Joey Vera Talks About New Band Motor Sister

By Andrew Bansal

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Motor Sister is a brand new Los Angeles-based rock ‘n roll ensemble that comprises Scott Ian (guitar), Joey Vera (bass), John Tempesta (drums) and Pearl Aday (vocals), along with frontman Jim Wilson on guitar and vocals, whose old band Mother Superior is the music this new group is bringing back to life. Motor Sister first performed together as a one-off for Scott Ian’s fiftieth birthday party, but then recorded a whole album called ‘Ride’, full of Mother Superior songs and slated to release via Metal Blade Records on March 10th. They have also announced a select few live shows to present the band and its music on stage, including a gig at the Whisky-A-Go-Go on March 11th. Last week, I spoke to Joey Vera about Motor Sister. Enjoy the conversation below and check out our ticket giveaway for the LA show at the bottom of the post.

Joey, it’s good to have you on Metal Assault, as always. In this interview I’ll mainly talk to you about Motor Sister, which is yet another new band you find yourself involved in. From what I understand, this group of musicians came together for a one-off gig, and it has now turned into a band. How did it happen? It seems like something you probably never expected.

No! It never occurred to me that you could call your favorite band and say, “Hey, can I play your songs at my party and can you be in the band with me?” It’s a pretty cool idea that Scott had. A little bit of a back story is that Scott turned me onto Mother Superior back in 2004, I immediately became a fan, and they’re based here in LA, so I would go see them play live. Shortly thereafter I became friends with them, as did Scott, and we all became friends. We have a lot in common, musically and everything. So, my history with Jim Wilson goes back a little bit, and when Scott called me with this idea, I just thought it was great. He asked me to be involved, and without a heartbeat I said, of course! I was going to his party anyway, I just had to bring my bass (laughs). So yeah, it turned out to be a pretty cool thing, a lot of fun, and friends came, and it was awesome.

So, you were already familiar with Mother Superior and knew their material when you were invited, not just for this party but to record the album.

Yeah, I was already familiar with most of the songs. There were a couple that I hadn’t heard from earlier records but I knew probably 80 per cent of it.

From what I read, the album ‘Ride’ was recorded within just a couple of days in LA. How did that process go? Everybody in this band is busy with other things, so it must have worked out well to do this so quickly.

Yeah, but that wasn’t the reason we did it that way. When we were approached to do the record, we decided that the only way we were going to do it was to do it in the same spirit as the party was, which was just set up, drink a few beers and play. So that’s what we did in the studio. If we were going to make a record, we were not going to make it into a big production three-month thing where we make everything perfect with a lot of time on sound and all this stuff. So we just said, let’s just go in and bang it out just like we did at the party. The first bit was setting up instruments. We got it going mid-afternoon of the first day and banged out six songs. The next day we came back and did another six. We all played in the same room, all standing there together, and even the vocals were recorded live in the same room. So everything was done in two days. After the fact when we were mixing, the only thing we ended up redoing was the vocals, because since the vocals were in the same room as everything else it was too hard to make them sound good. So, Jim and Pearl went back and did all 12 songs in one day, which was amazing. They would sing the song in one take, and boom. No auto-tune, no fixing, no editing.

That’s interesting, man. Stylistically this is more of a classic hard rock band, and very different from Armored Saint, Fates Warning or anything else you’ve done. That itself must make it more enjoyable for you to do something like this.

Yeah, this is the kind of music I grew up on. I’m a kid of the 70s. Basically everything from ’68 to ’78 made a big impact on me as a kid and when I first started playing my instrument. It was the same for all of us, for Scott, John, Jim and Pearl. So we’re all kids of the 70s and this is right up our alley. This is the stuff that’s still with me. I don’t listen to a lot of music that’s modern. I listen to some, but most of the stuff I listen to on a Saturday night is my favorites like Thin Lizzy and UFO. This was a no-brainer for all of us.

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You’ve already announced some shows, so there are obvious plans to take Motor Sister on stage.

Yeah, we played our first show as a band on stage a few weeks ago in Brooklyn, and it was incredible. We’re playing the Whisky on March 11th, San Francisco on the 12th, and then our schedules get busy with other stuff. Scott is going out with Anthrax, and in May, Armored Saint has a bunch of shows with Saxon. But we do want to play more Motor Sister shows. It’s a good, fun time. We just have to do it in a way that fits everybody’s schedule. We don’t want it to become a burden or anything.

Right, and you’ve always been involved in a lot of projects, but are you opening yourself up to more things, specially the kind of stuff you’ve never done before?

I’ve always tried to do other stuff. I’ve been open to other projects and try to do different things. After Armored Saint broke up in 1992, I went through this phase where I was playing with all kinds of different people in LA. We never really recorded anything, but I was in an 11-piece South African group that was playing mostly traditional South African music. Some of it was pop, some of it was reggae, some of it even had a little bit of jazz in it. So, I’m always trying to expand, and I learn something new from the players I play with. Recently, it’s been a little harder because I’ve been so busy with all the other things I’m doing with Fates and Armored Saint and the occasional thing with other bands. I’m playing on Pearl’s new record. She has a new solo record coming out, and it’s straight-up country. But it’s traditional country, not like the Nickelback country you’re hearing on pop radio now. It’s not that, it’s like Gram Parsons or early Eagles. That’s awesome too because it’s something I’ve never really done.

Motor Sister links: facebook | twitter

3/11 Whisky show ticket giveaway

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