When Metro Station first started, they created a neon-emo music phenomena, gaining massive mainstream attention with their track “Shake It.” The infectious dance anthem made its debut on our iPod shuffle playlists in 2007, and we almost guarantee it’s still a song you revisit.

But Metro Station were more than studded belts, straightened bangs and skinny jeans. Since the band’s official breakup announcement in August 2017 and their final album, “Shake It” has remained a scene staple and a go-to sing-along at every Emo Night.

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Metro Station are certainly ready to shake things up again. AltPress exclusively chatted with Trace Cyrus on what’s next for the pair and why 2020 is the time for the band to reunite.

Metro Station have really been stirring some stuff up in the scene in the last couple of weeks.

TRACE CYRUS: Yeah, we randomly just got back together [and] started working on the music. That’s the reason I’m in Los Angeles now. I came to work with Mason [Musso] and just restart this Metro Station thing. I think a few years ago, I just got so burnt out on the touring side of music that I just wanted some time off and to get my personal life together. And now it’s just things like TikTok and Spotify and all these new things that didn’t exist before have made “Shake It” and Metro Station take off in a whole new way that we thought would never happen. It’s really, really cool, and it just inspired us to want to get back together and make new songs. Yeah, it’s nothing that we really planned. I just called up Mason one day and told him, “Let’s get the studio,” and now we’re working on it.

It’s no secret that everybody who’s in the music community knows and loves “Shake It.” It was wild because we’ve been noticing a lot of artists are returning or getting back together lately.

You know, I saw a couple of comments of people using that comparison. But we’re not getting back together because we’re seeing other bands trying it like that. We’ve just been inspired by the streams and how much love Metro Station are still getting after all this time. Like, I think “Shake It” got 26 million streams just on Spotify this past year.

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That’s insane. You haven’t toured or released new music in over two years.

No, we have not at all. And we haven’t been promoting it in any way. Like, never pushing Spotify or any of these new apps that came out. It’s just our fanbase is still out there somewhere, and they’re searching for us. So we just want to give them what they want.

Do you think things such as Emo Night continuing to play “Shake It” is helping to keep scene music alive?

I think so. I think that Metro Station got to a point where things like “Shake It” became so popular for us that it almost became uncool that we were the guys that sang “Shake It,” because it became so mainstream. And then enough time has passed that this new generation of SoundCloud rappers have made emo cool again. It’s something that I thought was going to be made fun of forever for being this little emo scene kid and the younger generation has completely come back around and made what I was doing years ago completely relevant and cool again. And they all have respect for me for what I was doing back in 2007, 2008, 2009, because I was ahead of the curve then. So it’s just really cool.

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Have you ever had any new emo rappers or other artists hit you up to sample any Metro Station tracks?

We’re in the talks, [but] I don’t want to put any names out. We’re in talks [about doing] a rap feature right now for our first single. But I don’t want to say. But I think it’s gonna get people excited.

That’s super exciting to hear. So obviously, Metro Station are getting back together.

Actually, Mason just left. We were in the studio here in Calabasas, and we just finished our third song back together in the past week. So it’s been going really good.

When are you anticipating to start releasing new music?

The goal is for me to come back here after I get to spend the holidays with my family and then shoot our first music video and just put a single out to the world. Most likely be like, “Here’s our first song and video and then album on the way.”

That’s incredible.

It’s awesome because the chemistry me and Mason have in the studio has just always been there from the first day we met. You know, we went in the studio and made a song together when we were 17 years old. And I hadn’t seen or spoke to Mason in over two years. And I just came up to L.A. and, you know, within a few hours we had made a whole new song that we are so excited about that we feel I can make another stamp on the music industry. So when you have a chemistry like that with someone, it’s just awesome. When you get back in a room and you realize nothing changes.

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That’s awesome. What sound are you going after? Is it going to be what we know from Metro Station, or is it going to be completely new and adapted?

No, we’re trying to go back to our roots. It’s definitely that more upbeat dance vibe. With the last stuff we did when we got back together a few years ago, I feel like we were trying to experiment and do different things. We did a full acoustic project and just different things we typically wouldn’t do. I think we’re to the point where we just want to give the fans exactly what they want to get. It’s not about making songs that we want to hear or we like. I think as artists, we start to do that a lot of times [and] our opinion starts to mean more than what the fanbase or the rest of the world’s opinion is. And right now, we just want to give people what they want and really have those top 40 upbeat dance tracks that, you know, you can rock out to.

I did a little digging on your personal Instagram, and I noticed that over the last six months, you’ve been sharing old photos and talking about old tours and Myspace. Are you planning on changing your look to match that aesthetic?

No, those pictures are just fun to look back [on]. It’s funny, though, because my mom genuinely wants me to grow my hair back out like that, but she’s an ’80s rocker chick, you know? She still wishes that Mötley Crüe and Guns N’ Roses was around. What I did then, it was kind of my own twist on that because that was a lot of stuff I was inspired by growing up. Like, that’s what I feel like the scene kids were. We were taking a version of what was done in the ’80s and adding our own twist to it with a lot more tattoos and a little more crazy piercing stuff.

So yeah, that’s just that’s a part of my past, and I’m blonde now. My hair is short. I’m a completely different person. Like, it’s just funny to go back and post those pictures and look at it because shockingly, it was one of the most successful times of my career. But it’s something that I can’t help but look at and laugh, you know? It was me experimenting and finding myself as a man and getting to know myself. But somehow it just worked at that time in the place in the music industry. It was a fun time, though.

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It is fun to look back on it. It’s interesting. Metro Station were a massive band who were revolutionizing the emo scene style.

We were just young. You know, we wrote the first record when we were 17 years old. The album came out very shortly after that as soon as we turned 18. And I just think that people, they were also in their awkward phase and learning to be who they were, and they got to grow with us. And it was cool. We came out at a time where most of the bands I was touring with, I was younger than everybody. So I think that we just came out at such a young age, [so] we really connected to the young teenage generation. It was a really good time. And I think it was just cool, too, because it was so different from what anyone in my family was doing and what anyone would have really expected me to do. And I think that shock value of me being a Cyrus and being related to Miley and things like that, I think it surprised people. It really did. And I think just everything together just worked. I don’t know how it did, but it did. Like, I still look at the plaques on my wall of Metro Station and what we did, and it blows my mind at times because we didn’t have a game plan. We didn’t go to my parents for help asking what to do when it came to getting a manager or a record label. We just made songs, put them on Myspace, and because of Myspace, it changed the rest of our lives forever.

Yeah, absolutely. Without Myspace, do you think you’re gonna be able to reach your fanbase in the same way?

I don’t know. I think the blessing and curse about a song like “Shake It” is you always want to do better than that and beating that song or getting more plays or more sales or whatever it is. It’s something that we might not ever do again. And it’s something that I realized I need to stop obsessing over and [something] I’ve already left my mark with. I’m just trying to not obsess as much about always trying to do better than I did at that point in my life and realize that I might never have a hit that big, and that doesn’t matter, you know? I just want to make music, and the true fans that stick around and want to hear it—that’s great. And I truly believe that I can perform and play concerts for the rest of my life, even off the music I’ve already done.

You said you’ve recorded a couple of songs together. When are you anticipating the first single to be released, and can you tell us anything about it? The title or what it sounds like?

I really don’t want to give it away. I think that this song that we just wrote is going to hit it home so perfectly with everything that’s going on in pop culture right now and what’s going on with the younger artists and stuff. And I think this song we’re about to do is really about to open a lot of ears and get a lot of people’s attention. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Fair enough. I know we’re all really excited to hear it.

We’re really excited. Like I said, the first song Mason and I did, as soon as he left and I got the mix, I played it hundreds of times, and I just got that feeling that I would get with old Metro Station songs and just them being so infectious, so you have to keep it and replay, replay, replay.

How have your family and friends reacted to the new music?

I honestly haven’t played anybody anything. I’ve been in L.A. the past week, locked up in the studio, and other than some of our business people we work with, I haven’t played the music for any family or friends yet.

It’s kind of nice because you have a little secret, and it’s all yours right now with Mason.

Yeah, it’s cool. I feel like me and him are at a really good place. Unfortunately, we’re both 30 years old now, which sounds crazy, but wisdom truly does come with age. And when we get back together, we talk about the old days when we were 17, 18, 19 and just the drinking, the drugs, the party life…Our keyboardist Blake [Healy] was older than us at the time. He was like 25. And we met him, and we were like 17. And we were just saying yesterday, like, “If [only] we would have listened to him…” Because he was logical. He had his head on straight, and we were young, we were wild and we didn’t care about anything but having a good time. And, you know, once you grow up, you realize [things] about safety, money, and priorities. You realize being a rock star [and] being on top of the world doesn’t always last forever.