Scoring The End Of The World

“The album is very much based on the time spent between realities—real life and pandemic life,” Motionless In White vocalist and ringleader Chris “Motionless” Cerulli tells Apple Music about the band’s sixth album. Through their dramatic fusion of metalcore, industrial, and gothic influences, Cerulli and his bandmates examine the impact of lockdown on a personal and collective level, as well as the unending social and political turmoil taking place in America. “At the start of the pandemic, it began to look like the end of the world,” Cerulli tells Apple Music. “Everybody freaking out, total chaos, all these different negative aspects coming to light in terms of how things are handled, the people in power, George Floyd—and just the sheer pandemonium of everything. At the same time, my personal experience during that time frame was really dark with emotional and mental trials. I thought it would be cool to split the lyrical content between my observations of the world ending and the end of my world internally.” Below, he describes each track.

“Meltdown”
“I wouldn’t say this is tongue-in-cheek or sarcastic, but certainly it’s one of those ‘we’re so fucked, I’m just laughing at what’s going on’ kind of things. I wanted to make a song that felt like, musically and melodically, we were placing you inside that scene in a movie right before everything comes to an end and collapses—the camera’s shaking, everything’s getting crazy and frantic. The lyrics are kind of looking at it like we’re invited to an end-of-the-world party.”

“Sign of Life”
“This comes from feeling like, ‘How am I going to get myself out of this and find that sign of life within me during all this darkness?’ I felt dead inside, at times, because I didn't really have much of a will to do anything and felt just hopeless. I was trying to look for and cling onto any sign of life within myself and to push out the negative side that was kind of taking over.”

“Werewolf”
“I think this is the band’s favorite track on the record—it’s definitely mine. We wanted to create an iconic Motionless song. We feel like we have a lot of good songs, but we don’t have an iconic song yet. This was an effort to create something that felt like you’d never heard anything like it but branded as Motionless’ icon song. It’s very Michael Jackson- and very Muse-inspired, which are two very different but very similar artists in our opinion. We wanted to do something that felt like Motionless joining them.”

“Porcelain”
“This is the companion track to ‘Werewolf.’ Both of them are about the conversation between the two parts of myself. I have my normal, compassionate self that I typically live my daily life with. Then I have what I think is a really ugly side of myself, which is really angry with explosive rage. That side of myself has ruined things in my life many times because it just takes over, and I can’t control it. In my therapy sessions, we refer to it as the werewolf because it’s appropriate to my personality, being a big fan of horror and Halloween and everything. So, ‘Werewolf’ and ‘Porcelain’ are essentially the same lyrical track split up over two songs.”

“Slaughterhouse” (feat. Bryan Garris)
“During the pandemic, I was made a lot more aware. I had a lot more time to focus on tons of injustices around the world—in this song’s case, specifically the US. The biggest target of the song would be capitalism and how that affects everybody in such a negative way. We live a life where a system is in place to make the rich richer. We’re essentially the products in a slaughterhouse. They’re selling our lives and our essence to make money off it. I’m fucking sick of it, and a lot of people are sick of it.”

“Masterpiece”
“It’s hard for me to let go of stuff and not ruminate on negative emotions that I have about myself, and that got really bad over the pandemic. ‘Masterpiece’ is asking myself and others for forgiveness for all the damage I’ve caused in my life—all the way from relationships and friendships to my relationship with myself and my own happiness and well-being. It’s really just an open letter saying, ‘Can you forgive me? Can you get past this? And how do I get past it?’ It’s just a big plea for forgiveness.”

“Cause of Death”
“This is a companion track with ‘Sign of Life.’ It’s somewhat similar to the ‘Werewolf’/‘Porcelain’ concept where it’s two people communicating with each other, but it’s two sides of myself. That’s the common thread that exists between all of the personal songs—they’re all written from one side of myself to the other. It’s about these two sides squaring off and fighting to the death, trying to bury one another and take over.”

“We Become the Night”
“This is similar to ‘Slaughterhouse,’ where it just tackles more of what’s going on in the world. The chorus is dedicated to the people that don’t live their lives like this. This is for the people that are on the right side of history and want to make the world a better place. We stand together to be positive and resist all the tyranny that we face. That’s the general essence of the song.”

“Burned at Both Ends II”
“The original ‘Burned at Both Ends’ turns 10 this year. I wasn’t waiting on the anniversary or anything, but once I started to think about the lyrics for this song, I felt like it was a perfect time to do a sequel. I feel like the original was a very underrated track that has very similar lyrical content to what I was trying to do with this record. And 10 years later, I’m still dealing with the same shit. So, I wanted to write about how far I have—or haven’t—come in 10 years.”

“B.F.B.T.G.: Corpse Nation”
“B.F.B.T.G. is ‘Broadcasting From Beyond the Grave,’ which is a song we did in 2019. But this isn’t a sequel like ‘Burned at Both Ends II’—it’s a series. I thought it would be really cool to have a recurring song title across albums where it’s essentially a unique episode each time. I don’t recall seeing that done, so I wanted to try it. This song was very heavily written by our bassist, Justin Morrow, and it’s a big fuck-you to QAnon. It’s just a huge middle finger to people who perpetrate insane lies and misinformation to hurt the reality we live in.”

“Cyberhex”
“During the pandemic, I reached out to fans and just let people know that I was struggling. I think I was just looking for support and for people to let me know that they still care about the band. It’s really weird—I’ve never felt like reaching out for support like that, but I was at such a low point that I did. The reaction that I received was overwhelming positive energy. I was so grateful for that, I wanted to write a song based on how I felt about it. So, I imagined a cyberwar between good and evil and wrote this song to the fans to stand together and help each other out through all of the evil shit happening.”

“Red, White & Boom” (feat. Caleb Shomo)
“I think this is the weirdest song on the record. It kind of happened piece by piece in ways that just did not fit together, but then somehow fit together. It felt very punk rock, like, ‘Let’s fucking rip it up.’ When I think about bands in the rock world that are doing that right now, I think of Beartooth and Caleb. I wanted to have him feature in the song to kind of put the cherry on top of the feeling it gave me. It’s loud, in your face, and doesn’t give a fuck.”

“Scoring the End of the World” (feat. Mick Gordon)
“The title track is similar to ‘Cyberhex’ in that it’s about people that are fighting the good fight for our world and making sacrifices that might be tough but are actually beneficial to humanity. ‘Cyberhex’ is more from the personal side, and this song is coming from the observational side and feeling proud to be part of that group of people that are writing the end of the world as we know it, to then make a better one out of the ashes. Mick Gordon is one of our favorite composers—we play all the games he writes for—and he ended up transforming what I thought was a really good song into a great song.”