With a talent that matches her skill as a songwriter, and the passion with which she approaches her craft as a vocalist and performer, the remarkable Elana Justin is the driving spirit and guiding force behind new Los Angeles melodic metal band, Motive Black.
The group released its first single, Broken, on March 20, a powerful, exceptionally well-produced and emotionally complex song that highlights Justin’s ability to convey her complex internal thought processes and feelings within the context of the song that still kicks ass, musically.
Broken, as well as all the other songs that have been completed in anticipation of the release of Motive Black’s debut EP later this year (date as yet undetermined, thanks in no small part to the ongoing Covid-19 fallout), began in the fertile imagination of Justin, and brought to their ultimate compositional fruition with the help of Grammy-winner producer Nick Rowe (Vampire Weekend, Lamb of God, Madonna, Snoop Dogg).
“I had worked with him a little bit the previous year on a song that I had written with my old band and I brought him in to produce it and really liked working with him. So, when I moved back out to L.A. I got in touch with him and we started doing these songs,” Justin said.
“We work really well together, and we get along well too. He is super talented and for some reason it flows really effortlessly between us when we write music. It’s a great vibe and things get done so quickly.”
Justin grew up in Great Neck, New York, but decided a couple of years ago that she needed a change of scenery, and uprooted herself to make a permanent cross-continent move to Los Angeles, literally starting fresh, as she not only left family and friends behind in the Empire State, but also her former band.
“I had come out here for a couple of months before then and done a couple of recordings and then went back to New York. I then came back again to do a few shows and realized I should just stay out here, because I liked it. So why not? And also, there was a lot of loss back home in New York. I had a few people pass away that I was very close to, and it was sort of like, ‘well, it’s maybe time to start something new,’” she said.
“I had to make big choices because you only get one life, and I had to make big decisions and take big risks, so I decided to do that and I came out here and also decided to create this whole new project and sort of a new life, and Motive Black was born. The band in New York had already started to break up so I felt that it was just time to move on. It was more hard rock, whereas Motive Black is definitely metal. I think moving here and starting fresh took away a lot of distractions. I spent a decent amount of time alone when I got out here in 2018 and really got to focus on what I really wanted to write about. So, it was hard, but it was also very healing to come somewhere new and start fresh.”
Justin grew up around live music and musicians in the heart of New York City, thanks in no insignificant part to her dad, she became enamoured with the idea of creating and performing her own songs at a young age.
“I was always drawn to music. I actually learned well through music; I would set everything to a melody, like my address or my times tables – anything like that. Music is also a release. I was very shy as a kid, but I would lose the shyness whenever it was time to sing, or time to perform, because it was such a release of energy and emotion and sound. It felt bigger than me,” she said.
“I felt like I was a different person on stage. My dad had a night club in the city when I was a kid, and I would go sometimes and see songwriters when they had a songwriting night, and bands would play too. So, I got exposed to that a lot and I thought it was really cool. I knew that it was something that people could do as a job, which was something really amazing and inspirational to be exposed to at that young age. It was in the heart of New York City and I was like eight or nine and going to see these singer/songwriters, I was just around live music all the time. Even when the club wasn’t open there would be people in there doing sound checks and things like that. I was attracted to the whole vibe of it, it was the vibe of being there and seeing the audience reacting. And I would see these female artists and think they were these amazing poets, and it was very cool.
“So, I always wanted to do something with music. I am really into Joan Jett, and when I first started listening to Joan Jett, I was like, ‘oh man, I really want to be a kick ass female rock singer.’ I love that her music was gritty and that there were really powerful females like herm in rock music.”
And with Broken, she has achieved her wish, and is excited to soon be releasing the Motive Black EP.
“A lot of the songs we had written for the EP were pretty aggressive and hard hitting and it was time to be more vulnerable. So, I came in with some ideas lyrically and Nick was already there playing guitar and it just came together really organically. It was catchy and we wanted there to be a way to talk about being vulnerable but in a powerful way, because everyone’s very different in the way they show and deal with being vulnerable,” Justin explained, as she elucidated more on what the concept of vulnerability means to her.
“I think it’s opening yourself up to someone else. It’s breaking down walls and allowing other people in to know you. I was struggling with that. I had built up very protective walls and it was very frustrating for me to break them down. I didn’t really want to. But you know if you’re not living fully, if you’re not allowing yourself to experience everything, you’re missing out. So, you have to sort of fight against yourself in order to experience things to the fullest.
“If you’re a creative person, you don’t want to hinder yourself. You don’t want to let yourself be hurt, but sometimes in order to fully experience something and then express is, you have to open yourself up to it. It’s like releasing a song: you build it, you protect it, you build this song and it’s like, ‘oh God, people might hate it.’ The song is very much about how it’s very hard not to fight the idea of being vulnerable. Music is all about connecting with people, and hopefully other people can identify with that struggle to be vulnerable and put themselves out there.”
The other members of Motive Black include guitarist KC Jenkins, bassist Gabe Maska and drummer Jeff Dewbray, all musicians Justin met during jam sessions she attended in the months after moving to Los Angeles in 2018. For the recording sessions leading to the EP, korn‘s Ray Luzier played drums, while there were also some guitar contributions from Marcos Curiel of P.O.D.
“When I moved there, I got involved in these jam nights on the Sunset Strip, primarily at the Viper Room, and I met them through that. They were doing these jam nights and there were a bunch of like-minded musicians and we all got along really well, became friends and started talking seriously about music. When it was time for me to get a band together to play my songs live, they were the guys to go to, because I already had a relationship with them. And for sure, they will be involved in the writing moving forward,” Justin said.
Again, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are no live shows in the offing for Motive Black for the foreseeable future, but for more information, and to connect with the band, visit their website at www.motiveblack.com, and their social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Broken is available to stream on Spotify or to download on Apple Music and iTunes.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZa1Hot_T98
SHARE THIS POST:
