There’s a paradox in wanting to belong. The more you chase a place in the scene, the further you seem from it. Tourist is an album born from that contradiction—trying to carve out a space while feeling like a stranger, wanting to connect but ending up in isolation. It’s a record that understands the push and pull of local music, of building something real while questioning if you ever fit in.
Hotel Iris built their debut from a mix of personal reckoning and external noise. The writing wasn’t just about crafting songs—it was about justification.
“Through a mix of pride and insecurity and the usual bad luck that comes with starting a new thing, the project has twisted itself into a means for me to justify my worthiness to exist as a musician/artist,” Jack admits. It nearly swallowed them whole.
By the time the album wrapped, burnout had taken over. “I about stopped leaving my apartment entirely.” The process was a necessary break-and-rebuild. “The best nights in the past few months have been going out and finding old friends and getting excited for new music and great loud shows.” The scene wasn’t the enemy. It was just waiting.
The record opens with Fall In, the first track written collectively. It’s the blueprint: dynamic, unpredictable, built from a practice-room groove that clicked into place over months. A statement of intent. “We wanted to be a rock band that was elastic in our influence, allowing different songs to inhabit different colors, while remaining consistent,” Jack explains. That elasticity holds throughout, stretching from the post-punk immediacy of Antares—written in response to the social media disinformation fueling the Russian invasion of Ukraine—to the stripped-down folk origins of Tacoma, finished the night before recording. The balance isn’t forced; it’s instinctive.
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Lyrically, Jack leans into the personal, but even the intimate moments have a sense of distance. Twin Bed Blues plays with persona, channeling a Pulp-like theatricality to explore young, messy relationships without getting lost in sentimentality.
The album’s darker side reveals itself in Smoke Alarm, its structure refined only after cutting the verses in half—“very obvious in retrospect.” Elliott Smith lingers in the DNA, particularly in the way it examines dependence beyond just the usual vices. “It became an exercise in synchronization between the band, staying connected between silences,” Jack notes. The restraint makes it more unnerving.
Then there’s Turnstile, the album’s heart in terms of energy. “This is my favorite to play live,” Jack says. “Whether we’re on our game or not, it’s the one that brings our energy back for another round.” It was recorded live in-studio, a decision that gave it the urgency they couldn’t capture in an earlier EP version.
Thematically, it ties into Tourist’s central conflict—the tension of being part of something without fully claiming it.
That outsider status wasn’t always intentional. “Would you believe we haven’t played outside of NYC yet?” Jack says. It wasn’t for lack of effort, but as a first project for most of the members, the band focused on cementing themselves locally. Now that Tourist is out, the goal is expansion—outside the city, maybe onto a skate game soundtrack if marketing instincts take hold. In the meantime, writing continues. “I’d like to write something from a fresh place and use what we’ve learned to speed up that process.”
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The cover art reflects the same unsettled mood. A childhood friend’s photo, Appalachian and eerie, caught Jack’s attention instantly—then lingered in doubt for months. “I worried I made a decision too fast, and then realized it was the right decision anyway, which is how all decisions should be made, I think.” Something that feels both threatened and threatening.
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Hotel Iris isn’t about easy conclusions. The best shows, the best moments, aren’t just about playing their own music, but being part of something bigger. “The best shows we’ve played are the ones where we’re as happy to see everyone else as we are to play ourselves.” Tourist may document the struggle to fit in, but by the end, it finds its place.
Here’s the full track by track breakdown, by Hotel Iris:
FALL IN
Jack: This was the first song that the band wrote together from scratch, we found the core groove through a practice session, I took it home and wrote the lyrics within a couple weeks. And we tightened the sections over our first year, most of the prior songs I had written before meeting the guys, so when this came together it became clear that we had found the right chemistry for the project.
As an outlier to the rest of the album it felt appropriate to lead with this. We wanted to be a rock band that was elastic in our influence, allowing different songs to inhabit different colors, while remaining consistent within our lineup and instrumentation. If it hooks, we want to find a way to make it work for us.
Plus I’m a big fan of John McGeoch, and his work with Siouxsie and the Banshees and Magazine, so getting to break out the flange is always a treat.
Matt: This bass part of this song includes what I call “the Mike Dirnt fill”! If you can identify the timestamp where this happens, please contact me at [email protected] to tell me. You will receive nothing of value in return, regardless of your answer.
ANTARES
Jack: This was one of the songs I had written before the band formed, and that I knew needed a full line-up to bring to life. There’s a local band here in Brooklyn, Dead Tooth, and during the pandemic I had tried to learn one of their earlier songs by ear. I didn’t do a great job of it, but the core riff came from that, and it’s one of those progressions that always feels great to play and build off of.
Earlier versions of the song didn’t have the introduction, we added that later on, during practice sessions, we found it and loved it but didn’t know what to do with it until we started leading into Antares with it, of course it was a perfect fit.
I remember recording way too many guitar takes of the solo during recording, and when Ian sent the first mix back, I thought I had fucked up by recording separate lines on top of each other, once I calmed down I realized it sounded great.
Lyrically I tend to lean more personal than political, despite the two modes being in many ways inseparable. That said, this song was written in the years leading up to the invasion of Ukraine, and during my own growing distrust of populist rhetoric and the foreign system of disinformation on social media that had made efforts to justify that invasion, or encourage apathy towards it. By the time the band had the song ready to play live, the invasion had begun, and unfortunately still continues today. Not that we’re trying to be on the vanguard, but it’s important to me to underline it here. Slava Ukraini.
Matt: I like this song because sure, I guess it’s identifiably post-punk and spikey sounding, but I can’t actually think of any specific band it sounds like. It’s really fast and sometimes hurts our arms if we start it too fast. I play beautiful rich POWER CHORDS in the intro of this song at around 42 seconds in. Bass players, why not try this in your rock band?
THE KACER
– This and turnstile were both started around the same time, I was relearning guitar after college and the riffs had formed very naturally out of that practice. You only get to learn the guitar so many times, so I’m grateful to have something lasting from that era.
– I had written dozens of drafts of this song before even moving to New York, the title came from my longest standing friend here, and my own awe (and envy) of his after hours stories and his adventurous spirit. It wasn’t until a few months into our first practices where the final verses locked into place and I felt comfortable introducing the song to the band. Naturally it’s become our flagship single, and the easiest grounding point for the band.
We shot a video for this with Dylan, who is a longstanding friend and collaborator with Matt, who were recording their first album as Theophobia at the same time we’ve done ours. Matt and Dylan were the main creative voices for that video, and their sense of playfulness helps balance out my own melancholic tendencies.
Matt: My favorite song. Just hooks for days. Maybe our most “power pop” one, too. Video was great fun to make and I love how it turned out. I am doing Weezer-y falsettos here ala Matt Sharp. This song also makes use of big beautiful chords on the bass guitar.
TWIN BED BLUES
I think this is the happiest song I’ve written, it started as a voice memo to an ex, a love-joke for valentine’s day, and then became something about the nostalgia and joy of young and messy relationships.
This one is a weird frontman test, it’s the most “persona” heavy song and finding the balance between that character and myself, making something that hopefully doesn’t feel too forced or like an imitation, I was very much inspired by Pulp and Sexx Laws era Beck. Most of my writing around this point in life could be described as self-flagellating, so to be able to express a feeling like desire within a positive mode was a nice change of pace.
Zach and Matt spent a lot of extra time building extra riffs and fills throughout the song, and added harmonies at the end of the recording was a last minute idea by Matt, he’s very good about talking me into good ideas that I can start out reluctant towards, so thank you for that!
Matt: If we have any song that could be considered “ornate”, I feel like it would be this one. I enjoy that it almost has a classic pop/Spector flavor to it with the Be My Baby beat and the guitar arpeggios. I play a quick pentatonic hammer-on after the line “if your ex goes berserk” and I would like everyone to know that in my mind, that bass fill represents the sound of the aforementioned ex going berserk.
SMOKE ALARM
One of those songs that existed in a very impossible and frustrating form until I learned that one weird trick and cut the verses in half, very obvious in retrospect. Once that happened everything else fell in place.
It’s probably the most difficult song to play and record, due to its delicacy. It became an exercise in synchronization between the band, staying connected between silences. It’s also the most difficult to mix live. Mike, who does sound at Bar Freda, is so far one of the few people that can really elevate that song in a way that we’re happy with in a live setting.
Lyrically I think of it as the dark half of Twin Bed. I don’t really want to dig too far into it, I’d like listeners to draw on their own experiences. I will say, Elliott Smith was a massive influence on me from college onwards, and in a 1998 interview, he briefly discusses addiction and dependency as something that isn’t limited to alcohol or drugs, and I spent a lot of time thinking about that while I was writing this song, (amongst others on the album!)
Matt: Yeah, “control” is definitely the name of the game when it comes to playing this one. It’s easy to play super loud because everything gets lost in the deluge. When people can actually hear what you’re playing and whether or not you’re on time, that’s when you start to clam up. Anyway, I like Colin Greenwood and sort of tried to play what I thought he might play during the soft parts. The heavier part has one power chord in the progression. Can you find where it is? Please contact me at [email protected] to tell me. You will receive nothing of value in return, regardless of your answer.
Jack: There’s also an ascending line near the end that’s my favorite of the Matt fills, we thought about making a mascot out of it.
TURNSTILE
All the songs on the album matter to us in one way or another, but this is my favorite to play live. It’s one of the first we learned together, and the one that comes together the fastest when recording or at a show. Whether we’re on our game or not, it’s the one that brings our energy back for another round, and the one we can never truly fuck up. Having it start off Side B was appropriate.
The verse and chorus felt half-finished at first, but then leaving it unfinished and looping it gave it its propulsive effect. A lesson I’m constantly learning is to simplify where I can and this is the best example of that.
We had recorded an EP the year before with this song but we were never happy with how it sounded. When we recorded at The Daisy Chain, instead of doing all our parts separately, we recorded the base together and added layers from there, and it made all the difference. Of all of Ian’s contributions as an engineer, keeping us together and limiting us to 3-4 takes per song was the greatest gift to the sound and energy of these recordings.
Sometimes the chorus reminds people of the movie Ice Age, I’d rather say that I was referring to the Danish band. Both are wrong, it just sounded like a good line when I wrote it, but I like the conclusions people draw from it. Sometimes you can lean into happy accidents.
Matt: This is the FOURTH song on the record to make use of bass chords, and it does so in the intro of all places! Yeah, this is definitely our “get tight” song, so to speak, when things feel a little too loose. Just has a groove that we all know how to lock into immediately. As a bass player, I enjoy feeling the pulse of the verses. It’s just fun to move air. Sam is quite a formidable partner to have in the rhythm section and we have a ton of fun playing together.
TOURIST
Sometimes, I think of my lyrics as a collection of good lines patched together with a loose connecting thread. That mindset makes it near impossible to finish anything in a single sitting, and the song itself came together so quickly with the band, that I didn’t even bother finishing the lyrics before we played it live.
Which is funny because I think this is the connecting thread of the entire album, that sense of being at odds with a community and a culture that you desperately want to be a part of, and where that outsider feeling becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The riff itself was an experiment in modes. We all tend to pull from different influences but Matt and I both have an appreciation for classic art-pop like Sparks and The Left Banke, so whenever we get to play something extra melodic we jump on it. The band had no problem getting this one together during rehearsals, which is always a promising sign for us!
Matt: To me, this song sounds a lot like Pavement, of whom I am a huge fan. They’re so famously ramshackle and sloppy that the actual musicality they do have tends to be overlooked. I kind of like to pretend I am Mark Ibold when I play this song, and I’ll say he’s an underrated bassist for all the bass-heads out there. Not flashy in the least, but great tone and feel. Just tasteful stuff. I probably still play more notes than he would on this song, but I hope he would approve anyway.
THE HOLLOWED OUT HOLE OF THE WORLD WIDE WINDOW
Matt: I sort of think of myself as a Lou Barlow or Kim Deal figure in Hotel Iris; the bassist that writes and sings the occasional song. I wanted to do something pretty different from the other songs to lend an eclectic quality to our whole thing. I was jamming with Jack on guitars and we fleshed out the initial instrumental form and some of the vocal melodies. I think it’s a cool showcase for Jack to do some unorthodox atonal guitar stuff. The lyrics are totally scattershot, just batshit surrealist gross-out stuff. The actual meaning of them is inconsequential, it’s all about the vibe. It’s probably the most classically punk song I’ve written, but it’s sort of in a post-punk/art rock vein, like Wire or The Fall. There’s kind of a goofy new wave feel to it too. I was very much thinking about the first couple Oingo Boingo albums.
Jack:. It’s nice riding shotgun, when this song comes on I can rest my voice and focus on the guitar. Matt is a fantastic songwriter in his own right and it’s an honor to feature his voice on the record. This song fucking slaps.
MILHOUSE
This was the hardest one to put together, between two separate keys and god knows how many sections, unfinished parts of this song have existed since before the pandemic, I held off on finding a practice space until I could get this song into an acceptable template, I did this once before with a song on the North to North EP and it’s always a terrifying, teeth pulling process to organize these big songs in a way that remains compelling throughout.
This was the biggest stress test for the band when we started practicing, and the roadmap for how we learned to communicate and build parts and dynamics together. Everyone wrote their own parts here, Zach’s delicate guitar line and Sam’s fantastic drumwork in the climax helped it all come together. Matt and I spent a lot of time getting the harmonies just right, and I think this was the song that felt the most rewarding to pull off at our first show.
The title came from where you think, I was worried it was becoming too much of a sad bastard song that I briefly named it “I sleep in a racecar bed, do you?” The final title evolved naturally from there.
Matt: I want to add this because I think it is a useful tip for fellow performers that isn’t super widely discussed: When we play this song live, Jack and I will usually jump offstage and strut around with our guitars during the heavy-ish instrumental breakdown. This is cool to do and a recommended stage move for your personal project, but you MUST gaffer tape your input cable to the floor. If you don’t, you will come unplugged and/or trip and fall on your ass. We have paid such prices more than once. Anyway, love this song and there are also lots of bass chords here. Bassists should just play chords on bass like it’s a guitar, I think.
TACOMA
When playing live we usually end our set with Milhouse followed by a crowd-pleaser or a gentler song, we were using one of two songs off of the North to North EP, and while they were effective live, I wanted something original for the album.
In between sessions, I took an older folk song I had started while visiting family, and finished it the night before I went back in to record, and thankfully it went well!
