MOTO SOLO is the project of musician Bobby Tamkin, today, he has shared new single and video “There’s Another Way,” a track inspired by the sounds of Justice and MGMT as well as the synth-pop of the 1980s. “There’s Another Way,” arrives ahead off debut album, out later in 2025.

Tamkin on the inspiration of the track and video:

“With ‘There’s Another Way,’ I set out to musically, tonally, and lyrically include, in one place, almost all of the elements I love in music. Hopefully it’s a journey for the listener as the song is a cauldron of influence and wonder. I wrote a song that is a companion or soundtrack to the pursuit of whatever you’re attempting to achieve but have yet to capture. If the process isn’t working, there’s another way… this could refer to attracting a lover or a dog searching for its bone. There is always another way if it is important. In the ‘There’s Another Way’ music video, the two characters follow similar paths but they’re in a very complex vacuum. In order to break from this routine, and really get what you’re after, you may need to try something nobody has ever seen.”

MOTO SOLO is the culmination of a lifetime in musical adventurousness for Tamkin, who, at a young age, initially did time handling the sticks for the seminal Seattle experimental rock group Hovercraft. “My friend Beth moved to Seattle with her then-boyfriend Eddie and convinced me it was the greatest place to be,” Tamkin explains. “I moved from LA to Seattle and lived in a house filled with musical equipment that she and Eddie owned, and Seattle musicians and touring bands would come by, hang out, and play music at all hours. I was lucky to take part in jams there with musicians from bands I loved, like Soundgarden and Mudhoney,” Tamkin reminisces. “Once Beth and I became a bit more serious about the music we were playing, we recorded a 7” single, then toured with Foo Fighters and also Dave Grohl, Eddie Vedder, and Mike Watt. Hovercraft later toured with The Melvins.”

A few years later, Tamkin moved back to Los Angeles, drummed in many bands, including The Warlocks, and after jamming with musicians such as Flea and John Frusciante and auditioning for Beck and Kyuss, he took a break from music. “I couldn’t find a comfortable home as a drummer,” he muses. He learned a few chords on piano, wrote and arranged his first-ever song, and, together with a singer, recorded it on an 8-track tape machine. The song found its way to the television show Gossip Girl and became the basis for the formation of his band, Xu Xu Fang.

Xu Xu Fang is full of meditative moods that haunt the diaphanous triangle formed by Pink Floyd, Radiohead, and Sigur Ros.” Xu Xu Fang was featured on two Kompakt Records releases, and the band collaborated with photographer and Ladytron member Reuben Wu on a music video. The band’s cover of David Bowie’s China Girl, part of a 35-band Bowie tribute record. Tamkin expanded his reach into the world of film and TV music alongside licensing more compositions to Gossip Girl and television shows Bates Motel, 30 For 30, The Originals and advertising for brands like Sephora. “The band gave me a lot of confidence that you don’t have to be an expert at music to write something that can connect with people,” he says. “Frankly, I had no idea what I was doing.”

MOTO SOLO, which Tamkin describes as a “complete expression of my creativity” where he’s front and center when it comes to writing, singing, and producing the music. “Xu Xu Fang was my band, but I never sang anything,” he explains. “I’d write all the music and lyrics, then hand the lyrics over to somebody else to sing. It was fun, but there was a disconnect. Felt like it was time to emerge from behind the curtain and go full force. It was the only musical challenge left.” Work on MOTO SOLO’s forthcoming debut LP began around 2022 when Tamkin decided to bear down on new music within his studio’s isolated confines. “Despite never singing on anything, I wrote with me as the singer in mind.” Eventually, Queens of the Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman—who also contributed to Xu Xu Fang’s Daylong Secret album—joined Tamkin in the studio to help flesh out the material in development and assist in the album’s production.

“I reached out to Shuman initially for bass playing, and he ended up contributing guitar, keyboards, arrangement ideas, and much more. When we first got together, I played everything I had for him, and to my delight, he liked almost all of it. He asked who was singing, and I knew at that point my voice could work,” Tamkin says with relief. After several weeks working at Shuman’s home studio, Tamkin and Shuman booked recording time at the Highland Park, CA studio, 64 Sound, and together with GRAMMY-winning engineer Michael Harris (Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys), continued recording.

MOTO SOLO draws from the artists that inspire Tamkin in surprising ways—from the distinctive vocals of Depeche Mode’s Dave Gahan to the bombastic musical thrust of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen. The project’s first single, “There’s Another Way,” mastered by Joe LaPorta (David Bowie, Björk), reverberates with a lush synth sweep and heavy dance groove reminiscent of New Order and Kraftwerk. “More so than anything I’ve written in the past, I’m paying attention to arrangement and song craft,”
Tamkin explains while talking about the project’s aims at the moment, and from the sound of “There’s Another Way.”

order “There’s Another Way” HERE