Martha Davis & The Motels

The Motels – Martha Davis

By: Lori Smerilson Carson

Life experiences teach us many things, and Lead Vocalist/Guitarist/Songwriter Martha Davis just may be a role model in not only musical experiences, but life in general. Since the original Motels first made their mark in the music industry with their self-titled album in 1979, she has been going strong in the alternative rock world. In 1982, at the American Music Awards, Davis received the Best Performance in a Music Video for her “Only the Lonely” video, and in 1983, single “Suddenly Last Summer” (from their Gold certified LITTLE ROBBERS LP) reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Album Rock Tracks and No. 9 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. She has continued as a leader in the music industry, displaying her extraordinary talents, as well as venturing into other musical areas like children’s songs. Now, she and bandmates Keyboardist/Saxophonist Marty Jourard, Guitarist Clint Walsh, Bassist Nic Johns and Drummer Mario Calire will be hitting the road alongside Men Without Hats, Wang Chung and Naked Eyes with their Abducted By The ‘80s tour. Florida fans will have the opportunity to experience this phenomenon on June 21^st at the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville, June 22^nd at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, and on June 23^rd at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale.

Catching up with Davis just prior to the tour, she divulged some details about the new show, The Motels music, her music for children, some past experiences, and what fans can look forward to.

SFL Music Magazine: This is an exciting tour, Abducted By The ‘80s. How did it come about with Wang Chung, Men Without Hats and Naked Eyes?

Martha Davis: So far, the Men Without Hats, I have not played with them. Wang Chung and Naked Eyes and The Motels have played together, and we’ve toured together, and it’s been really fun. So, it was kind of a no brainer that we do it again. So, the people that know the people, all throw it together. The next thing you know, we’re in a minivan with a bunch of gear, driving from place to place.

SFL Music Magazine: What can fans look forward to with the new show? The Motels show?

Davis: You can look forward to all the hits because that’s what you would do if you were abducted by the ‘80s, hear the hits. Then you would possibly hear some brand-new stuff or some newer stuff.  You will see the band that’s been together now twenty years. This Motels has been together twenty years, but it includes old Marty from the first line-up of The Motels. Marty joined back up with the band in 2011, so he is referred to as the new, old guy. Yeah, it’s going to be a good night. The band is amazing and we just have so much fun.

SFL Music Magazine: You mentioned newer music. Do you mean from the 2018 album (THE LAST FEW BEAUTIFUL DAYS)?

Davis: Yeah, there’s going to be some of that. Then later this year, we’re going to be releasing a brand new, brand new. So, hopefully it will be later this year. Hopefully, hopefully. We’re already mixing, so it’s a done deal. It’s just getting the final things done. If it doesn’t happen the end of this year, it will happen the beginning of next year, or I’m going to kill myself (she laughed).

SFL Music Magazine: Well, we will have to do a follow up for the new album. So, what would you say inspires your music in general?

Davis: Inspiration is what inspires my music. It’s literally, when something comes along, and it can be anything from, I can hear a line, or from the very first album, it was like there’s that song “Love Don’t Help” which was literally on a match book, and I went, oh my God! Well, that’s gonna be a song. So, it could be as stupid as that, or it could be a profound experience, but I don’t try to write. I only write when inspiration strikes. I can go months and months and not write anything. It’s not like I have a shortage of songs. There’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of songs that have never been released because when I write, I write a lot. I can write thirty songs in a week, if I’m writing a musical or something. I write very quickly. I write very stream of consciousness. They call it spew and edit. Nowadays, because I’ve been doing this so damn long, I pretty much write full songs without a lot of editing. So, it’s not a hard thing. It’s like breathing for me (she laughed).

SFL Music Magazine: What would you say influenced you to become a musician?

Davis: Well, I was taught three guitar chords by my babysitter, the Honorable Judge Thelton Henderson. Though he was not a judge when he taught me this. He was a student at Cal Berkeley on scholarship. He was an African American kid that won a scholarship, and he came to Berkeley, and he went to the law department, and his first job when he left, when he graduated, was working for Bobby Kennedy. So, he was the first African American working in The Civil Rights Movement from the government side. He knew everybody. He knew Malcolm X, Martin Luther King (Jr.), and we’re still buds. So, I call him every now and then. He’s lovely, but he taught me my first three chords and with those three chords, I sat in my room and made stuff up. I just constantly made stuff up, and I never even learned any more chords for years. You can do a lot with three chords. A lot of my writing was literally like one, I would just find little patterns like da, dada. Like “Only the Lonely” da, dada. Like three notes. You can do it with one finger. Yes, I’m a virtuoso (she laughed). Not. I can hardly play any instrument, but I will play any instrument. I will pick up any instrument and try to play it, and I will usually find something in it, but I won’t be good at it. I’m a curious player. That’s what I am.

SFL Music Magazine: Would you attribute that to your longevity and success? What would you say played into that?

Davis: Well, I think my being, however it happened. However genetically, whatever poured into this vessel here. I’ve always been creative and it doesn’t matter what form it is. I mean, I used to paint a lot.  I love creating. I love to cook. I never use recipes. I just like to create stuff, you know? So, having that basis. Then you’re given a guitar and you’ve got this potential to come up to go places. I like to just figure out things and do stuff. So, it sort of made sense that I would just start creating stuff, and I do it in everything. I do it in decorating, a mishmash decorating. Go to thrift stores, buying crazy stuff. I like imagining and then taking that imagination and making it into something. So, I think that’s my inspiration. It’s just that I’m that person, and I think everyone has potential to do that. I think it’s just a matter of not being afraid for one thing, of like making a wrong choice. I think we’re so told what’s right and wrong, and that’s so stupid ‘cause there is no right or wrong. The cosmos does not give a shit what blouse you wear with your slacks (she laughed). It’s all just up for grabs, people. I think that freedom. I actually met Neil deGrasse Tyson, and that was for me like, that would have been up there with meeting (David) Bowie, if I’d ever met Bowie, but I didn’t. I literally sort of had heart flutters because I’m also, I’m a complete nerd. I love science. I can’t do math to save my life, but I can imagine doing it. I met him and he realized that I was fascinated with all this stuff we were talking about. At the time, I was working on my book for the “Finnias T. Rabbit” song that I wrote a story for. Finnias T. Rabbit is an astrophysicist bunny rabbit who builds a space ship and flies into a black hole. So, I wanted Neil deGrasse Tyson to give me advise so that I wouldn’t botch the science. I actually met him backstage at the show he did in Portland. He was so lovely. So wonderful. He said, “where did you start your interest?”  I said, well, I used to sleep outside all year long. My dad got some army cots, and my sister and I would sleep outside under the stars, all night long. It was something about that, that just opens your brain up because you start staring at the stars and just wondering you know, how far do they go? Is there a wall? You start imagining, and once you start that process and when you’re looking at the sky, it could be anything. I mean, it could be everything. It is. So, I think that might have been a catalyst for some of just wacky thought process. Either that, or aliens came down and I was abducted early in the ‘80s.

SFL Music Magazine: What would you recommend to a new artist or new band?

Davis: I have one piece of advice. First of all, if you’re talking the tactics or the actual day to day, it’s gonna be hard. It’s gonna cost a lot of money. It’s going to break your heart. It’s gonna kick you in the teeth. It’s also gonna bring you a ton of joy. You have to persevere and you have to be strong. Sadly, you have to be narcissistic because you can’t exist, especially nowadays, when there’s ten billion artists all wanting that spotlight on them. It’s really sad for me because I don’t care for the spotlight. I like the process of the art and the creation, and this and that and the other thing. The spotlight is really annoying. I mean, if you could be famous without the perks of being famous, which is money so you can do this damn thing, and the freedom and the access to actually being able to give the art back where people would actually hear it. That was called record company back in the day (she laughed). In terms of the actual business of it, that’s what I recommend. In terms of the art of writing a song, get the blank out of your own way. Don’t try to be a writer. Don’t think about it. Don’t second guess it. Don’t think what’s right and what’s wrong. Does this work? No! Get in and just start spewing, and then edit it if you have to later, but when you just allow yourself the stream of consciousness that we have, so much stuff in our subconscious all the time just bubbling around, and if you can allow that to just flow out. The stuff that comes naturally is just astounding. I picked up my guitar one day and “Only the Lonely” was sitting on it fully formed. I’m like, ok. Ok, thank you (she laughed). You just have to allow that beautiful freedom for things to exist, and I think we need to do that in everything in life. I think we’re all suffering from a massive dose of fear about everything, and it’s been helped along on a 24-hour news station (she laughed). We started the year 2000 with we’re all going to die, Y2K style. Then, we went into 911. We just keep going, and it just keeps being bolstered up by the powers that be, and I’m like no! Blank that! Fear is what makes us a bad animal. Fear makes any animal a bad animal. Dog won’t bite unless he’s afraid, unless he’s a wild dog and then you should just stay away because it’s common sense. The same thing applies to art. I think that what we’re seeing now in art, and I’m not bagging on anybody, but I think there’s a lot of sameness to it. There’s a conservative quality to the art now. There’s a lot of people sounding like other people. All that is, is a conservative mind set because you’re afraid to do something outside the box. The thing about the ‘80s that was stupendous, was there was no two bands that sounded alike, at all. Everybody was different. The Ramones weren’t Blondie, weren’t The Knack, weren’t Oingo Boingo, weren’t Chrissie Hynde. Everybody was different. That was our hallmark. In the ‘80s, you did not want to sound like, you didn’t want your hair color to be like anybody. Everybody had to be different. That was that glorious feeling of like the freedom to just explore everything and anything, and do it to the max. So, I recommend people be less fearful. I know it’s scary times, but they’re only scary because it’s a cycle. The more we feed fear, the more fear grows. So, give it up.

SFL Music Magazine: That’s great advice! I was going to ask you, and you did answer a lot of what you thought the ‘80s encompassed that is needed today.

Davis: Yeah, I think I just might have said it (she laughed). It’s strange because you think about the ‘80s, it was a free for all. It was fun, it was crazy, it was druggy, it was sexy. It was this and that and the other thing, and then it got shut down pretty quick by a little thing called AIDS. That’s where the fear factor started sneaking in. It was a completely legitimate fear, and it’s hard when you get something like that on top of this gleeful, hedonistic lifestyle, and all the sudden it’s like, oh yeah, but you might die. This is just the way nature works. We are only allowed so much fun time. I was very lucky to be alive and of age in the ‘60s and ‘80s. I tell my boys in my band who are younger than me about the ‘60s, and they just tell me to shut up because it was too much fun. Those were the days of free love. It was a beautiful time. People made love, not because they wanted ownership of somebody, but because they wanted to give somebody joy. It was actually quite sweet, in a very sexy way.

SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything else new coming out?

Davis: Well, right now I have a gorgeous woman in my kitchen. I’m here in my boudoir. She is doing artwork for the new children’s book that’s coming out. It’s called Goat, and she is one of the most extraordinary artists. I wrote the book that goes with the song. Basically, I wrote a children’s album full of songs, and then I decided I wanted to write stories to the songs. I will just give you one little part of it. (She sang) “There’s a goat in my yard, and he’s trying real hard, to eat everything in sight. All the books that he ate, made my principal irate, but now that goat is teaching at Harvard.”

SFL Music Magazine: That’s great! I love it!

Davis: So, there’s a whole story about that. That’s the part that’s the wrap up, but there’s a whole story and the illustration, she’s just magical.

SFL Music Magazine: How did you start writing children’s songs and books?

Davis:  Well, the first children’s album that I wrote was back when my grandkids were little. They’re all grown up and have their own kids now, and I don’t see them anymore, but my daughter came to me and just said, “mom please.” It was when Barney (Barney & Friends) was happening. She’s like, “please write some kids songs that don’t drive me crazy.” So, I wrote a bunch of songs that are literally for adults and children. So, they’re funny and there’s word play. It’s not you know, just as stupid. Kids are not stupid at all, and they will absorb anything you throw at them, and love it. So, I just did that. I mean, I grew up with Christopher Robin and all those wonderful writing, fantastic things. So, I wanted to do something like that. They’re all about animals. Always, because that’s me. Then I wrote the second album, and I took some of the ones from the first album, but the second album was called ‘16 SONGS FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN RED FROG PRESENTS’ (RED FROG PRESENTS 16 SONGS FOR PARENTS AND CHILDREN} because there was red frogs that lived in my basement. I guess it was streamed for a while. I don’t know because I’m not good at any of that stuff, but then I just decided, there’s lots of kid’s albums out there. I want to write stories with my kid’s songs, and I want to package the songs in the stories, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, but that’s how all that happened.

SFL Music Magazine:  Is there anything else that you want fans to know about the show?

Davis: Oh yeah. I can’t wait to see you guys! It’s going to be hilariously fun like I said. These are wonderful, wonderful bands with wonderful senses of humor because I don’t travel without a sense of humor. So, you kind of got to. And don’t be fearful. Life is a bowl of cherries, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death, as Auntie Mame once said. Remember the movie Auntie Mame? Rosalind Russell, oh my God, so good! I strive to be Auntie Mame. That’s what I strive to be.

SFL Music Magazine: Anything you want to add?

Davis:  Just everybody, take good care of each other please. We’ll get through all this mess. It’s gonna be ok.