10 Questions with ... Me in Motion

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

LINE-UP:

• Seth Mosley (lead vocals/guitar)
• Tim Wilson (bass/bgvs)
• Brian Dexter (drums/bgvs)

LABEL:

• Centricity Music

DISCOGRAPHY:

• Me in Motion Debut LP (2010, Centricity Music)
• Me In Motion EP (2008, Word Records)

1. Introduce the members of the band using personality traits. (The quirkier, the better)

Seth: Born and raised in central Ohio, in Circleville to be exact. He started his career dressed as a pumpkin in the Circleville Pumpkin Show, poised to win the prize for the best baby in the Baby Parade. Over the course of his life, he has developed a big passion for producing and songwriting. This has recently led to producing and co-writing on the upcoming newsboys record, and he is always writing for some other artist's record while on the road. In terms of quirkiness, his band mates have dubbed Seth the "allergy king" as you will constantly find him carrying around an arsenal of medicine and allergy relief. You will almost never catch him without messing with his iPhone, as he has recently become addicted to stupid word games such as Words With Friends and Scrambled.

Tim: From small town of Mariposa, CA, near Fresno, Tim might be one of the most polite people you will ever meet. Tim is definitely the "numbers guy" in the band, as he handles the merchandise side of things. He is also the in-house food connoisseur. It is perhaps the biggest earthly priority in life having a great meal, so Dex and Seth will always usually go along with his advice for a food stop unless of course it's Perkins.

He is also the shopping expert in the band as he always seems to have an eye for good bargains: both at clearance racks, thrift stores and flea markets. This skill has led to him finding a side job in buying/selling music gear via eBay and Craigslist. So, if you send him a message now he's probably got a few nice guitars or pedals for sale as we speak.

Dexter: Wichita, KS is home to the drummer who happens to be the only bald member of the band. He holds the rhythm section of the band together, both on and offstage. He is the master trailer packer and you will find the pack getting better as each show goes along. He is the in-house handyman known to rewire trailers, replace fuses and his mastery in sewing has proved to benefit the whole band (and sometimes whole tour) in the areas of patching jeans and fixing shirts that may need to fit a bit snugger. If you look back at the early days of MIM you would notice a "side business" near the merchandise table called REFRIED JEANS. This was a small endeavor Dex started and ran from the road where he would acquire old jeans from thrift stores and garage sales and he would patch them up, stylize them a bit and resell them at shows. He is becoming quite skilled at photography and video making; you can see his work every Monday at youtube.com/meinmotionband. One quirk of his that his band peers have noticed is a bit of road rage that usually comes out in rush hour traffic. But hey, we're all human!

2. Can you offer a brief look at how the band started and eventually signed with Centricity?

Seth: We've been together for about three years after meeting through a studio connection where I was producing in Columbus, OH. One mission that the band has had from the beginning is that the tour dates section on our website would never be empty. This has been the case since tour one. Independently, we've toured around 130-150 dates a year and have been on several very notable tours with artists like newsboys, Pillar, Sanctus Real, RED, Stellar Kart, Fireflight and more. The second mission of MIM is that we would be so interactive with our fans that it would feel like a real community, being a part of Me in Motion, almost like a movement. That's why we are always online, posting blogs almost every tour date, Twittering a few times a day, posting pictures every night, making YouTube videos and responding back to as many messages as we can on our online avenues. We want there to be a true connection. This long road of hard work led us to signing our first record deal at Word Records, which eventually led us into our current deal and our new home at Centricity Music. We can't express how happy we are to be a part of something that really feels like a family at Centricity, where each person is a huge support to our ministry and we value everyone there.

3. What's the message you hope to convey on the debut album?

I always find myself writing about the theme of wanting to make a difference, to live out our faith, even when it might be the hardest thing in the world to do. My heart for myself, the band, the kids and families that hear this record is that all of us will be inspired to break out of these little bubbles that we so often find ourselves retreating into and to show everybody a little bit of Jesus' love every day. It's a bit of a scary thought because I personally like to have a 10-step guide for what to do and how to do it rather than just a basic rule that says, "Alright, get out there and love God and people as much as you can!" But isn't that what faith is for at the end of the day? Living a true life of love, I've found, is never the easy life. But it's the real life. It's the only life that fulfills who we're meant to be and that, in a nutshell, is my personal goal for this first record.

4. Is there any special story behind the radio single "Losers"?

A huge part of our unique identity as a band is expressed in the song "Losers." The aggressive, groove-based anthem has always been a huge crowd pleaser as a song with the power to encourage and motivate our audiences. It was written from the experience of me going to a new school in seventh grade and not really having a true friend until halfway thru the school year. The experience made me feel like a "Loser" or being on the outside.

It's really a banner song for anyone who has ever felt rejected by their peers whether it's because of how they look, something that's different about them or because they're trying to follow Jesus in a world that looks at that as strange. But the song is also a callout for us to open our eyes and see the "least of these" that Jesus talked about who are all around us. My favorite line in "Losers" says, "Maybe that's a four-eyed Jesus, coming from a broken home." So the song is saying let's look at people through eyes of mercy and compassion as Jesus would and let's love them as if they were Jesus because he told us as we do unto them, we do unto him. (Matthew 25:40, which is incidentally one of my favorite verses.)

5. Can you share the story behind the band name?

It was inspired by a Leo Tolstoy quote that says, "Everybody thinks about changing the world but nobody thinks about changing himself." This really hit me because I know that deep down inside we all have a calling within ourselves to make a difference. A lot of the time I think we are waiting around for the golden opportunity to get called on a mission assignment to Africa or to save someone in the middle of the road from getting struck by a car or whatever it might be. The same can be said of my testimony, where I was always waiting to have a "light bulb epiphany" like we hear a lot of people experience: in diving off the deep end, hitting rock bottom, getting into drugs, wanting to commit suicide and then all of a sudden being rescued from that life by the grace of God. My story, along with the other guys in the band, was a different one. We were all brought up in the church, raised by great parents and fortunately we never had to experience the other way of life. But I still found myself waiting for a green light to go and live out my faith.

My conclusion, which took me about 18 years of life to reach, was that Jesus had already done a work in my life of saving me. Wasn't that enough in itself? And it was just up to me to use every opportunity to live out my faith, not just the ones that I wanted for my life, not just the easy or obvious times. I discovered that a lot of the time the act of simply living out my faith in Christ is a very difficult and uncomfortable thing. It comes in reaching out to the people when we'd rather not. It comes in loving the people in our life that are "unlovable" by the world's standards. We realize it when we put our own interests last.

And this is really the story behind the name. Not being complacent but really living a radical life of faith, just like the one our Savior lived.

6. What is your favorite city/venue to play?

City and venue may be two different answers, but I would say that our favorite place to play was at an incredible festival in Kramfors, Sweden called Jesusrock Festival. The people there are so receptive to our music and really get into the show. Christian rock is a bit of a new thing to their culture so we are happy to be a part of breaking that barrier. We've just discovered our favorite city in the States is Seattle, as we all just got to experience it for the first time this past weekend. [Smile]

7. You've already been out on some big tours: newsboys, Red, Fireflight, Stellar Kart, Pillar, and now Sanctus Real. What have those experiences been like?

To say the least, we are extremely blessed to have walked through all the doors that we have and been out with such awesome bands. We've been big fans of some of them and have looked up to them for a long while. It's just a really cool feeling to be able to share the stage with them.

8. Was there a moment in the studio, working on the new record, that you thought, "Ah-ha! Wow. Now we have a record!"?

This record is such an interesting story because it's been done over such a long period of time and we almost released it with ten of the first songs that we did. But thank God we had the opportunity to get back in the studio and record five of our newest tunes, which I think are even better. I think it really clicked when we demoed the newer songs, "Losers" and "Leaving Here Someday" for the first time down in my parents' basement in the impromptu studio we had thrown together. It really felt like we had found the capstone for our record with these new songs and the direction for the record. We were able to replace some of the older ones that we felt weren't as strong.

9. If you weren't doing music, what would you be doing?

That's a very tough question to answer because I've never really been drawn to do anything else besides music. If I wasn't touring, I know that I'd be in the studio producing or writing for other artists.

We've often talked about this as a band, and if we had to give an answer, we've arrived to the conclusion that Tim would definitely be a national park tour guide, eBay specialist or a professional world traveler.

Dexter would perhaps follow in his dad's footsteps as a teacher, maybe instructing something music-related. If not that, he would maybe pursue a career in photography.

And me, Seth, I'd probably try to become a pro-snowboarder. Ha, this has been something I've always wanted to get really good at but just haven't had the time.

10. Do you have much time to listen to other artists' new music? Who are you listening to?

We do like discovering new bands and fresh sounds and this is great on our extensively long drives. A few to note that we have been into lately: Carolina Liar, The Script, Phoenix, Needtobreathe and Muse.

1. What song (ANY song) do you wish you had written?

"One" by U2

2. If you could join any band, past or present, which one would you join?

Definitely the Beatles because how they pioneered as a band to the world, and their music is still awesome to this day.

3. Any musical guilty pleasures?

Miley Cyrus and NSync. Yes, we know, its quite embarrassing.

4. Favorite road meal?

Anything but pizza! We always love a good homemade, hot meal. Nothing beats that. But on a different note, we would never resist a good Chipotle burrito. [Smile]