The Motels - If Not Now Then When (2017)

Fans of Martha Davis and the Motels have reason to rejoice, whether they first embraced the new wave band during the early '80s when the Motels came roaring out of Los Angeles with their blockbusters "Only The Lonely" and "Suddenly Last Summer" for Capitol Records, or in their more recent and equally powerful incarnation. Martha has assembled a collection of extreme rarities for this collection spotlighting her at the height of her formidable vocal power. There are wonderful tracks recorded during the early years of the new millennium as well as gems produced by Ken Scott and writing collaborations with former David Bowie lead guitarist Earl Slick. One Motels track, "I Didn't Come," hails from the television program Hit Me Baby One More Time. It's a treasure trove of tantalizingly hard-to-find Martha Davis performances, some with the latter-day Motels and some without. "I have so many songs in my song closet, so I've been dusting them off," explains Martha. "It's weird when you think about what choices you make for an album. You'll go back sometimes and go, 'Why wasn't that one on there?' So it gives you a chance to actually go back and get these other songs out into the light of day." Forming a new band in 1997 that developed into a fresh iteration of the Motels was no overnight development. "I left Capitol, I think, in '89," says Davis. "For the first time in my life, I went a year without writing a song. It was like I was so discouraged by the business and where my music had gone, I just reupholstered couches. And then somebody came up to me and offered me a gig for 20 grand, or something silly. And I went, 'I don't have a band. But I'll get one!' The gig never happened, but I actually started a new band in the '90s. I kind of started all over. I found these really young guys that had never even come close to a record contract, and I basically did it all over again, but started with more presence of mind because the first time it happens to you, it's kind of so wild and weird that I don't think you're necessarily there completely, in terms of understanding what's going on," she continues. "For a while, we were Martha Davis Jr. And it morphed into me searching for newer musicians, and finally finding this group I have now, who are just the greatest guys in the world and amazing musicians." That journey has taken Martha and her reformed lineup of Motels in some very interesting directions. "We weren't really the band that we are today," she says of their early years. "Now we've been together for years, and it's definitely the new Motels. It's not the one that was signed to Capitol, nor is it the one that was before Capitol. But it's the new 2000s Motels."