Sign Crushes Motorist - Sombere Sentimental Slowcore

sign crushes motorist - Sombere Sentimental Slowcore

Liam Mccay releases music under multiple names, most notablly sign crushes motorist

sign crushes motorist is one of the most exciting artist's in the slowcore scene. Liam Mccay has been making quality album after another over the course of the last 2 years, and almost every time he's done so he's done it under a new name. Birth Day, Manta, miserable teens club, and take care to name a few. Overall, Liam has made 15 projects since he first started out, with the albums I'll Be Okay and Birth Day being some of the best releases from the last year. I have been lucky enough to hear his 16th, Hurting under his most popular name, sign crushes motorist. The album is, as the title suggests, not an easy album to listen to lyrically as we feel Liam's pain through the music. That's not to say that the album isn't beautifully made as every song feels like its had so much heart poured into it. I had a lot of questions for Liam, and he was nice enough to answer them for me!

It’s been a big year for sign crushes motorist, with a huge following gained and project after project. How have you handled the newfound fame?

Fame is a bit of a generous description, my life has remained pretty much the same as it was before I made music, but it definitely has been cool to see the growth of sign crushes motorist, and how fast it happened.

Usually when I do these interviews I ask the band/artist why they chose their stage name, instead, out of all your aliases, why has sign crushes motorist become your main stage name online?

sign crushes motorist has become my main stage name online just because its the most popular one. I figure that if people see an instagram account with the name sign crushes motorist theyre more likely to recognise it rather than an account called make his ribs show or something.

As I’ve mentioned multiple albums and EPs in such a short amount of time, my main question is how do you produce quality music so consistently, what is your secret?

My secret is, I make every album with a little pinch of love.

The Album Boyhood was released under the alias Birth Day

I know you have made lots of quality projects over these 2 years, but i want to talk about Boyhood which emulates what growing up struggling feels like. This is a deeply personal album which resonates with myself personally and i was wondering what the goal was for this album and did you achieve it?

Boyhood is probably still my favourite album I’ve made, and it’s also one that took me very little time to make. Before this album, none of my other projects were overly personal but I feel like with this one I just wrote how I was feeling. I had also been listening to a lot of Xiu Xiu at the time and I really admire their music, which can be heartbreakingly personal. The last track We’ve Run Out Of Water was at the time definitely the most personal song I had made, and I tried to use heavy distortion and stuff to emulate how I was feeling.

You have been declared as one of the best slowcore acts of this generation, how do you feel already being compared to the likes of Duster, Low, and Galaxie 500 who are pioneers of this genre, was this always the aim to become a legend of this genre?

I guess in an ideal world my aim was to become relativley popular in the slowcore scene, but I never thought that it would actually happen, or that my music would even come close to being as popular as it is. Duster are a huge inspiration for me as you can probably tell by listening to my music, so its nice to be compared to them.

Your fanbase has become one of the most decorated ones on the internets, with appreciation posts and even mass amounts of people changing their pfp’s to your album cover! Does this fanbase boost your music creation and do you have a message for them.

It is always cool to see someone in the comments of like random tik toks or instagram posts with sign crushes motorist profile pictures, and my message for everyone who listens to my music and supports me is: Thank you!!! You make this all possible.

What does your creative process look like?

My creative process is I’ll usually get an idea in my head for like a specific genre of album and I’ll just start recording songs in that style, and if I feel its going nowhere I’ll just scrap the project, and if I like how its going I’ll usually just keep writing songs until I have like half an album finished. Then I see how I would structure it and decide what types of songs I need to write to finish off the album.

sign crushes motorist's new album, Hurting, releases June 30th

I’d like to talk about your new album, Hurting. its clear that this album is a step up for your past work with more ambitious vocals and instrumentals, what was your process like for this album as compared to the other ones, was it any different?

The process for this album was mostly the same except i suppose i was more depressed making it than with any of my other albums. I definitely spent more time on production than any of my other albums, not on any one song in particular but rather just making sure that every song on the album sounded just how I wanted it to, and fixing all the tiny things that sometimes i leave in my music as a product of laziness.

towards the end of the album we can hear some strings come along, how did you work those into your music?

I've been playing traditional irish music on the fiddle since i was eight so i have that at my disposal, i usually add in a string part if i feel a song needs something more.

a lot of traditional irish pieces heavily account on their natural surroundings, did the environment around your or the nature of where you live inspire this project at all?

ive never written any songs specifically about the environment around where i live but it is definitely an inspiration for my music. i go for walks quite often to a forest thats near my house and i usually listen to a lot of music while i do that, and in turn also think of ideas for my own music.

there’s a spoken word track on here like your track loser monologue called love me which is a very personal track and one that is really quite hard to listen to. I think the most beautiful part of your music is showing your emotions so truthfully and that resonating with your audience and this track does that completely. How does it feel being so personal on a track like this?

it is a little scary to show stuff like this to my friends and people i know in real life because its far more personal than i would ever really be with anyone normally, but i am also proud of it and the way that people seem to be able to relate to it

What we the ambition behind the cover?

my lightbulb in my lamp blew out so i replaced it with this one i bought years ago but i forgot it was a smart led bulb so when i turned it on it was blue so i decided to take some photos just to see and then i thought that the deep blue really fitted the sound of the album so i used it as the cover.

it’s clear that this album was made in a very dark part of your life, to take such an awful time and to make something so beautiful and moving from it, does it make you feel better knowing that even through your darkest time you’ve come out of it with something special?

In the winter of 2020 I was incredibly depressed, and what pulled me out of it was I started to record music. This idea that whenever im incredibly depressed that I can at least make something from it is what keeps me going a lot of the time. it makes me feel like I have somewhat of a purpose in life which can be quite helpful in tough times.

Your cover of Last Friday Night goes mental, are you a big Katy Perry fan?

I would say I’m a fan of Katy Perry, but I’m an even bigger fan of Jpegmafia, whos cover of call me maybe gave me the idea to do a cover of another 2000s pop song.

As an irish artist, do you recon you can be better than the greatest band to ever grace the country, jedward?

I don’t think anyone can top Jedward, Irish or not, but hopefully one day I could get to meet them and learn some of their tips for success, or even collab with them.

What would Sign Crushes Motorist look like live? What would your setlist like and could it ever happen?

sign crushes motorist live will hopefully be a reality sometime in the future, and i would probably play just sign crushes motorist stuff, with maybe a song from boyhood or two.

Finally, drink of choice?

Well, when I’m out for pints I usually get rockshore, but non alcoholic I’d have to say it’s hard to beat an ice cold cherry coke.

All of liams music can be found in this playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2jI1qI13xG0zk2UAS6YXlo?si=gw7VOZblS2i7HmqHBK-1ZQ&nd=1

Dedicated to Joe Price!