Hotel Bleu

When you check into a hotel, you immediately step into another mindset. It may not be home, but you can still rest, nonetheless. Without knowing what happened before or what will go down after, you add to the history of each room. In the morning, you leave and essentially return to reality. Broadside explore this phenomenon on their fourth full-length album, Hotel Bleu [SHARPTONE]. The trio—Oliver Baxxter [vocals], Domenic Reid [guitar], and Patrick Diaz [bass]—architect a thematic vision as expansive and engaging as their seismic and soaring alternative pop hooks. After posting up north of 100 million cumulative streams and building a devout audience, the band deliver their boldest, brightest, and biggest body of work yet.

“On tour, there’s nothing like a hotel,” notes Oliver. “Whether you have the most amazing or worst show of your life, the best part of the evening is getting a good night’s sleep once all of the endorphins run down. In terms of the concept for Hotel Bleu, every room is a different headspace. All of the songs are separate stories in this one place. They’re open for interpretation, but there’s a song for every type of person.”

Broadside have consistently captivated and enraptured audiences since their emergence in 2010. They’ve organically progressed over the course of albums such as Old Bones [2015], Paradise [2017], and Into The Raging Sea [2020]. Of the latter, UPSET proclaimed, “This collection of songs is Broadside laying it all out on the table,” while Hysteria predicted, “Their big break is only around the corner; with their next album sure to cement them as a pop rock headliner to look out for.” It also yielded fan favourites such as “Heavenly,” which generated 13.9 million Spotify streams and counting.  In order to bring Hotel Bleu to life, they collaborated with producers Andrew Wade [A Day To Remember, Neck Deep, Motionless In White] in Florida and Andrew Baylis [Jelly Roll, Sleeping With Sirens] in Nashville. “On the rock songs, we wanted to bring this driving heaviness and intensity—which Wade was incredible at,” Oliver goes on. “Baylis brought out the summer anthems. The goal was to sound bigger and more aggressive at the same time, and they both helped us.”

They initially paved the way for the album with “One Last Time” and “Cruel” [feat. Brian Butcher], piling up millions of streams. Opening up this world further, the single “Bang [feat. Josh Roberts] glides along on an upbeat bounce powered up by a sunny guitar riff and disarmingly confessional chorus, “Bang bang, the reaper’s at my door, and I don’t want to run anymore.” “The song has a great energy, and it’s a good time,” he says. “So many people have struggled over the last couple of years. I found myself not wanting to have conversations with anybody, ask for help, or even talk to my mom. So, the feeling is, ‘If depression or the reaper comes back, I’m going to let him kill me’. It’s a pop song in this moody and dark headspace where you’re embracing depression.  There’s depth, but it’s catchy, which is what I’m trying to accomplish with the band.”

Then, there’s “Dazed and Confused.” Wavy eighties-style guitar underlines a hyper catchy hook as he confesses, “I kinda wouldn’t mind if she ruined my life. She’s got me dazed and confused, but that’s what I like.” The album builds towards the tender exhale of the title track. Anchored by airy acoustic guitar, it culminates on a moment of stark honesty as he sighs,  “Forever without you is a different shade of blue.” “I wrote it for my fiancé,” he goes on. “There’s been a song for her on every album. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was going through chemo. I was sitting with her every day. It was fucking with my head that I had tours coming up. I had already missed one of her appointments because I was on the road. Real life was happening. She had a double mastectomy, and the cancer was removed right before her 29^th birthday. The lyrics are about the process of watching her going through this. I just hope the song connects.”

In the end, you might not want to leave Hotel Bleu after you check in.

“I’d like for Broadside to be your favourite band after this record,” he leaves off. “We’re trying to grow into the band we always wanted to be. I feel like we did.”