It’s nearing two years since The Hotelier released their second LP,Home, Like Noplace Is There.
While it wasn’t the Massachusetts act’s first showing, it was the album that introduced them to the wider listening populace. In the wake of Home’s breakthrough success, the band’s 2011 debut, It Never Goes Out, has gained plenty of exposure. However, certain comments on The Hotelier’s official blog suggest they’d rather distance themselves from that first LP.
“In a sense we’re like, ‘We make hardly anything like that anymore,’” says frontman and main songwriter Christian Holden. “We play ‘Weathered’ and ‘[An Ode To The] Nite Ratz [Club]’ and ‘Vacancy’ and ‘Title-Track’ from that record live, but there’s so many songs on it that I think are really goofy. I wrote them when I was 18, in high school still. At the same time, people seem to really like listening to It Never Goes Out with the context of Home, Like Noplace Is There. Pitchfork gave it a 7.7, which is really high for an album that I wrote when I was 18 and in high school and says the line, ‘Punk rock saved my fucking life,’ on the record. I don’t necessarily care to distance myself from it. I just think it’s goofy.”
In contrast to Holden’s appraisal of The Hotelier’s maiden effort, Home, Like Noplace Is There is teeming with adult themes, covering self-destructive behaviour, death, addiction and betrayal. 20 months down the line from its release,Holden harbours no regrets about how the album turned out.
“I think it did what I wanted it to do – people were able to get it in the way that I wanted people to get it,” he says. “I’m very happy with how that record came out and the reception. I think we want to try to do something a little bit different every single album, as probably most bands do. [We want to] develop our songwriting around this specific sad pop style and the sort of narrative between albums. We’re going to continue to develop it, hopefully.”
It’s interesting to hear Holden describe the band’s sound as “sad pop”. In contrast, the Pitchfork review of Home, Like Noplace Is There (which gave it a rating of 8.2) called The Hotelier “punk as fuck”. However, more than anything else, critics have tagged them an emo band. The arrangements on Home, Like Noplace Is There cohere with a recognised emo rock sound, but the most emotive element is undeniably Holden’s lyrics and vocals.
“I think almost that entire album must have been written instrumentally first and then lyrically later,” he says. “But as a person, I talk a lot and I like to fully develop an idea in a way that pop song structure doesn’t really allow me to. So we maybe don’t repeat choruses because I want to continue to talk about this same idea throughout the song.”
Indeed, it often appears the arrangements twist and turn at the behest of Holden’s volatile vocal delivery. Even if the music is written first, it’s then altered to support the vocals. “When we write a song, I’ll write the instruments, I’ll write the vocal melody, and then when recording we’ll tweak little things in the songs to snap in with the vocals,” Holden says.
At no point on the album does the frontman sound relaxed. Granted, a few of the songs aren’t entirely frantic, but the narratorial voice stays concerned at all times. The band has done a truckload of gigs since Home’s release, which means Holden has frequently navigated his way back through those lyrical themes.
“I felt a lot of things when I wrote those songs, and I was writing it down on paper, because a lot of it is stuff that you don’t get to say out loud,” he says. “But after singing those songs 150 times last year and then just about as many this year, I don’t think about every single word in the story behind them as much as I just fall into a groove. It’s not like I’m revisiting all these things every single time I’m singing them.”
The Hotelier recently finished recording their third album, which is due sometime in autumn 2016. Holden and co. mightn’t be the biggest band in the world, but Home was definitely a major breakthrough. Approaching album number three, Holden sought to ascertain what gave the previous LP such widespread appeal.
“I was listening to that album a lot thinking, ‘What makes this album Hotelier? What are people going to be looking for?’ At a certain point I had to stop. When we were writing Home, Like Noplace Is There, I was listening to the bands that were in our scene and I was like, ‘What makes this stuff click with people?’ At a certain point I was like, ‘OK, I have to stop comparing this record to anything and I just have to write it.’ So for a year I didn’t really listen to anything. And then now, instead of comparing it to other bands in our scene, I just had to stop comparing [the new album] to Home, Like Noplace Is There and I had to just be like, ‘This is not going to be Home, Like Noplace Is There II. It’s going to be its own unique piece.’”
Home, Like Noplace Is There is out now through Tiny Engines. CatchThe Hotelier atBlack Wire Records onWednesday December 9, or theFactory FloorThursday December 10, with Ceres.
