Athens band Hotel Fiction takes their show on the road

Athens band Hotel Fiction, an indie duo comprised of Jade Long and Jessica Thompson, will take their music outside of Georgia’s borders after months of planning. The duo spent the past year writing new songs and is about to share their music with the world with five shows in the month of April.

Starting April 1, Hotel Fiction will be opening for Pip the Pansy at Park Tavern in Piedmont Park as a part of the Great Peach Music Series, which will be quickly followed by a show in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 2 and a live streamed show from Charleston the next day.

“[This is] our first show back in a year, so we’re very excited to be able to play with someone legit … so it feels very real,” said Long, a senior graphic design major at the University of Georgia.

Thompson shared Long’s excitement about performing again after a year hiatus.

“We’ve both really looked up to Pip [the Pansy] because she has sick music, and so we’re excited to play with her,” said Thompson, a senior psychology major at UGA. “[These shows] are important because it’s what we love doing, and we want to connect more with people through our music.”

Two weeks after the shows at Piedmont Park, Hotel Fiction will be playing a show with Flipturn in Gainesville, Florida. A week after that, Long and Thompson will play a show in Nashville on April 23 and then return to Athens on April 24 for a show at Southern Brewing Company, where they are headlining with opener Three Star Revival on the second night. This is the first show Hotel Fiction is headlining.

“I’m excited for road tripping and the feeling of playing on a stage with your good friends, all creating something together. It’s my favorite thing, [and] I miss it a lot,” Thompson said.

The duo has played about 10 shows in their career so far, Thompson said, and next month will put five more shows under their belt, or six including the live streamed performance.

“[Performing brings] this nervous excitement, kind of the feeling [of] opening presents on Christmas … you could screw up, but then you don’t, and you’re on top of the world,” Long said. “I think you have to be in the right mindset for it to go well, and if you are, it’s the best feeling ever.”

With practices underway, Long and Thompson are preparing not just their set, but their stage personas as well. The pair jokingly compared themselves to Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus when talking about channeling their performance personalities.

“When you’re on stage, you have to become this person that’s larger than life, and maybe is more confident than your actual self,” Long said. “So I feel like you have to tap into that and be … somebody that has no fears and knows how to talk to a crowd, and then as soon as you can tap into that … it’s pretty easy.”

Though excited to get back on stage, Thompson and Long are still taking COVID-19 into consideration for their performances. The duo has set precautions in place for their upcoming shows, such as booking outdoor venues that will enforce social distancing for audience members.

“It’s been tough to balance [safety and music]. It just adds this layer of decisions that you have to make that involves everybody else’s safety, and there’s also a layer of responsibility as the band that would be putting on something,” Thompson said.

Long and Thompson will be graduating in May, and with the conclusion of their college careers, the duo will be moving to Nashville, Tennessee.

“We’re hoping [music will be our] full time career. It would be the dream to be able to do this for a living,” Long said. “I felt like who I wanted to be … when I was [in Nashville] and there’s just this magic in that city. All these people [are] pursuing their dreams and just going for it. It’s a really special place to us and it will become even more special once we move there.”

In addition, the duo said Hotel Fiction plans to release an album of nine or 10 songs this summer following the release of a few singles. Many of these songs will be performed during the shows next month.

“We finished [recording] during the pandemic, and [the album has] summed up our whole college experience, so it’s really special to us,” Thompson said.

Article by The Red and Black