ARTICLES

Fresh Talent: Motocade

Author: Tania Ellwood

Motocade is Eden Mulholland, guitar/vocals, Will Mulholland on drums (yes, they are brothers, joining the legacy of talented musical families), Scott Sutherland on bass and Geordie McCallum, guitar/keyboards.

All have notably ambitious backgrounds. Eden is an accomplished composer, Scott a house music producer and Geordie has a degree in commercial music with a major in production.

Together Motocade is organic sounding indie art rock with a peppering of punk that is at once familiar, yet new to these shores. Why Motocade? "(It's) kind of like a vehicle for an important message, relentless and driven but meant to be ambiguous, not too serious."

Comparable more to British counterparts, it is their blurring of a geographically fixed and identifiable sound that makes them more universal, less typical. Eden cites Kings of Leon, Radiohead and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as influences. His autobiographical lyrics are subjective social commentary stamped with still framed feelings and momentary snapshots in life, dealing with relationships, love, pop culture and everyday life while taking listeners on an multi-directional journey. Vocals on American Film and Happiness is Lonely build up to a catchy crooning crescendo, both memorable with infectious melodies that stick stupid after a few listens.

Formed in Auckland in 2003 Motocade are still in their band impetus with time ahead of them to further flesh out their sound direction and penetrate the public with their live performance.

"We really just want to be different, we want to come across as doing what we really want to do. The most important thing about it is being really honest, not trying to be anything but what it is."

Motocade's sound has a languorous texture, at times instruments can seem curiously absent which helps depict the vocals and lyrical content as forefront material. They recently received New Recording funding from NZ On Air for the single Spectacular Little Death and are recording with renowned producer Dale Cotton (Dimmer, Die! Die! Die!, The Subliminals, HDU).

"When I first heard Motocade I knew they were something special, luckily I managed to talk them into recording with me. We decided on a simple and organic recording process as we want to capture what the band really sounds like... and although it may seem like it, there's no tricky editing - they really do play like that!," says Cotton.

Watch out for their independently released self-titled EP hitting the shelves through mid-December.