Q&A: A chat with Max Lerman

Q: Ruben: What initially got you interested in starting the band that you’re in?

Lerman: Me and another player in the band, Willie Vogel, had been jamming for four years. I met him through a mutual friend. We started snowboarding together and then found out that our favorite bands were Red Hot Chili Peppers and turns out he’s an incredible guitar player. He started jamming with us and when my younger brother, Ari, got to Boulder, he joined us and we were playing a lot of music and never thought about making a band. We never got to it until two other guys in the band, Brendan and Will, hit up Ari for a grad show last year in May and Ari just mentioned the day before that me, his brother, plays keys and can sing. They called me up and that’s how we did our first live Boulder gig at a graduation party. Some more people were there and invited us to their graduation party and Willie was at that grad party and we were like, okay, Willie’s gotta get in on this because he’s awesome. He fits right in, and Willie joined the second day and then we just kind of ran with it. We enjoyed playing with each other and we’re having so much fun with it. For a lot of us, we’ve been playing music and hadn’t ever performed and then it just hit and was this awesome addiction. From there on it’s just, let’s keep booking shows and see what happens.

Q: You and Willy found camaraderie between both liking the Red Hot Chili Peppers. What are your other favorite musicians and artists and who has inspired you? 

Willie has a very cool, interesting taste in music. We bonded over Red Hot Chili Peppers, and we just started showing each other our own stuff and it built from there. My personal influences range all over the place because my family is primarily jazz musicians. Everyone plays the saxophone. I wasn’t crazy into jazz growing up. I don’t think any kid, unless they’re a prodigy, is that into jazz. You kind of have to understand what’s going on or it sounds like too much. It was Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, I was into a lot of old music and there is a lot of rap influence. There was a lot of old rhythm and blues guys like Marvin Gay and Curtis Mayfield. Then I started getting into more indie rock by newer guys, like, twin peaks outta Chicago,  Mac DeMarco, I love him and how crazy he is on stage. It’s always been a huge overwhelming mix of music.The music I create goes with whatever mood and phase I’m in with what I’m listening to. 

Q: If you could open up for any artist, who would that be? , 

Matisyahu. He was making dope music and a lot of it was combined in with his religious spirit and connection to God. I feel like with most religious music, it comes off as corny.   When I was with my Orthodox relatives, I could still play Matisyahu with them and they’re accepting of it. You can’t play too much other secular stuff around them. Just following his journey from where he became more of a reformed Jew and seeing how that changed his music, and he started singing about more stuff and just the fact that he is a super dope reggae artist. He can beat box when you see him live. He doesn’t have too many songs, but he does different style every time. That creative aspect drew me in. That’s probably who I’d really want to open up for, even though it’s not the biggest name, it’s probably the most connected to my past, which is why I’d want to.

Q: What is the origin of the band name, Mr. Mota?

Mr. Mota came about from a lot of stressful group messaging about how the hell we figure out a band name, because in this day and age, so many names are taken.You think of a good name, plug it in Spotify, somebody has it, and it just in terms of marketing and stuff, you don’t want that to happen. You don’t want it to put your name out and somebody can look up a different name, get it mixed up, you want to have something that’s original. Willie brought up that he used to work at a cafe back at home with a man from Puerto Rico and when he would come back from lunch break and he smoked a little, his coworker would say, “Hey Mr. Mota, Mr. Mota,” because Mota is spanish slang for weed. That’s how it came about, and we weren’t crazy about it necessarily. We were like, okay, let’s run with it now, because before we were just playing shows and people are like, “what’s your name?” And we didn’t have one yet. So we’d just come up with some goofy name every night, so it’s like stick with Mr. Mota. We might come up with something later and until we put out music, it’s not really a big deal, you know, we can make the Instagram, make the social medias and then we can change it later on if we want and people will catch on, and we’ve kind of found out that no matter how goofy the name is, you’ve just developed that brand and people will like it. So we’re sticking with Mr. Mota. It’s gotta be short, unique.

Q: What genre would you consider the band? 

Genre is really tough because we have so many different influences across the board.

And for me, especially as an ADD-ridden musician, it’s really hard to stick to one thing because it just becomes boring. For us, I would say our major influences are blues and rock, but we do some indie stuff. We have some folk stuff where I’ll play the banjo. We definitely have some reggae stuff and then across all those genres. We don’t market as a jam band, but we love the improvisational aspect of jamming. So if you’ve seen us, we’ll stretch a song out and jam on it and kind of change the parts up. So it’s kind of all those mixed with some jam elements.

Q: What is the best venue you’ve performed at? 

I really struggle with favorites because I overthink a lot of things. I’m thinking of how the crowd was, how the sound was, how the overall feel of the venue was. I would probably say our very first Fox show in December of 2021 because we hadn’t played too many big shows. The only legitimate stage we played on before that was the buff street series across from the sink. We had played so many CU backyard shows and Greek events and we knew we were picking up steam, but that Fox show kind of cemented how much work we had done. And for me, that was my first time performing on a big stage, and I kind of blacked out from the whole experience. But from so much adrenaline, I can barely remember being on stage. Cause I was like, holy crap, there’s so many people here. There’s a lot of faces I don’t recognize, which means that we’ve done the work, we’ve gotten out there and reached out to new people. Because we only have so many friends around here that got tickets for the show that was a crazy experience. You could tell the energy from all the guys, we didn’t have Willie there for that show. it was four piece, it was just Rosen on guitar. It was so much energy from all of us, and you could tell, we were all kind of blown away from the overall experience. So I’d probably say that was my favorite place. 

Q: Do you have a dream venue? 

Red rocks. I think before I even thought seriously about performing music live, I would go to Red Rocks shows and I would kind of be daydreaming, watching the stage and I’d tear up a bit. I still believe I’m going to break down if I make it on that Red Rocks stage. You know, I’ve found that you have to believe in yourself for other people to believe in you, and so I’m definitely not going to discount myself and say, it’s not going to happen. I’m really pushing for that experience. It’s just such an amazing place. I have been to so many shows, looking down at the stage and to see it for the first time looking at the stage, up at the people. That would kind of blow my mind. 

This interview has been condensed and edited.