TOUR TALK: Ghosts, Tornadoes, and Life on the Road with Hotel Fiction
Our contributor Keegan Nelson caught up with Jade Long and Jessica (Jess) Thompson from Hotel Fiction after their first and last stops of their Staring At The Sun Tour 2024.
Athens, Georgia native indie-pop five-piece, Hotel Fiction just wrapped up their latest national tour. This summer they released their second studio album Staring At The Sun and prepared to embark on their most ambitious tour yet. With a total of 32 shows spanning across 32 cities, the band embraced both excitement and challenges of life on the road, discovering as much about themselves and their growing fanbase along the way.
When we first spoke after their opening show in Atlanta, Jess and Jade radiated with excitement about the show's success.
KEEGAN: I want to start off by asking how the first show went?
JESS: It went really good. We were nervous. We practiced some things, and we messed it up in practice a lot, but it went well.
JADE: Yeah, it was like the first time we played a lot of these songs live so we were very scared, and we kind of felt like a different band just because we were playing so felt so new, but also so exciting. I feel like it went over well. Atlanta's a great place to start the tour.
KEEGAN: I think it went well. Obviously this is my first time hearing these songs live, but I think it went over really well.
KEEGAN: What city or venue are you most excited to play?
JADE: I’m really excited for Athens, of course. I just love playing at our hometown shows, but I’m really excited to go to some places for the first time, like LA, I’ve never been there. We’ve never played there, so I’m really excited for California.
KEEGAN: A lot of your songs mention the sun, the moon, astronauts, and even ghosts–almost otherworldly/out-of-this -world themes. Where does that inspiration come from? Is it coincidental?
JESS: We were talking about this the other day because somebody was talking about our music being ethereal, I like that word. It's like an escape from the present and also just imagining a different world than we're in now or a different landscape.
JADE: I feel like my mom instilled a lot of that in me though, growing up. She's a self proclaimed witch and loves the full moon, and is very connected. And ghosts of course, we love spookies.
JESS: We believe in ghosts.
KEEGAN: I believe in ghosts. Ghosts are real.
JESS: Jade had a dream in our house, and it was ghosts talking to her in our house saying that it was haunted and that there were some good ghosts and some bad ghosts in our house. Apparently the good ghosts try to protect us.
KEEGAN: What do you guys want your fans to expect/know about your shows? What should we know about a Hotel Fiction Show?
JADE: I want them to come and just have fun and be themselves. Wear weird stuff that they normally would feel uncomfortable wearing. It's like a safe space for everyone at our shows. It's supposed to be fun and lighthearted and also a place you can feel emotions to. Which I think already our fans and our shows feel like.
JESS: I think we as a band are a family, and we want that community to extend to our fans. In everything we do, we want to feel approachable, lovable, and like we're all doing it together, we're all in this together. It's not a separation of us up on a stage performing for you–it's more like us all having a big dance party like family. Almost like a folky feel is something that we're trying to bring more of into our shows.
JESS: Just because we're supposed to be up there saying thanks to the audience and dancing, we want the audience to do that back to us too. Dance, sing with us and talk to us. We have lots of fun conversations with our friends and lots of lots of fun interactions with them. Just fun.
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Photo by Keegan Nelson
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Ten weeks later, Keegan chatted with Jade and Jess over a zoom call to reflect on the tour. Recounting the tour a week later, Jess and Jade shared stories of unexpected challenges, favorite performances, and how they grew along the way.
KEEGAN: You guys had a different opener at almost every show; Was there a specific opener that you guys were most excited looking forward to being on a ticket with?
JADE: At our Nashville show we had our friends Connor Kelly And The Time Warp and Willa Mae opened for us, and that was a really fun show.
JESS: There were so many good ones honestly. Laney Tripp opened in LA; she totally blew us away. She and her band were so incredible. Also Gloss in Philly was another one of my favorites.
KEEGAN: What was travelling like on the road? Were you all packed into a van?
JADE: We all travel in one van with a trailer hitched onto the back. We all take turns driving, which is cool so that everyone helps out and it doesn't fall on one person. I feel we all do pretty well with driving. There were long drives out west; east coast is definitely easier to tour.
KEEGAN: How do you guys pass time? I’ve heard about other bands all playing a game together. What do you guys do as a band?
JESS: We play a game called My Cows, which is counting cows on the road. There’s a lot of specific rules to it. Or, we’ll get into really weird, long conversations about specific silly things that you would never have time to talk about normally. I read a lot, I write about tour, and keep a tour log that helps. But other than that, we’ll all go in our own worlds and headphones.
KEEGAN: Were there any unexpected challenges you faced on tour. I know sometimes bands have horror stories about specific shows on tour.
JESS: We locked the keys in the van on the way to a show that were already potentially running late for.
JADE: We had to break into our own van to get them out.
JESS: A gas station attendant had one of those kits to break into your own car so we used it. It was honestly kind of exhilarating and fun. We thought it would set us back hours, but it only set us back like five minutes.
JADE: When we played Kansas, there was a tornado during our show and the opening band dropped out. It was kinda chaotic. The bartenders told us it happens all the time and we shouldn’t be worried so we were like “it'll be fine,” and it was.
KEEGAN: What is your big takeaway from tour?
JADE: I kind of realized that nothing really matters, like little stuff like posting on social media, or how many tickets you sell and overall success is not as important as the people around you. All of that is just meaningless if you’re not having fun and you’re not doing it out of love. I feel like that’s why it’s all worth it to me, because it’s for people we love with people we love.
JESS: I like that. One of the realizations I had on tour came from thinking about my grandparents. My grandpa retired at 50 and worked really, really hard tirelessly until he was 50 so that him and my grandma could sell their house, move into an RV and travel the country. I kept thinking about how he worked his whole life to see the United States and how I was already getting to see it. Its such a privilege to do that as my job. I was working hard to find myself on the road and connect with myself because when you’re there for so long, it can be crazy.
JESS: I was really thankful and shocked that people across the whole country knew the words to our songs. Like pretty much every show, at least one person did. Even if we were playing to 10 people in Kansa, one person was singing all the lyrics and that was really special and meant a lot to us. People resonating with out music and our words. I was very thankful for that. That itself would make my night. I enjoyed tour a lot.
KEEGAN: I find your music to be really relatable and easy to resonate with. It's what makes your music so special. Everyone can find something there.
KEEGAN: What is next for Hotel Fiction?
JESS: New music on the horizon.
KEEGAN: Thank you guys.
As Hotel Fiction closes out their year and reflects on the Staring At The Sun Tour, the memories they created both on and off stage leave a lasting mark. From packed venues to late-night drives, Jess and Jade’s reflections highlight the heart of what makes their music resonate: connection, authenticity, and joy.
For a closer look at the Staring At The Sun Tour, explore Keegan’s photo galleries from both their Atlanta kickoff and Athens finale, capturing the energy, emotion, and essence of the band’s live performances.
With new music and surprises on the horizon, Hotel Fiction’s story is far from over. As Jess aptly put it: “We’re all in this together.”