Best known as the frontman and co-founder of Moog-heavy, Minneapolis-based rockers Motion City Soundtrack, singer, songwriter, and guitarist Justin Courtney Pierre has also worked in film and music production. A versatile songwriter with a distinctive tenor, Pierre cites a wide array of artists as influences, including Pavement, the Flaming Lips, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, the Carpenters, Bruce Hornsby, Nirvana, and Tom Waits. A leading light in the punk-pop genre, Pierre led Motion City Soundtrack from 1997 to 2016, releasing six studio albums, including 2007's chart-topping Even If It Kills Me, and touring the world multiple times over, before disbanding in 2016. Upon the group's demise, Pierre began focusing on film work, and eventually found his way back into the studio to record his debut solo LP, In the Drink, which was released in 2018.

Born in the St. Paul suburb of Mahtomedi, Pierre spent his early years immersed in skateboarding and hip-hop. He developed an interest in indie rock while in high school, and joined a band called Slide Coaster, who released an LP, Thrown, in 1995. After the group's breakup he shifted his focus to making short films, but when guitarist, record producer, and longtime friend Joshua Cain asked Pierre to join his band, he accepted, and the two began laying the groundwork for what would become Motion City Soundtrack. The group debuted in 2003 with the well-received, Epitaph-issued I Am the Movie, but they really hit their stride with 2005's Commit This to Memory, which sold over 500,000 copies worldwide. Subsequent offerings Even If It Kills Me (2007) and My Dinosaur Life (2010) helped to solidify the band's reputation as punk-pop heavy weights and Warped tour faves, but life on the road eventually took its toll, and Motion City Soundtrack called it quits after releasing their sixth studio long-player, 2015's Panic Stations.

Pierre spent the ensuing years at home in Minneapolis tending to his home and his daughter but continued to release music both as a solo artist, and with Game Informer Executive Editor Andrew Reiner under the video game-themed moniker the Rapture Twins. Recorded over the course of seven months with drummer David Jarnstrom (Gratitude, BNLX), Pierre released his self-funded debut solo album, In the Drink, in 2018 via Epitaph. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi