“The Motion Below are back to finish what they started with "Truth Hurts", part two of their mini music series that encapsulates the inner turmoil of a man lost within himself and ultimate descent into madness.”

Jahmiele had a chat to vocalist Ryan Matheson about the release, the process, mental health, how to get the best out of your own band, and whats coming up next. We had a lot more to say so be sure to check out the full interview in the upcoming podcast episode!

Jahmiele: So, Truth Hurts is the most recent release with the video and everything, and the second half of the series. Why did you decide to do that in a two-parter?
Ryan: We had spoken about doing a multiple part like thing, for quite a few years and um, we just sorta like never got around to actually completing it. And then after we did Chronus complex, um, last year when we went into the studio, we were going in for two singles and we'd spoken about like, like addressing a particular topic and wanting to attack it in like a multiple part series. So me and the boys like had quite a few conversations about it. And, um, Tom and Aidan had this idea that they wanted to address substance, or not necessarily like, uh, um, what's the word? Like addiction, but it wasn't, we didn't want it to be addiction in the sense of like it was particularly substance abuse or any type of like alcohol or drug. We just wanted it to be addiction in like an umbrella term. So it could be multiple things or it could be anything that someone could be dealing with or something like that. 

J: So make them more relatable across the board.

R: Yeah, exactly. So the main thing was we wanted it to be particularly about the vicious cycle of addiction though. So even though like it wasn't necessarily about substance, it sort of loosely was based on that particular concept of someone being addicted to substance. So sorta how people or people will be addicted to whatever it is and their daily life will be based around solely that particular thing that they do. So whether it's drugs or alcohol, they'll go through the cycle of getting up on any day that you will usually sleep in for majority of the day. Go about doing a few things and then end up reverting back to the substance, so the substance rules their life. And then from there, you know, they sort of, in like the story, the protagonist knows that he's addicted to something and the substance is ruling his life and you can visually see it in the music videos that he's struggling with that fact. And even though he's trying to free himself from the chains of addiction, he can't and he feels ostracized from the rest of the world and paranoid I guess. And because of that he ends up just drawing back to being addicted to something and ends up basically losing his mind because of that.

J: One of the things I kind of picked up in the music video was when he went to walk out the front door and saw someone, it was kind of like a confrontation he didn't want to deal with. 

R: Yeah. Basically. It was pretty much, yeah. He felt like as soon as he went to walk out the door, he felt like the rest of the world was sort of like just, you know, everyone was looking at him, is basically the deal. So, he feels like as soon as he leaves his comfort zone, which is his own, his own house, um, he feels as if he's being ostracized from the rest of the world and everyone is sorta just judging him from a distance, I guess. And that's why in the video he ends up just turning back around and going straight back into the house where there's nobody else. 

J: And what would be like the ideal message you'd like to convey when talking about all of these things to your audience?
R: I guess in a positive sense it would be to try and make sure that if someone is in that position, then I guess try not to do what we sort of orchestrated in the video and actually reach out to people. And you know, even though if you feel like you are being ostracised from the world, there's always someone that's going to be there that's gonna want to listen to you and gonna want to help you. Like, all you have to do is ask for help.

We obviously don't want to send the message out to people that ‘this is what you should do’, it was more sort of like, we want it to orchestrate, we wanted to attack that message in a way that, you know, people could relate to it in a personal way and then hopefully they would obviously do something positive about it.

J: Yeah, for sure. The videos for Dead End and Truth Hurts were both directed by Martin Wood. He's worked with a bunch of amazing local bands including some friends of mine. It all looks amazing, but what was it like working with Martin?
R: He’s so easy to work with. He's such a good dude and he just like, he just has the knack, he knows what his vision is and how to attack it. So we first met Martin when we shot our previous music videos with Colin Jeffs, and Martin assisted on those videos. So that's how we kind of met him. And then when we did the singles we wanted to work with him because we had already worked with him before and because he's Melbourne based as well. So that was kind of why, but working with him in general, like we told him what we wanted, what the vision was and how we wanted them to come out and he just took that idea and then just, just basically everything, the whole video, like all of it was his idea.  We sat down with him on a phone call one night and he was like, ‘This is what I've got’, like ‘this is what I think we want to, how we want to do it’. And you know, ‘this is the setting that I've got’. And even with Dead Ends, the idea of having that backdrop behind us while we’re playing, and you can visually see that it's clearly a backdrop we’re playing in front of, that was all his idea as well. He took ideas from different band concepts and music videos that he's seen in the past and worked on, and we sort of took those and tried to, I guess use it in our own way. And like all of the story in the actual videos themselves, all of that - he shot it all obviously, but the way that the actor sort of portrayed himself in the character, that was basically like just him. We just sorta just like stood there and watched and we were like, ‘Yeah, man, that's cool. Like your ideas are great. We trust you.’ Pretty much. So yeah, it's really good. he's really, really good to work with.

J: So where did the original interest in metal in particular come from? What are your roots?
R: I guess when I first started playing music I personally was like more of a rock fan, like I was always playing Green Day covers and stuff like that. And then as I guess I sorta got that into music and got a little bit older, obviously spanned out to like Escape The Fate and Parkway Drive and all that kind of stuff in high school. And I just sort of went from there. My first band we started when I was in Year 12 I think, we were more like a death core/melodic metal core band. All the inspiration from back then was definitely like those, you know, early two thousands, post-hardcore bands like Bullet For My Valentine, Escape The Fate, Parkway Drive, all that kind of stuff. And I'm sure the rest of the boys would agree, like we all pretty much have the same sort of roots there.

J: I think you'd also been asked a similar question to this before, but it's a few years later. Um, what important things have you learned in more recent years as a band? Are you still doing what you set out to do? Have you got like different perspectives or anything has changed?
R: I think, um, like the vision was always from the start- So obviously like the name itself, The Motion Below, like we always felt like we were sorta like the underdogs. We always wanted to be the band that sorta come out from underneath from nowhere, creating waves, you know, whether it's in a local level or not, that slowly emerges through, you know what I mean? And like over the years, like most of the bands that were around when we first started aren’t even around anymore. And I think that sort of goes to show, I guess in a sense, out of determination and like what we originally set out to do. I suppose like from the beginning, we went through a phase where we tried to do everything DIY and you know, like, I guess, I don't know, we sort of tried to do things where we tried to save as much money as we could.  

And no matter how hard you do it, it works for some bands, but if you try and DIY everything, it just doesn't work. You need to put the money into the band, into the right places, you know, to make the content, make those music videos, make the band sound good in the studio and take the time to make sure all those things will make you look good. Especially online like these days. Especially like obviously in the music industry and especially now with everything going on. Your online presence is everything. And if you know, someone sees you online and you have a really crappy image, you have poor quality music, your music videos aren't produced well, all that stuff, It takes away from your band and who you are. And we have definitely learnt, especially through all the process of like basically through the cycle of Chronus Complex, doing everything right and putting the money into those particular things, Like PR studio, all of the content that you create, it is really important. And we personally ourselves have seen the results putting that money in, in the last year than we have before that. I think that's like a really important thing that people sort of like don't grasp until you actually do it.

Don’t get me wrong, it costs a fortune. Like it costs money to do your band that way. But the results in saying like, I was talking to our PR agent this morning and we're all talking about how well Truth Hurts has done in the last week. And literally a year ago we had 29 monthly listeners on Spotify and like, you know, no one listened to our band, no one cared who we were, And then from that stage we made sure we did everything right. And as much as it burns out a hole in your bank account, you know, the results show. So doing those things and putting the money into it and obviously putting the money where your mouth is, it gives you results 

J: You get the delayed satisfaction.

 R: Exactly. And if you look now like almost 12 years on from release of State of Decay, sorry, 12 months. And, um, we're now, you know, comfortably sitting at over 10,000 monthly listeners. The new single came out a week ago and it's on 7,000 streams. Like, you know, the numbers don't lie. Yeah, that's sort of like one thing when we're at shows and hanging out with all the bands and friends and stuff. Um, especially bands that are younger, younger than us and sort of ask us for those that like, you know, advice or how a lot of people seem to be really impressed when we did Chronus Complex cause we sort of obviously like went from a band that was just a, you know, a local band like everyone else to sort of somewhat making a name for ourselves.  And I've had a few conversations with a few bands and like, you know, how did you do it? Like what's it like working with those people and stuff like that. And I always tell people like, you just have to put the money in. Like that's sort of at the base of it all. That's where it all stems from. Because if you put the money in, you'll get the results.

J: For new bands who haven't quite started and grasped what to put their money towards - what would you say is the first priority? 
R: It would be production. Like making sure you go to producers and engineers that are going to give you the best product. So like, in the past we've gone, don't get me wrong, previous producers we’ve gone to have been fantastic, but we didn't have that hands on experience where we went into the studio with material and we sat down for, you know, three days straight and just tore everything to shreds in pre-production. And I think it's really important these days, especially in an industry that's so built up, you know, so oversaturated, there's so many bands in Australia alone and you know, a lot of bands sound the same and when you're in an industry that is so oversaturated and everyone's trying to do the same thing, like, you know, it's hard to make a name for yourself. Production step one is really important because you can stem from there….

Once you sort of grasp the concept of letting all the right people sort of have some type of artistic direction over your music, it opens up a whole new world for your band.

Of course as musicians, we’re artists, like you do have to make sure that you still maintain some type of integrity to what you're creating. We have a really good relationship like that with our producers where they know - I suppose we've worked with them for so long now they know what our vision is and they just help bring it out that step further where we can't do it ourselves.

J: You supported Buried In Verona at Max Watts? You’ve said was your favourite venue to play because you had that massive final, final show for them. Who would be part of your sort of dream lineup to be a part of? 
R: Oh man, that's a hard question. Um, God. I think a big one for all of us would probably be Kill, Switch, Engage. Anyone who saw us in the early days, we used to play My Curse at like every single show.
Probably Parkway Drive.
Bullet For My Valentine. Architects.
These days Polaris, like that would be sick. Those guys are just insane. I think that'd be a big one. especially being in Australia. And Wage War. I mean the boys love Wage War. We went and saw them when I came out early this year and yeah, that really good. Get onto em.

J: Is there anything else coming up for you guys?
R: Obviously it’s hard to do anything at the moment. So, well we've been sort of trying to think of ways to obviously keep engaged with our audience once Truth Hurts sort of starts to die down a little bit. We’re hoping to see, you know, release a few different things, like some play throughs and maybe some covers and stuff. At the end of the year we might be going back into the studio to do another record.

J: Backbeat’s priority is to support Australian music specifically, mainly. We try to ask everyone we interview what their top three current Australian artists are at the moment. They could be new or old, but Australian.
R: Yup. Um, Polaris. Yup. Um, Oh God. Who else? Um, I gotta think about it. Polaris um, geez, that's a hard question. Well, obviously definitely Polaris. I think Alpha Wolf at the moment, they’re making waves there. They're doing great at the moment, and To Octavia, they're really close friends, so definitely To Octavia.

J: Was there anything else you wanted to check in and chat about? Any last words?

R: Check out Truth Hurts!

LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW IN PODCAST EPISODE FORM HERE!

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