motel void

MOTEL VOID: You are from LA, California. How would you describe the current music scene? Do you feel that you’re part of it?

CORMAC: We got together in LA, yeah! We’ve really only been around and exploring the scene since things opened back up on the tail end of the pandemic, but I feel like that’s kind of a universal experience for a lot of bands and artists right now, which kind of makes us feel more comfortable in a weird way. Like we’ve all gone through this together and been basically inactive publicly for the past 2-3 years. So I would say our scope is limited, but within that scope is a sort of microcosm. We’re constantly meeting/seeing new artists doing something infinitely more different than the last. A lot of the punk acts I’ve seen around here are really antithetical to what I expected from LA. And maybe that’s me being a grumpy old pessimist but I was expecting more of the punk to be fashion conscious or meticulously curated, but I think I fell victim to a really boring and uninformed view of LA, and the reality is there are kids making some really cool shit with a well grounded DIY mindset and making art for the sake of making art. It’s making us feel more welcome and excited for sure.

MOTEL VOID: You’ve just released a new single ‘King Dundalk”. Will it be part of your new record?

CORMAC: Yup yup! We have one more single in the pipeline to kind of continue stirring up interest before we release the full album. Fingers crossed but we should hope to have it ready by this summer. We’re recording it and mixing it all ourselves in between day job shifts, so the timeline is a bit volatile.

MOTEL VOID: Could you tell us more about the recording and writing process of your songs?

CORMAC: Totally, a lot of these songs for this record kind of formed around a nucleus of like one or two guitar parts or noises that I cooked up. I would bring it to the group for them to write their parts, kind of throw it on the slab and play around with it like “I like that thing you’re doing there” or “I’m not loving that” or “please take a video of me playing this part because I will forget it immediately.” Harry has a natural talent for tapping into a kind of vocal flowstate right out of the gate, harnessing random lyrical fragments that they later develop into full fledged ideas, stories and images. We all talk really openly about our influences, and where we want certain tracks to go, and these cats are so fucking good at tapping into that, taking a basic outline and doing gorgeous and wildly inventive things with them. The rest of the gang are starting to bring more and more nuclei to the table and I’m really excited about the direction that’s going. We rehearse in our dear friend and bass player Malcolm’s garage (so fun to finally actually be a garage band.) We have everything kind of permanently mic’d up in there on amps and drums and hooked to an old iMac, so anytime we feel like we found lightning we hit record and bottle it. Very fortunate setup for us. As far as recording goes, our dear friend and drummer Tim has a full recording set up at his house, that we affectionately call Train Song. We’ll meet up over there and focus on one instrument at a time, and I like to have all of us there even if we’re not all tracking just because I think it’s important for all of us to be as informed as possible on each other’s parts. What we make we make together as a whole, greater than the sum yada yada. Once that’s all done I take the stems back to my place and start mixing, and after sending four to seventeen passes back to the band and getting feedback it’s done!

MOTEL VOID: Your biggest inspirations right now?

CORMAC: Sonically for me I’d say a lot of the late 80’s/90’s noise rock Chicago/Louisville-adjacent bands. Bands like Big Black, The Jesus Lizard, Slint, Five Finger Satellite, and a lot of the No Wave notable names like Kim Gordon, Glenn Branca, etc. As far as Band Ethos and subject matter goes, I feel like a lot of it comes from a deep desire to see a restructuring of the world as we know it. Living in LA, you are surrounded by and very close to obscene opulence while you yourself can hardly afford the rent and your neighbors are forced to sleep outside without easy access to much needed assistance. This constant opposition and juxtaposition is dissonance. So we make dissonance in return. Art imitates life and all that free acid jazz.

MOTEL VOID: Your plans for 2024?

CORMAC: Shows, writing, recording, wash rinse repeat. As I said, really hoping to have this album done by the summer, and maybe (just maybe) some label will take us out for ice cream or something. We have a small string of shows coming up in late March around the southwest, so we’re hoping to meet some sweet bands/folks, grow our lil world even further.