Over the past (nearly) 10 years, Californian Post Hardcore/Midwest Emo Act Movements have established themselves as one of the heavyweights of the new age of the alternative rock scene. With the band coming to Australia this week for the New Bloom Festival, we chatted with vocalist Patrick Miranda about their past experiences coming to Australia, the influences behind their latest album RUCKUS and their plans for the rest of 2024.

IN: We’re so excited to have Movements back in Australia this month as part of New Bloom Festival. I’m a relatively new fan of the band, but looking back, it’s cool to see the progression of the band’s success in this country. For example, in Perth, the venue was upgraded to nearly double the size on your last tour due to the high demand. How does it feel to travel to what’s literally the other side of the world for you to see such a huge reaction to your band?

Patrick: Yeah, it's incredible. There's no other feeling like it, you know, it's validating in so many ways, and extremely inspiring. It's also just like, really fun. From Los Angeles to Sydney, it's about a 16-ish hour flight and it's tough, dude. It's miserable. But then you get here, and the shows are worth all the hassle of getting down here. I don't think that we would come back if it weren't worth it for us. Every single time that we come to Australia, it's like my favourite tour that we've ever done. Literally, like last year, when we were here with Boston Manor, that's still my favourite tour that we've done so far. Yeah, it's just really cool, man. I'm super stoked, very blessed. I'm so thankful that people in Australia care about our band and want to support it.

IN: RUCKUS was one of my favourite records of 2023. As a fan, I have a lot of interest in getting my head around the influences of this record. What were the artists or eras of music you channelled when putting this album together?

P: It's crazy because it was so all over the place like it couldn't have been more random. The stuff that we were like pulling our inspiration from, it was it was really all over the place but in a good way. In a way that I felt like really brought a unique sound to the record.

But you know at the time we were taking reference from likes of The Killers and The Strokes and then also you know bands more kind of adjacent to like our world, like; Jimmy Eat World, Manchester Orchestra, even like Blink 182. But then you know, adding our flair to it, our swing on it, obviously, as soon as you put your hand to something, it's going to change it, and it's going to make it uniquely yours, right? Once we had like the instrumentals kind of finalized and put it into a place where we felt good about them, then it was fun for me to take different influences on a vocal level. On a singer kind of level really showcasing my songwriting capabilities as a lyricist and a songwriter, my abilities as a vocalist. In the past, I don't think that I've really shown off what I'm capable of as a singer. Not to toot my own horn, but I've got a good voice and I want to show it, so I was really trying to expand on my vocal range and what I could do for this record.

IN: I’ve also noticed that RUCKUS is slightly shorter than the last two full-length records, was this a concise decision for the band and was there a lot of deliberation over the track listing when it came to finalising the record?

P: It was really intentional, we wanted it to be short, sweet, and in your face. This is very much a departure from our previous works and in many ways, it was a departure that we weren't sure how it was going to be received. While we were all really confident about it, you never really know, right? We wanted it to be kind of short for that reason so that it could just be easily digestible and just kind of a vibe. It's not heavy listening, you know, I think a lot of earlier Movements stuff is so dense on an emotional level and on a thematic level that having something like, RUCKUS, which although there are songs that are still really dense and emotional overall, it’s not all that way, it's fun, it's upbeat, it's a vibe. You just can kind of put it on and enjoy easy listening instead of like having it be a record that makes you want to jump off a building, so yeah it was intentional for sure.

Reflecting on some of your earlier releases within the “Midwest Emo” scene, Feel Something and its adjacent singles have cemented themselves as “classics” within this community. That being said, it also became an integral part of the meme culture within this scene. As a fan of this scene, I think a lot of it comes from a place of endearment for this record, but I was just wondering how you felt about this.

P: I was a different person when I wrote that record and I love it for what it is and I love it for the opportunity that it's given us. I'm so thankful that people have such a connection to that record. I do think it's hard not to feel a little off-put when Feel Something gets the most credit out of everything else. With that being said, I still do love the record and again it's provided what we have now, and that's an incredible feeling. As far as the meme culture goes, I think it's hilarious. I do think that that stuff is very funny, but there's a line to be drawn. When it comes to people who only care about that one record and then expect everything else to sound like Feel Something and then get angry when we put out something that doesn't sound like that, even though we haven't put out anything that sounds like, Feel Something since, Feel Something it's kind of interesting to me, but yeah, it's still important.

Movements @ The Underworld Camden - Photo by Sethen Sheehan-Lee

Looking forward to the future now, what are your hopes, goals, and dreams for the rest of 2024?

P: Dude, we have a really busy year ahead. We've got this Australian tour right now, we're home for about a week and then we go straight into a big U.S. headliner. We're in the US for about a month doing that and then in the summertime, we're doing some stuff in the UK playing Outbreak Festival and some fests over in Europe. When we come home (Patrick pauses) actually, I’m not allowed to talk about that yet, but we got more stuff when we come home. It's cool, man, we got a super busy year so I'm just really looking forward to playing a lot of big shows this year and touring a lot. You know we're really hitting it hard, and my goal is that it all goes swimmingly, that's the best I can hope for here. Next year is going to be a little bit more creative for us but yeah, this year it's very heavily focused on touring.

Information & tickets for New Bloom Festival can be found here.