Meet Elana Justin of
Motive Black
Interview by Ken Morton - Photos by Jack Lue
Based out of the legendary Los Angeles music scene, Motive Black is a hard rocking band you’ll be hearing a lot more from in the months ahead! Fronted by vocalist Elana Justin, Motive Black just unleashed their debut album entitled Auburn, now available worldwide via AFM Records. Amongst the guest who appear on Auburn are Carla Harvey of the Butcher Babies, Ray Luzier of KORN, and Marcos Curiel of POD. Elana recently did a photo shoot with famed photographer Jack Lue in downtown LA It was there we caught up with Elana to find out more about the intriguing music of Motive Black. Read on... How did you end up signing with AFM Records? It was during Covid and I kind of thought the project was dead to a certain extent – because I put a lot of my own money into it. We had done an EP. We were about to do a bunch of shows, and Covid just shut us down. My manager started shopping a recorded live performance of us to a bunch of different labels – and a few reached out – and AFM seemed open to letting the artists make most of the decisions creatively – and I was really into that. And they were great – and that’s how it happened. You have Nick Rowe (Bloodsimple, Vampire Weekend) working with you. How did you wind up meeting and working with him? I came out here to LA. I was living in New York and had a band in New York – and I had some songs I wanted to rework. So, I came out to actually do a few Warped Tour shows on the Shira Girl stage. And I reworked a song with Nick and I loved how it came up – so I just kept bothering him until he would do a bunch of songs with me. I ended up moving out here and it was really awesome. We work really well together. It’s a really great collaborative process. Is there any story or concept behind the Auburn album title? 30
Yes! So Auburn is the title track of the album, and it’s written about my sister who passed away about a year before I started writing the album. She lost her battle with addiction. And she had red hair – which she always thought wasn’t red – it was auburn, but it sounded nicer. So, Auburn. What was it like working with Carla Harvey of the Butcher Babies and how did that collaboration come about? March/April 2023
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