CityLife

Interview: Motion Theory

Motion Theory

LAST year, when Elbow collaborated with the Hallé Orchestra for those spectacular concerts at the Bridgewater Hall, the Bury band set something of a benchmark for contemporary rock musicians.

Evidently, it is possible for the worlds of rock and classical music to mix with fabulous results, and without any fear of pomposity.

New Manchester band Motion Theory, however, intend to take this lofty experimentation even further. Forget collaborations with the Hallé Orchestra – this group of heavy rockers could play a full classical concerto all by themselves.

“We’ve got backgrounds in classical music,” enthuses Motion Theory’s drummer Will Soutter. “So if we ever got a gig at the Bridgewater Hall, I think we could probably pick up all those classical instruments and play them ourselves. We could multi-task! Mixing rock music and classical music is one of those very dangerous areas, but it’s one of the biggest ambitions for this band. Rock music can have intelligence and sophistication without alienating audiences.”

Manchester’s heavy rock scene isn’t exactly noted for its heady levels of sophistication, and yet, in the shape of Motion Theory, we have four studious young men who would gladly trade their Metallica for some Mozart – more Last Night of the Proms than last pint at the bar, if you will.

When asked how they coped with the recent big freeze, the band reply: “We stayed indoors practising classical composing techniques and we watched the DVD box-set of David Attenborough’s Life series. We find Attenborough’s programmes very conducive to writing music.”

Classical influences

Motion Theory, if you hadn’t surmised already, are rock swots and utterly proud of that fact. All four members – drummer Will, guitarist Jamie Wesley, vocalist Dom Main and bassist James Kerr – have academic backgrounds in classical music, are highly accomplished on piano, cello and even operatic singing, yet have eschewed the classical career path for the dirty, nefarious world of heavy rock music.

The band’s self-funded debut album Featherhead, released late last year, announced their
arrival as Manchester’s reigning head boys of cerebral heavy rock – combining the dense, almost industrial textures of Nine Inch Nails, with the expansive, anthemic rock dynamics of Muse and Radiohead.

But what saves Motion Theory from any muso pretention is their eagerness to reconcile their classical pedigree with a more populist edge. By deftly wrapping classical influences around sweaty, hard-rocking anthems, Motion Theory are giving their fan-base a sneaky musical education – they just don’t know it yet.

“There’s naturally going to be snobbery towards a band who use classical influences,” Will concedes. “But I hope we’ll be the exception to the rule. We want to prove you can have more sophisticated, intelligent influences, but still make rock music that is accessible to larger audiences. We’re massively influenced by classical composers like Debussy – but you don’t have to be a Debussy fan to come and watch a Motion Theory gig.”

Will offers a knowing smile: “A lot of our fans are young girls who come along ’cos they fancy our singer! And I’m pretty sure those girls aren’t classical music nerds.” Formed two years ago and with an average age of just 20, Motion Theory are the sort of band who’ll make any novice musicians break out into a cold sweat.

Drummer Will and guitarist Jamie, best friends who met at secondary school in Macclesfield, first began writing songs as teenagers and were already displaying a precocious talent that put their school peers to shame.

Will recalls: “We never had that stage of writing simple songs with three chords and we never did cover versions. From the first day this band started writing music, we were always pushing boundaries and experimenting.”

Creative mindset

If all that sounds extremely boastful (guitarist Jamie has even won national talent competitions for his guitar virtuosity), then, well, it’s probably meant to be. Watch one of Motion Theory’s live shows or download their debut album (which is
generously free from their
website), and quite clearly, theirs is rock intelligentsia with little need for the softly-softly approach.

The band’s finest songs, such as All I Need and live favourite Sunlight On The Sand, are towering monoliths of rock density, given further histrionics thanks to singer Dom’s soaring vocal range, the sort of songs you might imagine Muse would be writing five albums down the line.

Indeed, looking to the future is very much a key part of the band’s creative mindset.

“We’re pretty disconnected to what’s going on in music currently,” Will considers. “When it comes to writing music, we’ve never tried to follow fashions or trends. We’ve got quite a futuristic approach.”

For all their high-brow banter, though, Motion Theory are not completely immune to populism thrills. Coming not far behind performing at the Bridgewater Hall on their ‘things to do’ checklist, is an ambition to win over one of their biggest idols.

Not someone from the classical music world, but, erm, Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson.

“We’re huge Top Gear fans,” laughs Will. “If we were ever featured on an episode of Top Gear that’d be amazing. Some bands would run a mile, but if Jeremy Clarkson came out as a fan of Motion Theory, that’d be an amazing accolade. Car freaks and classical music nerds – if we could corner both those markets, we’d be very happy.”

For more info visit – www.motiontheoryband.com.