Keep Calm Presents: An Interview with Christian Holden of The Hotelier

     It's very rare that an album comes out in the end of February and is quickly named an Album of the Year contender.  Yet, for The Hotelier's Home, Like No Place is There, there is no question that this album is the one to beat for 2014.  A name change and one new album later, The Hotelier is taking the music scene by storm, whether they recognize it or not.  Luckily for Keep Calm and Carry On, vocalist Christian Holden sat down with us a few weeks back in Brooklyn to discuss the name change, crowd reactions, and, of course, the album that we cannot stop talking about.  Big thanks to Christian for taking some time out of this hectic night for an interview!

Album Review: The Hotelier- Home, Like Noplace Is There

As a host of an emo radio show, I am uniquely interested in the history of emo music. I could tell you that bands like Rites of Spring pioneered the genre in the 80s, that bands like Jimmy Eat World and Sunny Day Real Estate helped to grow it in the late 90s. I could even tell you that My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday brought it squarely into the mainstream in the mid-2000s. Undoubtedly, then, I have heard of the growing term “emo revival” to describe this fourth distinct era of emo music, and find it just as ridiculous as other critics have. Emo hasn’t gone anywhere since the 1980s (or the mid-2000s for that matter), it has just shifted form and sound over time, as every other genre has.