’t try on ‘Somewhere Safe’ that I kind of wish that we had have and those things are on this record. There are a lot of heavier parts and things like that, everyone progresses in a band and it’s always going to be that way, but I think that the more we write together and the more songs we push out, the better it’s going to be in terms of song writing.
There are also some things about ‘Somewhere Safe’ that I didn’t love in terms of little parts to songs I wish I could change and I haven’t really come across any of those in the new songs that have been finished. I’ve been listening to them back a ridiculous amount to decide whether or not I like them and I haven’t found a problem with any of them yet. So from a personal point of view that’s something that I really am quite proud of the fact that I’m not overanalysing and I’m not sitting there going ‘Oh this part , that part’, I think that’s a positive thing from my perspective of how the record’s going to turn out.
You’ve had a chance to tour with some excellent artists including Senses Fail, You Me at Six and We The Kings, is there anyone you’d like to share a stage with that you haven’t yet?
There are like a million people that I want to share the stage with that I haven’t yet but if I had a dream list there would be bands that would probably be bands that wouldn’t suit the dream list.
Oh! So what are a couple?
Umm my all time, if I could tour with anyone, I would kill to open for Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, because they are my favourite band and I am completely obsessed with Tom Petty. There’s a band from the U.S that have been one of my favourite bands for years called Hot Rod Circuit who broke up a couple of years ago but recently reformed, they’ve always been a massive thing for me they have a record called ‘Sorry About Tomorrow’ which is probably my favourite album of all time. I would kill to tour with those guys, but yeah the list is ridiculous I could go on all night.
What challenges do you think you’ve faced as a band since your first EP release ‘A Curse, A Calling’?
How much time do you have? A lot, we’ve dealt with line up changes, these are all things that every band goes through. I think in the early days there was a lot of self doubt in terms of is anyone going to like this, if we go on tour are people going to show up, I think that they are the main concerns in the case of struggling internally as a band. I think just writing better songs and pushing our selves to be a better live band and things like that I think they’re the main challenges. As people say you’re only as good as the last thing you did, we always strive to make the last thing we did the best it could possibly be. I think that’s a work ethic we really pride ourselves in as a band and I think it’s something that’s important to us to not be a fashion band or like have a ridiculous hair cut but not be able to play our instruments properly. I think we pride ourselves in being a band that’s honest and really cares about what we do and the quality of the things that we put out.
Your latest release ‘Control’ has been getting regular airplay on Triple J, how are you feeling about the attention your music is receiving?
I feel really good about it, it’s never something that we expected, I mean back when Triple J started playing ‘New Skin’ it was something that kind of took us all by surprise and we’re like ‘oh shit, they’re playing us on the radio what’s going on’. Thankfully everything that’s been released since then has been put on high rotation and Triple J have had us in for like a version and the doctor on Triple J came out and watched us for Soundwave and things like that.
The support they’ve given us as a band we’re incredibly thankful and grateful for, but at the same time I think it wasn’t anything we ever expected or anything that we ever felt that we needed to keep going as a band. I mean it’s definitely nice that people who are just on facebook and things like that saying ‘oh I heard you on the radio’ or occasionally we’ll catch the song on the radio and I’ll be like holy crap, that’s definitely an added bonus but not nothing we ever expected.
Speaking of Triple J, that cover that you did, by The Naked and Famous ‘Punching in a Dream’, why did you decide to do that particular song?
We had a couple of ideas we were throwing around in terms of what song we wanted to do for it, we were just finishing up a tour when our manager called us up and said at this stage you’re going to do a Like a Version show make sure you have something. We threw around a bunch of ideas and then went to Far our guitarist’s house and recorded a couple of the cover ideas that we had and we weren’t sold on any of them. Then Far called me one day and was like ‘dude have you heard this punching in a dream song’ and I was like ‘yeah I’ve heard it’ and he was like ‘what do you think about it’ and I was like ‘yeah it’s pretty good’ and he’s like ‘I reckon we could do a really good version of it’ and I was like ‘are you joking?’.
I didn’t really understand how it was going to work in terms of how it was going to sound and what way we would interpret it or anything like that, and then he sent me a recording that he recorded in his house of him doing it. I was just like ‘holy crap that sounds really good let’s do that’ and it just kind of spiralled that week and then we did it the week after, that so yeah it all came together pretty last minute.
You’ve announced the ‘All Work No Pay’ tour coming up in May with Jonesez, are you looking forward to heading out on tour again? What can fans expect from these shows?
I’m never not looking forward to going out on tour it’s kind of like my holiday every time I go out on the road which is awesome, but yeah we’re always happy. I mean I would tour 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all year if I could. Going out and getting to play music and getting to connect with people, we’re pretty lucky to be five guys that can drive hours across the country and have people show up. I think that’s always going to be something that’s exciting for us, it’s never going to be like ‘oh no not another show’, it’s always going to be like ‘holy crap, there are so many people coming to watch us play, more than there was on the last tour’ I think that’s kind of the way we look at it.
In terms of the show there’s going to be a few new songs, I know that for sure we’re going to put in some songs from ‘Somewhere Safe’ that we haven’t played for a while. We played pretty much the whole record for the first album tour and then after that we dropped a bunch of songs, now there are even some songs we haven’t ever played. Just fine tune the live set so it’s the best that it can be and hopefully go out and have a really good time.
It seems the band is in favour of touring single releases prior to album releases, any particular reason why you tend to do that?
We did one for the single ‘New Skin’ and then the record came out and we went out on the album tour and then we toured the two singles that came after that. With the new record, there were two songs that were recorded for the album first off the bat and that was like well we still got to write half of the record and we still got to then track half of the record so we need to give anyone who cares about our band something in the mean time.
If we had time to record new stuff all the time and release it then we would, but anyone who waits around or cares enough about our band to ask us when the next song or when the next record is coming, we kind of want to give them something straight away. I think that was the decision behind releasing ‘Control’ and going back out on tour for it, because if we pre release the song then that’s the best excuse for us to go out on the road and that’s what we’re looking for. So yeah that’s pretty much the deal behind why we’ve released ‘Control’ and are going out on tour for it when the record’s not due for a while.
What’s next for The Mission in Motion?
We’re going to go out on this tour and then we’re going to finish this record and then we’re going to get organised in terms of releasing it and then once it’s released we’re going to go out on tour and play anywhere that’s going to have us. We kind of want to do the biggest tour that we’ve ever done, just play areas that we never have before and see how it goes and just really give the record all that we believe it’s going to be worth. Then after that we’ll probably tour a lot more for like a year and start working on another record.
It’s been excellent talking to you, have a great night!
Thank you so much for talking to me, you too.
Nazia Hafiz