Since their formation in the winter of 2007, the members of The Motel Life have continued to make a name for themselves in their short existence. With an ear pleasing blend of rock, 90s alternative and tasteful hints of pop, The Motel Life have managed to create something raw, real and mature. With several out of state tours, a long list of local shows, a well received debut EP, and a strong response from both fans and critics, The Motel Life have reached the peak of their local status and now plan on taking their talent to a new level. 
For Fans Of: Thieves & Villains 

*Responses from Michael Escanuelas

How did the band come together? How have you grown since you guys started?
The band originally came together in 2007 after a couple of our local bands broke up. The original lineup began with myself, Judcody and Nick. We wrote a couple songs and practiced out of Nick’s garage. That next year we recorded our first EP, We All Left Something Behind. It was our way of finding our sound. Trying things out and seeing what worked and what did not. After some member changes and a lot local shows, we got our lineup that we have now which includes Ray and Al. Last summer we released our first full length, Retreat which was the first album we did with all the members we have now. The songs on the album were kind of older, but we made the album our own once we hit the studio. We’ve gone through quite a lot of changes in the past couple years. We’ve had our ups and downs, but as a band I think we’ve grown as musicians and also as partners. Staying together and keeping a musical relationship fresh and alive is a rare and difficult thing to achieve. We’ve definitely grown-up in that sense and work pretty hard to keep things going. Musically, I feel that we’ve grown more comfortable with our abilities and creative feats. This is especially true in the new material we’ve been writing recently.
 
What do you have to offer that other bands don’t? What sets you apart from a lot of the other newer bands out there today?
We definitely are a band that offers something with passion and honesty. We are not afraid to hold something back if we don’t feel that it’s something we are really proud of. Our sound as a band stands out as a combination of a lot of our influences. Each member comes from something different. Whether it is classic rock, pop, rap, punk, math rock or indie sound, we all listen to different things and it shows in our songs. We definitely offer something that comes from a heavy passion for music and writing. We live our lives for music; it’s hard to really be in this industry, especially coming from the smaller local band perspective, without having a strong passion for what you write. There’s a lot of pride in our sound and if people dig that, we have something in common.
 
How is the live show compared to the general sound of material that’s been released?
One of the main things we work hard at is making our live show something worth talking about. The music we record is definitely different from our live show in many ways. We’ve had our songs for long periods of time and after playing them over and over, we like to change things up by adding little snippets here and there to keep things interesting. We do this by sometimes adding different lyrics, drum parts or sometimes an entire new ending to a song. Our live show displays to people that we are more than just a studio band, so we have to really give fans something to write home about. With our new material we are trying to morph that live energy into out recordings. You definitely get a different experience in our live show and possibly a cartwheel.
 
More times than not, influences tend to bleed through. What bands are currently inspiring the music that you’re making?
For me personally, there are a lot of different artists that inspire what I do for the band. Brand New is one of our general favorites that influenced us in the beginning, but all of us have grown into other sounds stemming from that original influence. As a lyricist I take a lot of influence from Brand New’s style along with Manchester Orchestra. As a vocalist I take a lot of influence from the raw sounds of artists like Conor Oberst in Desparecidos and Daryl from Glassjaw. With the band and the material we are writing now, we are definitely always changing out influences, for example, Nick’s drumming has grown from a simpler sound to a more percussion heavy material with artists like Cursive and Maps and Atlases. Judcody takes a lot of influence from the thematic sound of bands like Menomena and Radiohead. Our bassist Ray takes a lot of his influence from simplistic pop bass sounds from artists like Deerhunter and Tokyo Police Club. Al’s influences took a small shift from artists like At the Drive-in to older material from Fall of Troy.
 
What would you say the band has already accomplished and what do you have your eyes set on next?
Because we’re a smaller band we have to work around a lot of different things. With that in mind we’ve done two albums and a handful of small tours around the west coast and south west all self booked and self funded. All of us go to school, while Ray is finishing his last semester, I just graduated college. For 2011, we plan on going that next step and dedicating ourselves to playing longer tours to reach new fans and basically playing as much as possible. One main goal would be hitting the east coast, a region we have yet to play. We’re been writing new material, but aren’t really planning on releasing anything anytime soon. For now, we just want to focus on gathering a lot more fans, getting out name out there and definitely looking towards working with labels.
 
Thus far, what’s a favorite memory or something quirky that’s taken place with the band (in-studio, onstage, or elsewhere)?
One particular memory that we have from our last tour we did with Thieves and Villains took place every time we had to pull over to go pee. The snow was really heavy on the drive, so when we would pull over to the side of the road in our very uncomfortable Tahoe and while everyone was doing their business someone would grab snow and begin a snowball fight. This happened every time we pulled over. We became obsessed with having snowball fights every time we stopped. It got pretty serious. Hearts were broken, lives were ruined.
 
Is there anything in particular that you’d like people to take away from listening to your music?
With our music and the lyrics, there’s always a sense of relatability that I want people to take away with our music. As artists, I always feel that the art we create is really something that we give to our audience; the songs belong to them. That’s what keeps us going, people’s ability to fall in love and relate with our songs. We want people to know that there’s more to our music then what we sell. There are many stories laid in our songs that consist of our struggles as writers and artists. Retreat is an album heavy with themes of regret and defeat that comes from our experiences as a band and as individuals. We try and use our art to reach out to people who understand that we all go through the same emotions both good and bad. We want to stick with people and not just be a phase in their mind. We hope that we offer something that really draws them in.

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