The Missouri Pacific is an energetic, poetic, soul-filled rock trio hailing from Boston, Massachusetts. Named after a long-gone train-line that folks would hop to get West, the band honors its namesake with music that is constantly and drastically evolving and moving. With instrumentation that blends vintage and modern sounds alongside thoughtful and story-focused lyrics, "The Missouri Pacific" offers something careful, something heartfelt, something that asks the listener to abandon predispositions and enjoy a ride to someplace new.
“Dimes” is a soulful track with hypnotizing bluesy undertones of pure rock. The instrumentation behind the words rises up in a similarly expressive and powerful way. Clearly connected at every step to the underlying sentiments and intentions of the song. Calming rhythms contrast and collide against utterances of emotive lyricism. As “Dimes” progresses, we’re taken through the various stages of learning and looking back, meandering from optimism to error, from hope to pain, from joy to guilt. “Dimes” builds and bubbles up in a perfectly emotional manner, all the way through until its ultimate, beautifully chaotic breaking point. A powerful and timeless track that brings together unquestionable purity and pain from the depths of the human experience.
Listen to “Dimes” here and read more with The Missouri Pacific below!
Welcome to BuzzMusic! How did you meet? How did The Missouri Pacific come to fruition?
Hey, friends! MoPac got it's start about a year and a half ago after I figured I'd like a moniker for the music I was writing. My good friend Willy Downing (Bass/Guitar) hopped on pretty quickly after things got moving and right afterwards we embarked on a rough ride from duo to trio to a foursome then back again until we were joined last January by Evan Roque (Drums.) Things have settled a bit now, and it was only two months before the newest record that we really pieced ourselves together as a band. Our name comes from an old train-line, and much like the folks that used to hop it to get West, we're a couple misfits who abandoned our college-campuses and job prospects to find something better in the music we play and love.
What is the main theme for your album “Gorgeous Indifference”?
"Gorgeous Indifference" is about just that. It's a collection of individual stories about how, sometimes, the world can feel starkly apathetic. How our own circumstance, whatever it may be, is unfortunately independent from the movement around us. It's a very specific sort of feeling, something I don't think we contend with often, but when it hits, it hits hard.
Can you tell us the meaning behind the lyrics in “Dimes”?
The album has a bit of a trajectory in it. The first half (for the most part) is bigger-sounding songs with brass sections and more clear-cut lyrics while the second half (for the most part) is gentle and does a bit more metaphoring. "Dimes" is on this second half and because of that the lyrics lend themselves better to interpreting than explaining. The song itself is a look at assisted-suicide, at a relationship between two people who are faced with this situation and forced to decide what ground they stand on.
What was the writing process like for this album? If someone could only listen to one track to represent you as artists, what track would you suggest and why?
I think the writing process was a bit backwards, because the songs sort of came together before the album did. We had (and have) a lot more music written, but we never planned or structured an album out. We just happened to have a couple songs in the mix that really felt like they were trying to say something similar, so we put them together. The title track, "Gorgeous Indifference" was actually written after we figured out all the other tunes on the album, and it serves to glue everything together thematically.
As far as listening to one track to represent us goes, I think "Elijah" is a good pick. It's the best example of how we sound live, how we sound practicing in the basement, of the energy we play with and the way we write.
What’s next for The Missouri Pacific?
Hopefully another album later this year if we can scrounge up enough coins from our couch cushions? Tentatively planning our first tour, and looking to do some shows outside of the North East. Lots planned, can't wait to meet everyone along the way!
Know the latest on The Missouri Pacific through their social media below!