Hi, thank you for joining us today, so tell me a bit about yourselves, what have you been up to over the past 12 months?
The last twelve months, well we released the album, in February we did a big long album tour which was Europe and the UK. Been quiet since then until now, so this is apart of places we missed on the last tour, tour. Newcastle is kind of one of the bigger cities we are doing, we are doing places like Guildford, we did Bedford Saturday. Places that we wouldn't usually go.
Where did your bands name come from and how did you form?
So the name, at the time I thought it was really cool but now I find it quite embarrassing telling this story. It was essentially just like scrolling through Wikipedia looking for a name that looked quite nice I guess. Hotel Lux is like a communist safe house or was in Moscow which sounds really pretentious now but at the time I thought it was really cool but it stuck so can't go back.
What has been the biggest highlight of Hotel Lux so far?
On the tour I just mentioned, we played Petit Bain, which I think means small boat in French, a venue in Paris, it was nice and full. That felt like a really big moment, playing to a big full room in Paris was like a ridiculous feeling, yeah I would say that.
How did you first get into making music?
So a few of us: me, Sam and Craig, I use to play bass, we were in a terrible band in college like a classic terrible college band. Then when we moved to London, we were all moving to London for uni and we were initially just called 'London Band' before we had a name because the intention was to move to London and to do this at the same time. So I use to play bass, was terrible at it, thought this would be easier just sort of shouting on stage every now and then.
How would you describe the sound on 'Hands Across The Creek'?
It was an attempt to be slightly more mature of a sound than before, the bands that influence us most are all of the pub rock bands from like pre-punk so it was kind of like taking that but adding some more pop synths into it and making some really nice melodies. As far as I could do that, I can't sing properly so as far as I could do that without me being able to sing essentially.
What is your earliest memory of music?
Madness-Baggy Trousers, my Dad always use to play that and as a kid it's like a really funny song, I don't know why but yeah Madness-Baggy Trousers would be my earliest music memory.
What are some of your main musical influences?
The main one is Ian Dury and The Blockheads, Dr.Feelgood and then I really like The Beautiful South, Paul Heaton's lyrics are amazing and again the melodies. I would say they are the big three for me.
If you could have any celebrity to star in a music video, who would it be?
I think Danny Dyer would be really funny.
Do you have any pre-gig rituals and if so, what are they?
On the big tour, we started just a shot of tequila, all together. Whatever we are doing before the show, making sure that we are all together before, have a shot of tequila and then go out and that's the one ritual.
If your music could be in any film, which one would it be in?
Billy Elliot.
What's the funniest thing that has happened whilst touring or performing?
I'm trying to think. We played Luxembourg once and all our gear got lost on the plane, we managed to get it back but the band before us were like a sort of real heavy metal band and we had to play seeing these lot playing with their equipment which is like heavy metal, pointy guitars. Maybe that, yeah, that was good fun seeing them with that.
What's next for you?
We are going to try and write album two, it's happening slowly but surely, that would be the next thing, yeah just getting together and getting everything written for album two whenever that may be.
By - Katie Graham
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