Status: Updates every Sunday and Wednesday!
We're Not Listening
Runaway - Fire Motion, pt. 5
A lot of things happened from 2004 to 2008. Four new bands were signed to the label, and the first of those four bands happened to be The Max, a ska band from Tallahassee. They’ll have their story next, but before they made a name for themselves, their first official release was a split EP with Fire Motion in 2004.
At that point, there was only one member of Fire Motion who had found a beau – and boy, did it show in the three new songs that went on that EP. Justin had met and married aspiring singer/songwriter Alexia McKinney, and damn it if that didn’t inspire him to create some of the catchiest and happiest lyrics ever made in their whole career.
After that EP, though, well…things started to lull. For Fire Motion, at least – not for the other bands that Rai signed over the course of those next years.
They never called it quits. They still toured, and between tours they would get together and jam out, write tunes that wouldn’t make it to the album, and every week it was just assumed that the guys would get together for a barbecue in someone’s backyard. They were a hometown band, and they just assumed everything would work out the way it was meant to, no matter how long things had to simmer.
You can’t rush a masterpiece. You can’t force inspiration. That’s one of the biggest rules that Rai told Fire Motion when they were first signed, and although it’s definitely not the case when it comes to jobs that impose deadlines, Not Listening Records had already shaped up to be the complete opposite of that. Music would be made when the bands were ready. Fire Motion had a bright start, and though they went four years without any new material, that didn’t matter – they were still as alive as anybody else.
2008 saw two big things on the label: the signing of a Chicago-born pop-punk quartet, and the release of “Get Yer Act Together, Fool!” from Gainesville’s own Fire Motion after nearly half a decade of waiting.
It was just as good as anybody anticipated, what with years of writing and perfecting the songs about nostalgia and finding home, and with another two music videos under their belt, Fire Motion had found a new inspiration for their art. They forgot what it was like to create something so beautiful and call it their own, and after the positive response from the people that mattered, every one of them knew that they were born to do this…almost as if they hadn’t known it beforehand.
And sure, compared to the young faces Rai picked up along the way, Fire Motion were a bunch of old farts – aged hillbillies who would rather have kicked back a few beers over a football game than play video games on whatever system kids were eating up those days. Sometimes the differences were highlighted and Justin or Anthony would say something stupid that would incite an argument, within or outside of Fire Motion, but at the end of the day, there was harmony. Joy, even.
Fire Motion lives up to their name – they started with a bang, and they’re still burning bright and moving wherever the wind takes them.
At that point, there was only one member of Fire Motion who had found a beau – and boy, did it show in the three new songs that went on that EP. Justin had met and married aspiring singer/songwriter Alexia McKinney, and damn it if that didn’t inspire him to create some of the catchiest and happiest lyrics ever made in their whole career.
After that EP, though, well…things started to lull. For Fire Motion, at least – not for the other bands that Rai signed over the course of those next years.
They never called it quits. They still toured, and between tours they would get together and jam out, write tunes that wouldn’t make it to the album, and every week it was just assumed that the guys would get together for a barbecue in someone’s backyard. They were a hometown band, and they just assumed everything would work out the way it was meant to, no matter how long things had to simmer.
You can’t rush a masterpiece. You can’t force inspiration. That’s one of the biggest rules that Rai told Fire Motion when they were first signed, and although it’s definitely not the case when it comes to jobs that impose deadlines, Not Listening Records had already shaped up to be the complete opposite of that. Music would be made when the bands were ready. Fire Motion had a bright start, and though they went four years without any new material, that didn’t matter – they were still as alive as anybody else.
2008 saw two big things on the label: the signing of a Chicago-born pop-punk quartet, and the release of “Get Yer Act Together, Fool!” from Gainesville’s own Fire Motion after nearly half a decade of waiting.
It was just as good as anybody anticipated, what with years of writing and perfecting the songs about nostalgia and finding home, and with another two music videos under their belt, Fire Motion had found a new inspiration for their art. They forgot what it was like to create something so beautiful and call it their own, and after the positive response from the people that mattered, every one of them knew that they were born to do this…almost as if they hadn’t known it beforehand.
And sure, compared to the young faces Rai picked up along the way, Fire Motion were a bunch of old farts – aged hillbillies who would rather have kicked back a few beers over a football game than play video games on whatever system kids were eating up those days. Sometimes the differences were highlighted and Justin or Anthony would say something stupid that would incite an argument, within or outside of Fire Motion, but at the end of the day, there was harmony. Joy, even.
Fire Motion lives up to their name – they started with a bang, and they’re still burning bright and moving wherever the wind takes them.
♠ ♠ ♠
The Max's story gets told next. I used to be a wannabe ska kid. I still kind of am, and it shows in that part. xD