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„Whatever I want it to be“:
An interview with Darren Jessee of Hotel Lights

Darren Jessee (photo by Deborah Francis)

Dar­ren Jes­see is the sin­ger, song­wri­ter and gui­ta­rist of Hotel Lights who­se second album „Fire­cra­cker Peo­p­le“ was released in the USA in late August. He was kind enough to ans­wer our ques­ti­ons via email:

Let’s start with the obvious: there’s a sti­cker on the CD case of „Fire­cra­cker Peo­p­le“ say­ing that Hotel Lights is the new band of the for­mer Ben Folds Five drum­mer. Ben Folds Five dis­ban­ded eight years ago, that’s more time than they ever exis­ted. In how far do you like or dis­li­ke being refer­red to as the „for­mer drum­mer of Ben Folds Five“?

I don’t mind. I’ve accept­ed all that. Hotel Lights also has many young fans who never lis­ten­ed to Ben Folds Five. But peo­p­le don’t talk about that very much.

One song on the new record is „Ame­lia Bright“, a song that beca­me famous as one of the last three new songs by Ben Folds Five in 2000. Why did it take so long for the song to reap­pear? Is it as spe­cial to you as it is to many Ben Folds Five fans?

When I first star­ted doing Hotel Lights I did­n’t want to appear that I was just try­ing to get by on my con­nec­tion with Ben Folds Five. It was important to me to make my first album wit­hout any older songs. After some time I was able to re-visit „Ame­lia Bright“ and rea­li­ze I real­ly wan­ted to record that song for mys­elf. When I wro­te it, I had no idea Ben was going to sing it a few times.

I’m not sure the­re are lots of peo­p­le out the­re who are sit­ting around thin­king „Ame­lia Bright“ is a Ben Folds Five song. I don’t think so. It’s a Dar­ren Jes­see song, and I’m hap­py peo­p­le are exci­ted about it, but I’m not try­ing to plea­se Ben Folds Five fans by recor­ding it. I just wan­ted to sing the song that I wro­te for my new album.

Your pic­tu­re is on the album cover. Are you Hotel Lights? Who else is Hotel Lights?

Hotel Lights is wha­te­ver I want it to be. I’m just having fun and doing what is exci­ting to me. Right now I’m joi­n­ed by Al Wea­ther­head of Spark­le­hor­se, Mike Cruz of the Wil­co side pro­ject Autumn Defen­se, and Jay Brown and Zeke Hut­chins of Tift Merritt’s band.

Darren Jessee (photo by Deborah Francis)„Fire­cra­cker Peo­p­le“ is the second long play­er, you released a six-track-EP in the mean­ti­me. Are the­re any other for­mats you might come up with?

I have some ide­as for dif­fe­rent sound­ing albums. I like sur­pri­sing peo­p­le. But in the end I just want to be true to mys­elf and wri­te the songs in my head. Should I do a dou­ble album?

What are your musi­cal influen­ces, what kind of music are you lis­tening to today?

I have too many to list here. I like so many things. Some of my cur­rent favo­ri­tes are James Yorks­ton and Richard Haw­ley.

In the title track you sing „We’­re all fire­cra­cker peo­p­le /​ Going off all the time“. What are fire­cra­cker peo­p­le?

I’m not sure exact­ly. I lik­ed the way the words sound­ed tog­e­ther. But I think Fire­cra­cker Peo­p­le are all of us. Wha­te­ver you are start­ing today, is that much clo­ser to being finis­hed tomor­row. Plus the idea of peo­p­le losing their tem­per or fol­lo­wing a whim that alters their life fore­ver, it hap­pens every day. This life is so won­derful and mys­te­rious.

You use Hotel Light’s MySpace site ins­tead of a home page, anyo­ne who wants to can wri­te you an email. In how far has the Inter­net chan­ged your way to com­mu­ni­ca­te with fans?

I’m hap­py to talk to fans. I think it’s good for inde­pen­dent artists. I’m not as good at emai­ling as some bands, but that’s becau­se I don’t like to sit at my com­pu­ter all day. It’s also ano­ther way for me to spread the word about my albums.

The record com­pa­nies are com­plai­ning a lot about their decre­asing sales the­se days. You have expe­ri­en­ced the gol­den days at a major record com­pa­ny in the 1990’s, Hotel Lights release their CDs on a smal­ler indie label. In how far do you expe­ri­ence the chan­ges insi­de the music indus­try?

Well, my albums are­n’t released in Euro­pe. I real­ly wish they were. I’d like to tour more, and the­re just isn’t a lot of money at bar/​none records to mar­ket my music. It’s frus­t­ra­ting, but I hope to keep wri­ting and may­be one day I’ll find a label in Ger­ma­ny too!

So is the­re a chan­ce you might play a few con­certs in Ger­ma­ny one day?

I’d real­ly love to. I real­ly would like that.