The American rock band Motion City Soundtrack was started in 1997 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Only two remain of the original members that formed the band named Justin Pierre, leading vocalist and guitarist and lead guitarist and backing vocalist Joshua Cain. The former members of the band include guitarist Joe Skinner and drummer Andrew Whitney.

Presently the band members are backing vocalist and bassist Matthew Taylor, moog synthesizer and keyboardist Jesse Johnson,  and percussionist, backing vocalist and drummer Tony Thaxton. The band’s popularity can be gauged by the fact that they have sold close to 600,000 records in their career with more than 500,000 in the US.

Motion City Soundtrack started performing live in January 1998, and all through 1998 played locally making plenty of changes in their lineup. These local stage shows were later made into an album, the 7” vinyl records’ “Promenade / Carolina". This release meant that the band had turned official in 1999.

After a lot of re-arrangements to the band’s lineup in 2000 Motion City Soundtrack released a self-produced CD EP named Kids for America. Sound in Motion recorded these and it was co-released by Modern Radio Records. It was soon followed by Back to the Beat, also self-produced and reviewed notably by a music website in 2001 called Punk News.

In 2002, Motion City Soundtrack settled into a stable lineup. Two members of the Virginia-based band joined them namely Tony Thaxton as drummer and few months later Matt Taylor for base. Jesse Johnson who previously worked at a Pizza shop joined them as he was a natural who took only three weeks to master the moog synthesizer. With the help of now stable lineup they released the album “I Am …Movie” twice in 2002. The first five of their releases were all by themselves with a small aide of a little known record label. The consistency of their tours made a large fan base for them which prompted Epitaph Records to sign them.

Motion City Soundtrack spent their initial five years to find the right people for their lineup after which the re-issue of “I Am … Movie” by Epitaph Records in 2003 was the major success of the band. First major single "The Future Freaks …" brought television and live success, but could not repeat the performance in radio and music charts. In 2003 and 2004 three split EPs were brought alongside Schatzi, Matchbook Romance and Limbeck. The second MCS album, “Commit … to Memory”, was their greatest hit ever hitting a peak of #2 on Independent Albums chart with sales of more than 285,000 records. It featured tile "Everything ... Alright" which was successful even on MTV, but again did not register well in the charts and radio.

The album “Even if it kills me” released in 2007 catapulted the band to the best chart results that they ever imagined. The album touched No.16 on Billboard 200 and on Top Independent chart, it hit the no.1 spot. It produced songs like "This is for real", "Broken Heart" and "It had to be you", all of which got television airplay.

At present, the band is internationally recognized with a large fan following in Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan.‎