Motel 7 Release Experimental and Carefree EP “Headphones”
The sky's the limit for LA-based band Motel 7. Their latest EP release “Headphones” features six tracks that reflect the band’s ever-changing emotional states which manifests in Khabbaz and Lee not restricting themselves with eccentric, dream-like soundscapes.
The band was formed before Khabbaz and Lee even knew if they could sing or write songs together. Back when the duo were students at music school, they grew to appreciate electronic production as Lee experimented with vocals. Creating without boundaries combined with impulsivity and their genuine love for music production, Motel 7 was born as they started to release songs on SoundCloud and grow their fanbase. Khabbaz and Lee reflect on their artistic growth and how they’ve evolved as producers and musicians.
“Golden” is Motel 7’s favorite track off the EP – and their most experimental track yet – and let’s just say, we’re obsessed. Khabbaz and Lee messed around with 50 different guitar layers along with an instinctual freestyle verse made in five minutes from Lee. The electronic production, summer-soaked beats, and hip-hop-inspired drums heightens nostalgic senses and capture the true sense of escapism.
Airy guitars and introspective dives into LA’s night scene can be heard throughout the record as the title track takes listeners into their own worlds and lets them indulge in their musical sense of freedom. The band’s emotive lyricism drives the record with its sun-drenched ballads and youthful lifestyles.
Using a wide range of musical influences of modern alt-pop and hip-hop accents, Motel 7 creates a body of work that feels “carefree” and embodies a “universal” feeling that takes listeners on an endless daydream.
The "Headphones" EP features the upcoming title track single “Headphones,” and a trio of past singles including “Things I Hate” along with the Paris Brosnan-directed music videos “Messing With Fire” and “Are We There Yet.” The duo has also earned recognition from WWD, Forbes, Billboard, Paper, NME, Cool Hunting, The Line of Best Fit, Ones To Watch, Lyrical Lemonade, Noctis, J-14 Magazine, and more.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Our readers would love to get to know your band more. Can you tell us a general artist statement and how you first got into music?
[ANTON]: Dylan and I went to school together and we just made all these songs for fun, like late nights and early mornings. Something happened naturally just from creating music that maybe we didn't want to create, but just happened out of nowhere. It's just been so much fun. We just go with the flow and write what we feel, and Dylan and I have been friends ever since, so it's good to write music with your friends.
[DYLAN]: We both found that we could sing at the same time on the same track. That was our first moment.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What inspired the name Motel 7?
[DYLAN]: There was this track we made at 5 am after school and we’re about to put a song on SoundCloud one of us said we should name the band Motel 6 for fun and there were already motels with six. A year later, things spiraled out and a record we put out has 6 million plays now. We're like ‘oh shit,’ like we're just doing this and it was just this pure, organic snowball of now we're here and Motel 7 is this whole thing. Definitely just organically for fun. The most natural project I've ever been a part of.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Did you guys get your start on SoundCloud?
[ANTON]: Yeah, essentially that was where we first put out music. It was SoundCloud only and then one day we put out a song called “Summer Love” on Spotify, which is no longer on Spotify, but it just blew up over the course of two years randomly. It got like 80,000 plays in one night out of nowhere and that kick-started everything for us. And that's one of our biggest songs right now, but we're just excited for this new music and I feel like it's a lot different than our older stuff for sure.
[UNPUBLISHED]: I know you guys are based in LA. Does your environment impact the stylings or the content of the music you produce?
[DYLAN]: LA lifestyle always triggers a million different emotions and our music is definitely on the emotional side of things. I would have to 100% agree with that statement that it totally does.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What are some artists that inspire your music either lyrically or musically?
[ANTON]: I listen to everything from The Strokes to Brockhampton to Dr. Dre to Beatles, like a wide range of influences. I feel like I'm listening to a new song every single week. I never really only listen to one genre.
[DYLAN]: It's hard to say that definitely lyrics don't get inspired by other people but I would say some of our records have always been inspired by all indie or any pop sector of music, but we always make our music so carefree. We don't really base our music off anything, like Anton said we listen to so much music anywhere from The Beatles, John Mayer to Brockhampton, Dr. Dre to random SoundCloud rappers, like you name it, we listen to everything.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Your new EP “Headphones” is set to release later in March. Can you talk about the inspiration behind the EP and just the creative writing process or your overall experience producing this work?
[ANTON]: He [Dylan] wrote all these songs throughout the pandemic season and they all came so randomly. I can't really think of a time where we actually sat down in one room and said let’s write an EP. We just wrote song by song, and now we feel like compiling them into one project. Dylan came to me with this idea for our single on the EP called “Headphones,” and it's something that feels so special to me, and we should just honestly make it the name of the EP. Because we all listen to music and have fun, I feel like there's a universal aspect to it for sure.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is your favorite song off “Headphones” and why?
[DYLAN]: I definitely think it's the single or “Golden.” “Headphones” ended up being our favorite song we've ever recorded together and it was just a natural flow that finished the end and it felt perfect.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What was the hardest song to write off the EP either emotionally or lyrically for you guys?
[ANTON]: I can't really think of one honestly, I feel like, for us, it's not that hard because a lot of times artists write music and they think a lot about their lyrics and maybe doubt them too much, but I feel we always put pen to paper and rarely ever look back. I feel like we got every song as close to perfect as we could, nothing's ever perfect, but we did our best and the little imperfections make things cooler these days. So I don't think any song, in particular, was hard to write for us.
[DYLAN]: The most fun one was probably “Golden.” It was actually a freestyle for both of us, pretty much my verse came out, and in one take I was like, ‘that's the one’ and then we wrote the whole song based around this crazy weird loop that made no sense. Anton had it as a ballad before he sent it to me and I did my verse and I needed to add these drums and then make it into a rap song in one day, which was a very interesting writing process. So lyrically, maybe not the hardest, but just like the journey of that record was so crazy it ended up being the most experimental track we've made so far.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What does your creative writing process look like? Do you guys have a set day in the studio or do you have an idea pop in your head and write it down?
[ANTON]: We just bounce ideas back and forth.
[DYLAN]: We both are producers first and singers second. We both easily cook up an idea and send a fully finished record and it’s a very bounce back and forth workflow, but especially during the pandemic, we're not in the same room together. I was traveling a little bit and just getting out of LA. So it was a lot of traveling and sending ideas back and forth. I would say we like to get together and write in a room but the pandemic, it definitely challenged us in a way where we had to fully flesh out music separately.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is the message you want your fans to take away from the EP or just an experience listening to your music?
[ANTON]: Honestly, I feel like this music is so different from what I've heard in a lot of these popular playlists on Spotify and I feel like it's a good contrast between pop, but there's so much influence from bands like Nirvana. We have like a new cadence in our singing and our flow creatively with the songs, so I hope people enjoy it as much as we did making it.
[DYLAN]: Every time someone listens to it, they're kind of like ‘Oh, I can’t put my finger on what genre it is but is it pop? Is it not?’ People understand it's a Motel 7 record just because I think there's just no care behind them, and they just come out naturally and we just write them. I think there’s this carefreeness of the music and the idea of listening and getting away from your daily life. Everyone wants that, everyone has their imaginations and always reimagines how everything could be.
[ANTON]: The EP is called “Headphones,” so wherever you have your headphones on, you're in your own world. You got the song string to your ears, and that could be anywhere and I guess that's kind of how you want it to feel like, a little escape to wherever you want to go.
[UNPUBLISHED]: How is your “Headphones” EP different compared to your first one “A Reminder Not to Think Too Much?” Has your style or creative processes grown since the first release?
[DYLAN]: It's definitely changed how we've evolved as humans, we evolved as songwriters and producers and just anyway you want to put it, the music is very different. Those original songs came from a different place and time for me and Anton. It was a very experimental stage where we didn't even know if we could sing. We didn't even know if we could write a song. So we definitely took more time on this music to experiment and make something that's a bit more personal and a bit more what we really want to make.
[UNPUBLISHED]: Can you talk about the experiences filming for your music videos, “Messing With Fire” and “Are We There Yet?”
[ANTON]: Those are great and are honestly some of the most fun I've had in a long time. We did it with our friend Paris and kind of DIY low budget. We definitely enjoyed ourselves filming those videos and those are so fun to make.
[UNPUBLISHED]: What is something that not a lot of people know about you guys or your music, just like a fun fact?
[ANTON]: I feel like we're very well versed creatively in other kinds of aspects of life, Dylan likes digital art and I go running and music isn't the main focus for us. I feel like we diversify our time and there's a balance that allows us to be more focused on the writing process and all that stuff.
[DYLAN]: Fun fact about me, I used to be a pro surfer and gave that up. I went to boarding school in Canada and came back. I thought I was going to be in finance because I thought it was cool and then started making music and I only went to college for a week and dropped out. I think I just always found myself in things in life where I came back to music at all times. I was like, there's just no way I'm gonna do anything else. I'm also a crypto DJ.
[UNPUBLISHED]: My last question for you guys is, what is your wildest dream as an artist if you can have one thing happen to you or a milestone or collaboration you want to accomplish in your career? What would that look like for you guys?
[ANTON]: I was watching something on Netflix recently and there was this band I know who we're playing and the TV show as the band playing for like a wedding, and I was like that stuff is sick. How sick would it be if we had our first show on a TV show?
[DYLAN]: I would probably say I'm gonna shoot a little higher than Anton. I'm gonna go play Hollywood Bowl and headlining, having all our favorite artists play with us and we go from there.
