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Gavel Interview: Gold Motel comes to Allston

By Robert Rossi, Managing Editor, on May 4, 2010 11:19 PM

By Robert Rossi, Assoc. Culture Editor – (Photography: Christina Drago)

On Monday, Chicago-based power-pop band Gold Motel came to Harper’s Ferry in Allston and delivered a high-energy, 11-song set. The Gavel caught up with lead singer and keyboardist Greta Morgan and guitarist Dan Duszynski before the show.

R: How did you guys form?

G: Well, Dan and I had known each other for a few years.

D: Our bands toured together.

G: Dan and our bass player Matt and our drummer Adam were all in a band from Chicago called “This Is Me Smiling,” and my old band the Hush Sound took them out to open for us on our first headlining tour.  And then before that, just as a part of the Chicago music scene, I followed other incarnations of their band.  And Matt and Dan went to the same high school as me but were five years older, still are five years older.  I sort of followed them from afar.  And everyone who plays in this band now is somebody I admired and always wanted to play with from before.

D: It’s all about respect at the Gold Motel.

G: I feel very lucky.

R: Who influences you musically?

G: George Washington, Martin Luther King (laughs).  No, I think musically as a whole we all like the Beatles, the Kinks, the Zombies, the Beach Boys, the Motown collection.

D: Everybody likes a lot of different kinds of music, we’re all pretty open-minded.  As long as it’s performed well, I think everybody’s into pretty much anything.

R: Do you find yourselves playing a lot with bands that are influenced by the 60’s or do you stand out more?

G: I think a lot of bands are heavily influenced by really good pop songs, and whether those are from 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s, a lot them were influenced by music that was happening in the 50’s and 60’s.

D: They’re all indirectly influenced by it anyways.

G: Yeah, right, we’re not trying to do a kickback thing, but sometimes there is a nostalgic tinge to the music.  (Looking at guitarist Eric Hehr, who’s just walked by) Hey, wanna do an interview for Boston College?

D: (To Eric) Hop in. (to The Gavel) This is E-Rock, our guitar player.

E: Whatup.

R: Greta, you changed your stage name recently.

G: Oh yeah.

R: Why’d you do that?

G: Well, Morgan is my middle name, and my mom’s maiden name, and I just like the way it looks and sounds better, and I figured I’d rather change it now than five more years in my career.

R: Why’d it take so long then?

G:  Well, I just felt like it seemed arrogant to change my name, but I wanted to create a new identity musically and I wanted to create a new identity for myself.  So I just started now.

R: Where’d you get the name Gold Motel?

G: It was actually pulled out of a hat when I was with some friends a few months ago.  It was the first one that didn’t involve potty humor.  I won’t give the other potential names.

D: Gold Motel was the winner though.

R: So no meaning or anything, just random?

G: Yeah, pretty much just random.  It happened to be my initials though, GM, Greta Morgan.

D: I didn’t even notice that ‘til right now.

G: So when we pulled it out we were like, oh more reason than one.

D: The name chose us, we didn’t choose the name.

R: What’s it like when you guys are writing and rehearsing?  What is the process?

G: Well, it’s kinda been different from the beginning.  Dan and I started recording the songs that are on the EP together.

D: You had most of them written though.

G: Yeah, I had pretty much most of them written, I’d guess like seven songs on the album.  Dan and I sat down and recorded them.  And then a few other songs, Eric brought “Safe in L.A.” to the band, Dan and I wrote “Stealing the Moonlight” together, some of the last songs to finish the album.  And I think toward the end of the record we got into the flow of how we should be making albums.

D: Yeah, so we’re gonna be more collaborative.

G: Yeah, right.

R: Those songs on the EP, those are among the first seven?

G: Yeah, the EP’s five songs, and then the album we’re gonna put out on June 1^st, that album’s called Summer House, and that has ten songs.  Including the EP, so five new songs.

R: How long’s the tour been going on, and how long is it gonna last?

G: It’s about a two week tour and we’re about halfway through.  We’re with our friends Family of the Year from Los Angeles.  And it’s been really fun so far.

D: Yeah this is our second tour as a band and I think everybody gets along really well.  It’s nice, what was the last one three weeks?  Yeah, it’s like they’re not too long, it’s almost like we’re just kinda taking a trip and everybody’s got you know, been hanging out at home for awhile so we’re all just having a lot of fun.

R: So do you have any plans to come back to the area anytime soon?

G: We’d like to.  This is the East Coast tour, and then we’re doing a Midwest tour right when our album comes out in June.  And then hopefully when the full-length’s out we’ll be doing more.

D: Some time in the fall maybe.

R: You guys are currently unsigned.  Are you looking for a record deal or are you just doing your own thing?

G: We’re self-releasing Summer House and then if the right offer came up, I think we’d consider it.

D: We’re open to it.

R: Do you have anything else you wanna add for the BC community?

G: You can follow the band twitter.com/goldmotel.  We have a bunch of cool, funny Youtube videos up.  Youtube.com/thisisgoldmotel.  Our new music video’s up.  It’s all about our web site.  We just put out another music video for “We’re on the Run,” which is a song for the new album.  I think that’s about it….  We like Boston!

D: We have a lot of new content, every couple weeks there’s some new stuff up there, so keep checking back.