Motel Drive

Local band Motel Drive has momentum.

It's a busy time for the rockabilly/Americana/country band, which is made up of JD Goodwin (vocals, guitar), Mike Monteiro (guitars, vocals), Jake Finney (upright bass) and Chris "Rhinestone" Estep (drums).

It was one of 12 winners (out of 1,200 entrants) in a national competition on ourstage.com that allowed them to open for Hanson in San Francisco. Earlier in the year, Motel Drive won the battle of the bands at Vintage Days at Fresno State, and also recently played at a NASCAR race.

Friday, the band is releasing its new CD with a show at The Cellar Door, 101 W. Main St. in Visalia. It starts at 9:30 p.m. Cover is $5. We talked to the band to find out more.

You guys have won the Vintage Days battle of the bands and the contest to open for Hanson this year. What are you trying to win next?
Hahaha. The real contest is to win the hearts and love of the world! Actually, we also won the August Southern Rock contest at ourstage.com, too.

How was it opening for Hanson? That's not necessarily an act I'd associate with Motel Drive.
That show was a blast! Isaac, the elder of the three, hung out with us before the show. Turns out they are fans of the same kinds of American roots music that has had major influences on Motel Drive, like Elvis or Chuck Berry and such. They are good guys. And their crowd goes wild for a good show!

The band recently played at a NASCAR event. Did you fit in well there?
Completely. NASCAR fans also love a good rock and roll show. Chris is a big NASCAR fan, too, and got to meet a bunch of drivers. That was a lot of fun.

It seems like you guys have a good amount of momentum right now? How do you plan to capitalize on it?
By playing as much as we can. We are booking into 2011 already and are talking about a bit of touring in spring. This is a good time for us. We just finished a new CD.

Tell us about the new CD? What's it called? What's it all about?
It's called Motel Drive goes Hawaiian. At least that is what RadioFreeBakersfield.com is calling it -- because it doesn't have a title. Just Motel Drive. What's it about? The usual: girls, drinking, losing your gal, losing your beer, the rock and roll life. We threw on a couple live tracks we recorded in Bakersfield, too.

Where can people pick it up?
First stop, the CD release show! We'll get it over to Spinners and Yoshi Now! soon as well. You can order it from us online at moteldrive.com or download it from digstation.com (and soon iTunes and others).

Any big plans to go along with the new CD?
World domination. That big enough? Promote, promote, promote! - Fresno Bee

Motel Drive, Tulare County's rockabilly-meets-Americana-roots music group, performs Friday at The Cellar Door.

This Cellar Door performance is a special time for the band: The concert marks the first time its new self-titled CD will be available to the public.

The band counts an eclectic group — The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Graham Parsons, to name a few — as influences. While regularly touring up and down California, the band recently found time to win a band competition from more than 1,000 entries that landed them a spot playing San Francisco's famed Great American Music Hall last month. The band also won California State University, Fresno's Battle of the Bands.

So what should people expect if they come out to the show?

"A grab bag of Americana music from rockabilly to jazzy country," band member J. D. Goodwin of Tulare.

If you like what you hear, CDs will be available for purchase at $10 each. You can check out Pete Menting's review of the CD on this page. - Visalia-Delta Times

Motel Drive, Tulare County's rockabilly-meets-Americana-roots music group, performs Friday at The Cellar Door.

This Cellar Door performance is a special time for the band: The concert marks the first time its new self-titled CD will be available to the public.

The band counts an eclectic group — The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Graham Parsons, to name a few — as influences. While regularly touring up and down California, the band recently found time to win a band competition from more than 1,000 entries that landed them a spot playing San Francisco's famed Great American Music Hall last month. The band also won California State University, Fresno's Battle of the Bands.

So what should people expect if they come out to the show?

"A grab bag of Americana music from rockabilly to jazzy country," band member J. D. Goodwin of Tulare.

If you like what you hear, CDs will be available for purchase at $10 each. You can check out Pete Menting's review of the CD on this page. - Visalia-Delta Times

Here in the Central Valley it's easy to find great, fresh food. What is slightly under the radar though is the crop of bands sprouting up and making a name for themselves. Motel Drive is one to watch with group members having honed their skills playing in Visalia, Fresno and Bakersfield. Their main style leans more towards the countryside of rockabilly as apparent on tracks such as "Borrowed Time," "When The Lights Go Down" and "Long Tall Woman." Yet, some songs have that punk feel such as the Reverend Horton Heat vibe of "Baby I'm Through With You" and a softer Social Distortion-esque "Drifter Blues (Live)." What makes Motel Drive really click is the twin guitar attack of J.D. Goodwin (Cole Fonseca) and Michael Monteiro (Crossing Caldwell) to go along with upright bass playing of Jake Finney (MoFo Party Band) and drumming Chris "Rhinestone" Estep (The Suppressors). - Visalia-Delta Times

LIKE: Motel Drive! I only caught the last two songs of their set, but I was really diggin' what I saw. I knew I would. I've liked their recorded material, but their live energy was nice. I definitely want to see them again.

--Mike Osegueda, Bee Staff Writer - Fresno Bee (fresnobeehive.com)

One can’t help but shake a leg to the new Motel Drive album entitled $5 Tricks. Kicking off the album with a power house track like "Joyride to Tijuana" you know that these guys have talent. With Christopher "Rhinestone" Estep on drums and Jake Finney on Bass, these two consistently keep the beat strong and steady throughout the entirety of the album. "Plastic Dashboard Jesus" takes us back to that rebel without a cause alter ego that we all have inside. Very reminiscent of The Stray Cats, yet Motel Drive delivers a newer, fresher sound in "Drifter Blues." Once again JD Goodwin makes hearts skip a beat with lines like "I cried till my eyes were dry" in the lonely ballad "Left Here All Alone." Michael "Fabtabulous" Monteiro and Goodwin keep us going with melodic unity in "Judgment Day." Last But not least Motel Drive cuts loose with "Bottles Of Wine," a perfect blend of Americana and Country with a heavy dose of Rockabilly. Motel Drive serves it up straight, shaken, and stirred. This album is a must have to any collection. Musical craftsmanship at it’s finest indeed. - Lady Dre (The Evening Eclectic 90.7 KFSR)

"Drifter Blues" blew me away. I get so much stuff that I rarely get a chance to really listen to everything. Even if I dig a certain band, sometimes I don't hear what they're doing until I put it on a show, which I usually listen to for a few days to see how it flows, if the levels are OK, etc. And then every once in a while a track like yours comes along & I'm like, "Damn!" --Jorge Spahn - RadioFreeBakersfield.com

Fresno's Motel Drive (awesome Fresno band name) have been playing a lot this year and impressing everyone along the way. Recently they visited KFSR studios to record "Drifter Blues" for listeners and us to enjoy. - The Fresnan

Hop in your '64 Chevy Bel Air and go for a long drive down the Central Valley of California. What do you hear blasting out of your speakers? Motel Drive. Taking notes from rockabilly, surf and old school country, the band belts out songs of hardships, road trips and the hope for a better tomorrow. Burning up the road is what they do best, traveling literally up and down the state, from Eureka to Long Beach and everywhere in between. Even the snow covered mountains of Mt. Shasta got a taste of them. You can feel their pain and it’s obvious they play from the heart. Motel Drive is an honest band that makes an honest living the only way they know how: through music.

--Beau Dowling - San Jose Metro