Martha Davis and The Motels are not just revisiting their New Wave legacy. They’re putting new music on the table. The band has signed with Icons Creating Evil Art and will release “Strange Days” on November 13, 2026, as the first taste of a forthcoming ninth studio album. A day later, they hit Darker Waves Festival in Huntington Beach alongside Morrissey, The Smashing Pumpkins, Simple Minds, Soft Cell and Gary Numan.
The new song takes aim at a culture of fear and anxiety, an idea Davis says began taking shape around 2006. For a band that made “Only the Lonely” and “Suddenly Last Summer” enduring New Wave staples, this is a timely new chapter rather than a nostalgia lap.
Official Press Release
New Wave Icons The Motels Sign To Icons Creating Evil Art. New Single “Strange Days” Out November 13.
Martha Davis and band begin a new chapter ahead of their November 14 appearance at Darker Waves Festival in Huntington Beach, California.
Icons Creating Evil Art is proud to announce the signing of The Motels, one of American New Wave’s defining bands. Led by the unmistakable voice and songwriting of Martha Davis, the band will release Strange Days on November 13, 2026, offering the first taste of their forthcoming ninth studio album.
The single arrives one day before The Motels perform at Darker Waves Festival in Huntington Beach, California, on a bill featuring Morrissey, The Smashing Pumpkins, Simple Minds, The Psychedelic Furs, Soft Cell and Gary Numan.
Emerging from California’s underground, The Motels helped bring New Wave’s atmosphere and outsider sensibility into the American pop mainstream. “Only the Lonely” reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1982, followed by “Suddenly Last Summer,” which matched that peak in 1983. Other Top 40 singles included “Remember the Nights” and “Shame.”
Written by Martha Davis, Nic Johns and Eric Gardner, “Strange Days” confronts the psychological cost of living in a state of permanent alarm. Davis traces the song’s beginnings to around 2006 and the climate of fear that followed the millennium and September 11. “Fear became a marketing tool,” says Davis. She describes the forthcoming album as “a concept album, dealing with the death of a once rational civilization, that let fear and commerce tell them what to do.”
Produced by Clint Walsh and Nic Johns, mixed by Norm Block and mastered by John Webber at AIR Studios, the single features Davis, Walsh, Johns, Gardner and longtime saxophonist and keyboardist Marty Jourard.
The Motels’ “Total Control” was featured in season two of The Bear and in FX’s Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.
Live: November 14, 2026 — Darker Waves Festival, Huntington Beach, California.
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