We recently connected with Maureen Davis and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Maureen , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’ve been so fortunate in the last 5 years to complete TWO projects I’ve been dreaming of for a long time:

SLEEPYLAND BAND – SONGS FOR BEDTIME (THAT MOM & DAD WILL LOVE TOO)

A FALLING STAR AT BUZZARD’S ROOST – a rock musical based on a strange true story about a meteorite and my feelings about love, featuring fantastic TV, Stage and Rock stars.

Here’s some radical honesty: I was bullied pretty harshly in both the Swing Dance / Rockabilly World and Classic Rock worlds. People can be so very mean and suddenly you feel so disposable. Covid lockdown gave me a chance to pull away from both worlds and rethink what I wanted and how I could still make music. The problem was, I was afraid to go into the spotlight again because I would be vulnerable enough to be beaten down again.

One day I got a call from Paula Keane who found a shoe box full of cassettes of songs I’d written for her when she started her family. She said, “Hey – they say in lockdown you can form a ‘bubble’ of friends and family. We have an empty recording studio and it’s time to finish the lullaby album. Come be in my bubble!” We spent all of Covid writing and arranging an entire album and designing a book series. The guitarist/composer is our friend David Scheibner, the vocal arranger/engineer our bandmate Claire Gohst (THE FLUTTERBYES and PAPER CITIZEN) and the producer, Paula’s Grammy-nominated husband Tom Keane. It is a magical combination.

A FALLING STAR AT BUZZARD’S ROOST showcases the best songs of my bands THE FLUTTERBIES (Alt Country) and MAUREEN & THE MERCURY 5 (Rockabilly) and a script that basically wrote itself. I was sitting with my friend David Rodgers and said “I need a through line for my songs….1950s, rock & roll, a part for me….”. We Googled “women, rock, 1950’s” and the result was: ANNE HODGES – FIRST HUMAN STRUCK BY METEORITE, SYLACAUGA ALABAMA 1954. Anne’s life was not very memorable beyond her encounter with a “moon rock” so we invented a silly, sweet story about a meteor, a microphone and a love that transcends time. I wanted to create a project that would give actors and musicians quick work and quick pay and radio theatre made the most sense! I began STAGE FOR A NEW AGE, to feature new rock and pop musicals, recorded as radio plays, with racial diversity and including LGBTQ and the differently-abled. THAT turned into ROCK & ROLL RADIO THEATRE – now a project to assist SAG-AFTRA actors facing financial hardship during the SAG/WGA strikes. Awesome actor/director Richard Malmos cast Dave Foley (Kids In The Hall, News Radio) and Gary Anthony Williams (Reno 911,, Boondocks), Crissy Guerrero (El Vez), who joined Kacee Clanton (Janis Joplin on Broadway, Luis Miguel, Joe Cocker), Aaron Lyons (Pulp Shakespeare, The Devil & Billy Markham) and rock star Roni Lee (Venus & the Razor Blades). It’s now on a radio theatre site, Open Door Playhouse, offering us on all streaming platforms.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I toured the world with renowned vibraphonist Gary Burton and my bestie Paula Keane to promote world peace. It was the Dark Ducks Triangle Tour, featuring Russian, American and Japanese musicians led by the Dark Ducks vocal group. We played Carnegie Hall, Tokyo, Osaka, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Prior to that, I was in the Tony-winning Broadway cast of “Into the Woods” with Bernadette Peters.

The silliest project was in 2019, playing Sister Kate, The fun nun in L.A., New York, Texas and London to promote the premiere of the Amazon Prime series “Good Omens” starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen. I got to lend my rock & roll voice to classic Queen songs and share my ridiculous humor five other fantastic actress/singer/comediennes for a five month Clio-award winning ad campaign and social media takeover called “The Chattering Nuns of St. Beryl”. We have a comedy EP called UNHOLY NIGHT (produced by Grammy-nominee Amy Engelhardt) and were on several leading radio and tv shows worldwide.

My Alt country adventure THE FLUTTERBIES (with boy musicians) boasts featured songs in the Oscar-winning THE DESCENDANTS with George Clooney; my Rockabilly darlings MAUREEN & THE MERCURY 5 opened for Dick Dale, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, and Big Sandy, celebrating a 6 year residency at Downtown Disney as well as one year aboard the historic Queen Mary. I’ve placed my music in over 600 film & tv projects, and several songs are now in the Universal Music Library.

I am so grateful for my 7 years at Ultimate Jam Night at the historic Whisky A Go Go! Rock Star & former emcee Paulie Z. has been an amazing, supportive friend and we both bonded over children’s music education. Paulie heads up the David Z. Foundation – giving scholarships worldwide to kids who love rock & roll!  Paulie and Chuck Wright generously invited me to join classic Rock stars as a featured performer (or rather the comic relief) and then backing vocal arranger. It was not unusual to be onstage with members of Cheap Trick, Quiet Riot, Kiss, The Sweet or Dokken and then share the stage with new bands taking Hollywood by storm. I made some wonderful friends:  Check out Jules & the Howl as well as Atara Glazer’s band Plastic Rhino! Amazing! Also — Sarah Stallman  leads the new “Always Adele” tribute project that premiered this year!

With all that — would you believe I’ve spent 15 years as a master vocal coach?  National publication “Music Connection Magazine” and Fox News featured me as an innovative teacher, citing my “story-first” and “speech-singing” techniques. I’ve been at the West L. A. School of Rock for 12 of those years, and I’ve consulted with Cedars Sinai vocal pathologists and yoga masters to incorporate yoga methods, and natural breath control for stamina and vocal health. It was truly exciting to prepare five students for Broadway — all aged 8 to 11 years old.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

“PIVOT” is quite the word…..so many of us are producing, recording, writing several projects at one time. Covid really caused the end of my rockabilly band MAUREEN & THE MERCURY 5. And then SLEEPYLAND BAND was born! I’m so proud of these sweet playtime songs and ballads that people say remind them of The Chicks, Taylor Swift and Fleetwood Mac. Each song has a singalong book with original art by Adam Huntley!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Well – someone wants to nominate SLEEPYLAND BAND for a Children’s Music Grammy. So we joined the Recording Academy and are now going through a very detailed screening and judging process. Ultimately, we hope to create music that helps parents bond with their children and also teaches kids the importance of sleeping for health and dreaming for creativity. I was having really bad insomnia one year and someone really wise said two things to me: 1) if you can’t sleep, you can’t dream and if you don’t dream you can’t create
2) what if music had no rests? there would be no song! it would just be sound that goes on and on and on….

So – as a children’s music teacher (aside from being a rocker chick) joining an actual Mom — it’s quite a journey to the hearts of parents everywhere — and we feel it is an important one.

SIDE PROJECT: With my production company STAGE FOR A NEW AGE and OPEN DOOR PLAYHOUSE (a 501 c3 organization) — I am also creating SAG-AFTRA Micro-Podcast work for actors losing money and insurance during the SAG & WGA strikes! The goal is to pay writers for 15 minute scripts and hire 8-10 actors per day to create radio theatre like they did in the 30s – but with modern storylines – on podcast streaming networks!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sleepylandband.com
• Instagram: @sleepylandband
• Facebook: sleepylandband
• Twitter: sleepylandband
• Youtube: sleepylandband
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/3eHrHaFSKEQzpBLTP5Y90d?si=aMppMjQWSlWfKAu_QmRY1A https://music.apple.com/gh/album/sleepyland-band-songs-for-bedtime/1656826160 https://music.amazon.com/artists/B0BNJYF96M/sleepyland-band?refMarker=null

Image Credits
original art by Adam Huntley