Bates Motel Nearly Had Stephen Stills Produce Them. The Record Deal Never Came
Les Bohem and David Kendrick revisit Bates Motel’s blazing LA club years, near misses with major producers and the cassettes that became Live in LA 1980.
Bates Motel had the songs, the crowds and some formidable believers. Stephen Stills wanted to produce them. Graham Nash opened his studio to the band. Andrew Gold recorded their demos. They backed Chuck Berry and packed Los Angeles rooms including the Starwood and the Whisky-a-Go-Go.
What they never got was the record deal.
In a new interview with It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, bassist and singer Les Bohem and drummer David Kendrick revisit that improbable run—and the cassette tapes that have finally become Bates Motel’s debut album, Live in LA 1980.
A band the labels could not reduce to one sentence
By 1979, Bates Motel were a fixture of the California club circuit. Bohem played bass and sang; Bob Haag and Dave Draves played guitar and sang; Kendrick supplied the drums. Three writers and three vocalists gave the group unusual range, moving between rock ’n’ roll, power pop and the sharper edge of new wave.
That breadth made the band exciting onstage and difficult to sell in a business looking for one frontman and one simple category. In the interview, Bohem and Kendrick discuss the attention that repeatedly brought Bates Motel close to a breakthrough without carrying them over the line: interest from Lenny Waronker and Ted Templeman, Stills’s offer to produce, sessions at Nash’s studio and four vivid demos made with Gold.
They also remember the less glamorous part of being a strong local band: the frustration of watching every promising connection dissolve.
The tapes survived even when the deal did not
Kendrick had the house soundmen make cassette recordings from the PA during two 1980 performances. Ten tracks come from the Starwood on June 4—the release night for the influential Sharp Cuts compilation—and five from a January show at the Whisky.
The band did not treat those cassettes as the beginning of an album. They were simply a record of nights when Bates Motel were tight, fast and playing to rooms that understood them. Kendrick kept the tapes for decades. Prof. Stoned has now restored and remastered all fifteen performances for Think Like A Key Music.
The conversation also follows the musicians beyond Bates Motel. Bohem, Haag and Kendrick were recruited into Sparks; Bohem and Kendrick went on to form Gleaming Spires; Kendrick later played with Devo and now performs with Xiu Xiu. Hearing Live in LA 1980 means hearing the chemistry immediately before those next chapters began.
Most tantalizingly, the archive may not be empty yet. The interview ends with talk of early demos and other songs that could still be waiting for their moment.
Read the complete Bates Motel interview at It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine.
Release-date update: Following a distributor delay, the release of Live in LA 1980 has moved from September 18 to October 16, 2026. Order the album from Think Like A Key Music.
Source: Klemen Breznikar’s September 2, 2026 interview with Les Bohem and David Kendrick for It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, plus TLAK catalogue data.
