The Inn Crowd

Martha Davis was supposed to be a lot more than just another new wave overnight sensation that blended into the woodwork when the trend had passed.

It was along with her band, the Motels, that Davis--who appears Friday at the Coach House with her new band, Martha Davis Junior--waxed such early-’80s hits as “Only the Lonely,” “Suddenly Last Summer” and “Shame.”

And unlike many other now-disdained groups of a similar vintage and genre, Davis won much critical acclaim for her intelligent, enigmatic songwriting and hypnotic, wounded vocals.

But the Motels disbanded in 1985, and Davis’ solo album, 1987’s “Policy,” went largely ignored. As a result, Davis has been classified in the “Whatever Happened to . . . ?” file. To many, her absence seemed a sad waste of a major talent with a unique vision.

Perhaps no one missed her performances as much as Davis herself, but illness, depression and lethargy kept her out of the limelight for many years. Her life, while not always pleasant, has certainly been eventful.

In the last decade or so alone, Martha Davis has battled depression, renounced booze and cigarettes and become a grandmother.

Davis, a youthful and still glamorous-looking 46, grew up in radical, hippie-era Berkeley and was a single, teenage mother of two girls. Her own mother committed suicide when Davis was 20. These experiences contributed to the dark, eerie muse that Davis would later draw upon in the Motels.

“I was running from the cops in People’s Park and the whole bit,” Davis said in a recent phone interview from her Ventura County home. “Yeah, I was there, all right. There was a lot of terror that I experienced there that subliminally will stay with me for the rest of my life. There were times that Berkeley was like a war zone. You’d walk down to the store with your kids, and you never knew what was going to erupt. Someone chucks a brick at a cop, and something is going to happen, you know? People didn’t take the consequences of their actions into consideration, and there was a lot of violence. People died. It wasn’t a good environment to be raising kids in.”

And so Davis--who had played guitar from age 8 and written songs since age 15--moved to Los Angeles in 1975 with the group to try her hand at a music career. Whether she realized it at the time or not, Davis seemed to be tempting the same fate that had claimed her own mother.

“I drove my kids completely insane,” she admitted. “I was dealing with a lot. I’d go out and get hammered all the time, and they’d have to sit there and wonder if I was going to make it home OK. I had this dream of being a rock goddess, and they’d be saying, ‘Mommy, if you ever make it, can we get new socks?’ It was so pitiful I can’t even begin to tell you.”

But for all this, Davis said, her children were her own safety net through the hard times, and she’s not sure she would have made it through to the other side without them.

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Meanwhile, the Motels were initially a band stuck between two camps, neither of which accepted them. But time would soon be on their side.

“We got rejected for not being punk enough, but right before punk happened we were way too weird and crazy for that whole Linda Ronstadt, California rock thing,” Davis recalled. “Then new wave came along, and we finally fit in somewhere.”

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After years of struggle, the Motels were signed to Capitol Records in 1979.

“We played for, like, eight years in clubs making $25 a night before it happened,” Davis said. “It was amazing. We were signed very quickly, and we were in the studio the day after we were signed. Then all of a sudden you’re on a tour bus, you’re on the road and you just go on automatic pilot. It’s a lot to absorb.”

Like 99% of the groups that rode the new wave, the Motels flamed fast and hot, along with the scene itself. But by the end of the ‘80s, Davis was without a label. Feeling empty and rejected, she began to drink more, rarely left her house, put on weight and became depressed.

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For all the blows that life had dealt Davis, however, she never succumbed to self-pity for long. Basically an upbeat, optimistic person, Davis has rebounded in the last few years, given up alcohol and nicotine, lost weight and decided to make another go at a music career.

Davis played a handful of shows in the area a couple years ago as sort of a trial run, blew some baggage out of her creative psyche and believes she’s now poised for a genuine artistic comeback. Her new band, Martha Davis Junior, features guitarist Erik Lemaire, drummer Jason Loree, bassist A.J. Burke and keyboardist Dave VanPatten. Davis believes that with this group, she’s returned to making the type of passionate, mysteriously theatrical rock upon which she initially gained her fame and critical reputation.

“When I first started playing again, I really wanted to go back to real basic stuff--guitar, bass and drums, a primitive, ‘let’s rock!’ kind of thing,” said Davis. “But after a couple years I started missing the ambience of the other stuff, so we added keyboards. The songs are supposed to be like little stories, little movies, and the more atmosphere we can give them, the better.

“It’s all . . . a very cathartic adventure. I crave those moments when the stage gets very isolated and you can really zero in on things and make them very dramatic. I think I’ve returned to that full force now.”

Davis has been in her home studio putting together a new album with producer and longtime friend Kevin McCormick (known for his work with Jackson Browne) that she hopes will be released in the spring.

“What’s going to surprise people about it, I hope, is the strength of it,” said Davis. “What’s going to surprise people is that the songs are better than ever. I hope that what surprises them is that the lust is still there, because that’s the way I feel about it.”

* Martha Davis Junior performs Friday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tommy Riezer and Bonhomie Baby open at 8 p.m. Tickets, $19.50. Information: (714) 496-8930.