Video Premiere: Migrant Motel – Sweat

On making this big leap career-wise with the featured performance at Lollapalooza, the band’s Chava Ilizaliturri says “Getting asked to play Lolla this year is absolutely insane! It’ll be our first time at a big festival and to be given the opportunity to close the BMI stage on the first day – let alone play at all, is an incredible honor. It feels like we’ve been building the history of Migrant Motel for a while and now is the first time it’s mixing in with the history of Rock N’ Roll. From now on, we’ll always be on the bill for the 1st Lollapalooza after Covid… It’s a dream come true”.

In speaking about the inspiration for new track “Sweat” MM’s David Stewart, Jr. explains “This song is honestly just about feeling bad ass; everything from the groove, the lyrics, the production – it’s all focused on making the listener feel like they’re on top of the world. We wanted to give a feeling of being “untouchable”: Having complete dominion over a situation, leading us to cheekily say “C’mon, AT LEAST make me sweat while I beat you!”

As for the video, Stewart adds “I’ve been directing our videos for a while now and this was one of the most fun videos we’ve done. We teamed up with director Luis Zavaleta and cinematographer Victor Ingles for a multi-day shoot in separate locations. With Victor we wanted to get the more cinematic, in studio, slow-motion visuals of the band. Luis style is much more “run and gun”. We were inspired by 90’s music videos of the Beastie Boys and wanted to replicate that old school “fish eye” lens look. We filmed at the Sepulveda Dam in LA at noon and it was hot as hell – and I forgot to bring sunscreen. Took me a long time to bring down the reds in Victor’s studio shots because I looked like a boiled shrimp the next day!”

Made up of Peruvian-American David Stewart Jr. and Mexican native Chava Ilizaliturri, Migrant Motel formed in Boston while they were studying together at Berklee College of Music. Becoming fast friends with shared musical tastes, the band was very active on the East Coast of the United States playing hundreds of shows in the New England and New York areas. In 2017 the duo released their first album “Volume One”, which included the groove heavy, international hit “New Religion“, which today has more than one million streams on Spotify alone. The success of that release lead to the band landing a direct support slot for the legendary Mexican band Café Tacuba on a run throughout the northeast. The band has also toured with a diverse array of artists, most recently Badflower.

Seeking more opportunities and a bigger stage, the pair relocated to Los Angeles in 2018, where Stewart grew up in nearby Palmdale. The band played multiple shows on the Los Angeles circuit, performing in legendary venues such as the Whiskey A Go Go, the Viper Room, the Rainbow and the Troubadour. It was later that year Chava relocated to his hometown of Mexico City – while the band continued to create music together remotely. In 2019, Migrant Motel released the singles “Keep It Down” and “Different Kind Of Leather.” The duo began to function as a band with two scenes: the Mexican and the American. The band started playing shows in different parts of the Mexican Republic as well throughout California. Releasing singles regularly, the pair has positioned themselves in both scenes through steady fan growth and the press.