The Debrief: Hotel Lux
The path from amateur to professional recording artist is one fraught with such difficulties, mistakes, barriers and insecurities, just being able to persevere through it all is an achievement in itself. For Hotel Lux, that path has been a little more treacherous than it has for many of their contemporaries; not often being afforded the luck and placement of some of their fellow South London cohorts, they’ve finally stuck a permanent pin on Britain’s music map with the release of their debut album ‘Hands Across The Creek’.
More than five years in the making and the result of several lineup changes, the band are finally charting their own course, as frontman Lewis Duffin cheerfully explains over Zoom from the beer garden of a pub he’s sat in. “We always cared too much about how we were going to be perceived.” But why was that? “When we first came to London, the whole Windmill thing was happening at that point,” Duffin says. “So it was kind of hard to avoid that shaping how we started, then with the album, it was a lot more like, ‘right… what is Hotel Lux?’’
They found that answer during the pandemic; like most acts, various lockdowns affected Hotel Lux in ways only they can put into words – cancelled shows, having to tour an EP before it was even released, and losing and gaining new members are just some of the obstacles they’ve had to overcome. But as guitarist Max Oliver, who joins Duffin under an electric heater in the smoking area, is keen to point out, only when you look back are you afforded a view of the positives. “During Covid, we had no audience to appease,” he pauses. “We didn’t know what was gonna happen at the end of it. So we were just writing for ourselves…probably for the first time.”
So, the new album is great, we’re really loving the slight sonic change you’ve undergone. How does it feel to finally have a debut album recorded and released after all these years?
Max: It’s an absolute relief after sitting on it for such a long time. And obviously having been delayed by Covid and you know other general factors, it’s just nice to find a balance which is something I think we've all wanted to do for quite a long time.
Lewis: It’s exciting to get it out after all this time. There’s obviously the February tour, which we’re absolutely buzzing for. I am at least... after a while of not going out on the road properly, especially with Covid and everything, it feels like it’s about time for it all to come out now.
Max: At the same time, I’m super excited about getting out and playing a lot of these songs for the first time live, but also as we said, because it’s already… at least for us, been sitting there for a while. I’m already quite excited about moving on and writing the new stuff as well, to be honest, yeah. Taking the project to the next place.
Is that something you guys always keep in mind? Do you live in the moment at all?
Lewis: I think is a part of living in the moment, but because we’ve been sat on the album for so long now, it’s probably time that we've got to look to the next chapter and that’s even before we tour the album, so hopefully, we’re in a good place in that sense; we can get ahead of ourselves for once.
You’ve called yourselves “the most self-conscious band in Britain” and spoke of pandering to audiences’ tastes when you first moved to London. Why do you think you worried about how you were perceived at the time?
Lewis: We came into London as outsiders essentially, there were a lot of London bands when we first came here that had lived here, who were all mates for years and years. We sort of just hopped onto the zeitgeist or whatever, at that point. So we’re kind of always conscious of where we sit. The album’s only coming out now, what, four or five years after we started, so it’s just being conscious about where we sit in amongst everything, you know?
Image: Ed Mills
As you mentioned you’ve been around for quite a few years, and the pandemic really hampered those years of hard work. You had to cancel some of your biggest shows, how did you deal with that?
Max: I mean, it was incredibly disappointing, like Lewis was saying, it held us up, whatever. Afterwards, it gave us the room to breathe, time to kind of sit back and not play up or pander to what people thought of us, or what we even thought of ourselves. Having had this period of prolonged experimentation, where we had one space that we could use, and we’d meet up weekly; there were no immediate time constraints. It ended up being a bit of a period of freedom, where we could just sit and play music, and work out what we wanted to do. That was the greatest benefit.
Lewis: At that point, it was all we could do. When we were meeting up and writing the album, it was the period of lockdown where you could only leave for work. So, the only time we could leave the house was to go to this rehearsal studio a couple of times a week and get the album done. It was all we could do. I mean, it was unfortunate covid came when it did; we toured the EP before it was out stupidly. Now we’ve got the album, we can almost start again.
One of the biggest things you missed was SXSW, which then thankfully you were invited to again last year. Are there any tales of America you’d like to regale us with?
Max: There are several tales we could regale you with; whether we should is another matter. Some of us actually ended up at a rave on a bridge; that was a bit of a bizarre one. We kind of met some locals that took us; it was on a suspension bridge well out of town and it was just the most surreal, cinematic moment of my life. I mean, I was pretty spangled. The whole week was surreal, to be honest, being invited over there to play your own music, and have people coming to your shows that you have absolutely no connection with is amazing.
Lewis: We played a proper American house party, like when you see it in the movies. I didn’t know they really existed. A frat boy outside made me and Cam shotgun White Claw. At the end of every shotgun, he just kept screaming “America” — there were a lot of bizarre moments like that.
““I’m glad I lost the ESG argument because I think that that aspect of the drum sound, in particular, sounds great... I’m glad I came out of that argument losing. It doesn’t happen often.”
Now, Lewis… There was a great quote I read about you hating Cam and Sam’s ESG phase. Do you guys have creative disagreements and how do you overcome those arguments?
Lewis: I think at the time, if there was an argument we’d have a segue, a couple of beers, and then come back to it. Otherwise, it ended up in hours of going over the same point, the same argument. I think, writing the album, we probably learned a lot about our friendships as well. There were a lot of disagreements, but it ended up for the best.
Max: I think that when these ideas like, maybe the ESG influence, didn’t appeal to everyone. It seemed often the case that someone would bring in an idea that was maybe a little bit left field, and maybe one or two people have the immediate reaction that it doesn’t quite sit well with them. But actually, when you kind of play that out, or you investigate it a little bit further in the rehearsal room, then you realise that it does work and it’s not exactly what you think it is.
Lewis: Yeah, in retrospect, I’m glad I lost the ESG argument because I think that that aspect of the drum sound, in particular, sounds great and at the time I didn't think it would, so you know, I’m glad I came out of that argument losing. It doesn’t happen often.
On the album, ‘An Ideal For Living’ and ‘Morning After Mourning’ struck me as a change in direction from your usual output. They’re very Dylan meets Bragg — what influenced these tracks?
Lewis: With those, they were actually just one tune, we split them up. We just thought they would work better as their own entities. I think that that was the right choice but I think that came from ripping off Brian Eno’s ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)’, there's this beautiful harmony throughout the whole song; that’s where the “morning after mourning” bit came from and then Sam wrote this weird medieval riff. It’s really weird, but I love it.
Max: You kind of expect certain things yourself and others expect things, but because we knew what influences we wanted to bring, having that space in that time allowed us to relax, open up and actually recognise that there are all these other sounds and sonic directions that we maybe haven't touched on before.
It’d be silly to not talk about ‘National Team’, which is such a quintessential Hotel Lux song. I love the line about realising that you’re the same age as the players… in the national team. I think we’ve all had that realisation, comparing your life to theirs. Does that speak to some of the anxieties you had, you know, early on in the band?
Max: I don’t even think early on. I think that’s still kind of current.
Lewis: Cam made a really good point on it. He wrote that tune when he was in his last year of uni, but I think it’s a really good link to the pandemic because it makes you think about age and time wasting away. I love that line so much. ‘National Team’ really hits home with that idea of age and missing out. FOMO, you know?
I’ve watched football since I was a kid, and for that reason, I never really think of footballers as being the same age as me. I mean Jude Bellingham is what 20? It’s mental…
Lewis: I always feel it when I play FIFA; when you do a player career mode, you usually make your player as young as possible. I remember that as a kid, it’d always be much older than you but it’s gotten to the point now where they’re all four or five years younger than me. I mean, what's going on? I’m still gutted Cam wrote that line and not me, I’ve always been very jealous of that song.
Image: Ed Mills
You came up north, to Liverpool for the recording of the album. You worked with Bill Ryder-Jones, a genius in my opinion. What's he like to work with? And to what extent did he influence the slight change in sound?
Max: I mean, he does come across as a genius. I think he is absolutely brilliant in the way he works. It doesn’t seem like he felt the need to change or completely edit what we already had. He was there just to kind of accentuate or help us achieve things that we wanted to without maybe knowing how to.
Lewis: What Bill was amazing at in the studio was really creating relationships with each member of the band, and working out how each member works individually. Because when you’re in a studio, you are essentially working individually. There were times, for example… Cam was struggling with a bass tape. So Bill’s like, “right, the rest of you fuck off, go for a walk. I’m gonna sit with Cam, and we’ll get this done.” Cam says to this day, that’s the best piece he’s ever done, and it was because Bill gave him that confidence, which sometimes you need.
Max: He’s a passionate producer, he understands where you’re struggling and also where your strengths are, then leans into whatever is necessary and then on top of that, you know, he’ll just sprinkle a bit of Bill magic everywhere as well.
Lewis: Yeah, because he is an absolute genius, I felt a bit starstruck in the studio. I mean, when I was a bit younger, I was always a massive fan, his solo stuff is absolutely amazing. So being in there with him was an amazing experience. And he’s a top bloke; he knew how to work with us. You know, he was perfect for us.
I mean, the results are brilliant. It’s a fantastic album; there’s a varying selection of themes included, all delivered in your wry style. To what extent are your lyrics observational and how do your personal experiences play into your songwriting?
Lewis: I think the period the album was written, with it being during lockdown, forced me to be a lot more introspective with my lyrics. There was nothing really to touch on. You know, how much can I talk about sitting in my bedroom playing Call of Duty? Not much. I had to go more inwards, and usually, I wouldn’t write like that, but I think there’s a certain beauty in that I was forced into it.
““It’s just taking time really, isn’t it? Just don’t rush things. Don’t feel like you have to pander to any sort of expectation be it yours or someone else’s, I guess””
Aside from the album, we spoke briefly about the tour earlier. There are a lot of dates in Europe coming up. How important to what you do is the live element? What do you all enjoy about being on the road?
Lewis: I think the tour is kind of the reason you do it, playing gigs is the reason I like being in the band, you get to go to places that you’d never go to. We’ve been to Luxembourg and some random places, you know, why would you go there? Austin, Texas... How would you get there rather than being in a band? There’s a lot more funding in Europe than there is in the UK though, so you get treated well, you get lovely meals, and you get nice bottles of wine. I don’t hate this notion, because it’s kind of naturally happened, but we are a very British band; I think they like that, we do quite well in Europe. I think because it’s something different coming over.
Lastly, being the kind of reflective souls that you seem to be, what do you think you've learned about yourselves over the past few years?
Lewis: Well, going back to what we learned over the Covid period, I think we've written our best stuff when there was no pressure. Just write tunes that you want to write and it’ll take however long it takes; just find your own sound, and that’s when you get to relieve yourself of any sort of pressure.
Max: It’s just taking time really, isn’t it? Just don’t rush things. Don’t feel like you have to pander to any sort of expectation be it yours or someone else’s, I guess.
Listen to Hotel Lux’s debut album ‘Hands Across The Creek’ here!
Main Image: Ed Mills
