Interview by Alder Boutin
Indie rock band Hotel Fiction is fronted by best friends Jade Long (singer and keyboardist) and Jessica Thompson (singer and guitarist). They are known for making waves in their hometown Athens, GA music scene and touring with acts such as flipturn, The Brook & The Bluff, and The Beaches. Jade and Jessica are accompanied by Aaron Daugherty (guitarist and synth player), Aidan Hill (bassist), and Gideon Johnston (drummer) on their recorded and live music.
I had the opportunity to chat about life, art, and tour with Jade and Jessica after photographing their dynamic set at The Southern Cafe & Music Hall in Charlottesville, VA on April 24, 2025.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: You’ve embarked on the Why Do Good Tours Have To End Spring Tour a few months after concluding your cross-country tour for your latest album, Staring At The Sun. What made you decide to get back on the road with the album this spring?
JADE LONG: Honestly, we were just missing playing shows. We wanted to play some and get back on the road in a less extensive way. So, we’re doing weekend runs for this tour, and we’re going back home in between.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: What music, books, or other media have you been enjoying this tour?
JESSICA THOMPSON: I’ve been reading Braiding Sweetgrass and listening to the podcast We Can Do Hard Things. What artists have I been listening to? Well, the new Lorde song today. And a little bit of Runner today, too. It’s been kind of a short-ish tour.
JADE: I’ve been reading the book Radical Acceptance, and also I’ve been listening to some Vulfpeck. Some of the groovy stuff.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Can you tell me about a funny or memorable moment on this tour so far?
JESSICA: We have a quote book, and I’m like, we can never share it. We had a venue that had a pole, and we pole danced on the pole, and we had our first kiss. Accidentally. Those are both great funny stories.
JADE: Oh, wouldn’t you say the first kiss was romantic?
JESS: No, it was not. There are no sparks.
JADE: Not yet. We’ll work on it.
JESSICA: Oh, and Aidan and Aaron kissed yesterday.
AARON DAUGHERTY [walking past]: I kissed Aidan!
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Your stage outfits are so creative. Who are your style inspirations?
JESSICA: On the first leg of the tour, it was Holly Humberstone and Maggie Rogers. And maybe a dash of Chappell Roan, always. But then, on this leg of the tour– I don’t know how to describe this. I was going to say “labor core.”
JADE: Blue collar core?
JESS: No. Yes, maybe. We got these vintage–
JADE: Painter core.
JESS: Painter aprons.
JADE: Gardener core!
JESS: Gardener core!
JADE: There you go.
JESS: And I really want to sew them onto shit and make some patchwork shit. I want to make some patchwork pants, maybe a patchwork shirt, maybe some of those relics mixed with some other things.
JADE: Hayley Williams. Style inspo this run and recently.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: What’s a dream venue to play that you haven’t played yet?
JADE: The Tabernacle– wait. We played that.
JESS: We already played– whoa.
JADE: Red Rocks. Always for me. Damn, that’s crazy. [The Tabernacle’s] been my answer.
JESS: Yeah. But Red Rocks is definitely a good second answer. Or Bonnaroo.
JADE: True. I mean, all the music festivals. Lolla, Bonnaroo, Coachella.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: You’ve released reimagined versions of a song from each of your first two projects. If you were to release a reimagined version of a song from Staring At The Sun, what would it be and how do you think you’d reimagine it?
JESSICA: Maybe we would just do “Still Frozen.”
JADE: Or maybe “Sunrise.”
JESSICA: Maybe “Sunrise.” Reimagined in a more acoustic-y version. It would be really cool to have some friends do it with us.
JADE: That would be really cool.
JESSICA: Yeah, mix it up. Guest artist, you know?
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Jade, you’ve designed and painted a number of Hotel Fiction’s album and single covers. Can you tell me more about this creative process?
JADE: It usually starts out with a lot of sketching, and then a lot of vision boarding. A lot of bouncing ideas back and forth with Jess on what color schemes and what imagery, and then it’s kind of just trial and error after that. I just paint and paint and paint until I like it, and then sometimes stepping away and taking a walk or a shower, the idea will come to me. That’s what happened with Enjoy Your Stay. It was a shower thought to combine [all of the songs] into one piece. I like to combine all the singles in the album to make them cohesive for the art.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: If you could play any instrument that you don’t already play, what would it be?
JESSICA: I would just use the power to get better at my current instruments.
JADE: The bass. I don’t know how to play the bass.
JESSICA: I think it would be very cool to be good at the drums, so that’s my other answer.
JADE: Honestly, though, the sax. Whipping out a saxophone.
JESSICA: Dude, that’s sexy.
JADE: So cool.
JESSICA: I used to play the cello, and it would be very cool to actually be good at that.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Your song “Monster” speaks to feeling stuck on the outside and struggling with unwanted thoughts. What message do you hope the song will convey to people who can relate to it?
JADE: You don’t have to run from those bad thoughts, and when you accept them and realize that the only way out is through, I think they get less scary. I think the point is to feel everything that there is to offer in life, and that feeling grief or pain or sadness is just part of it all, and that it’s actually a beautiful thing.
JESSICA: A lesson that you have to learn again and again is that, when you do have dark feelings and thoughts, sharing them – even if it’s with a therapist or a friend – makes them so much better. And knowing that other people feel that way too makes them a lot better. But I have found, getting older, that it’s a lesson that you learn over and over. You think that you’ve learned that lesson and you still haven’t – or, it doesn’t get any easier to open up about those things, even if you’ve done it before.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Your song “I Like You Around” talks about feeling love and gratitude toward friends. Can you tell me more about what the bond you two have means to you and how it influences your music?
JADE: That song is very special, and very special to play. I guess most friendships are kind of fleeting, and that song is about the ones that come and go in your life. But I feel like Jess is going to be a friend for life, so there’s no sadness that comes with it that I feel with a lot of friends. I feel like I wouldn’t be doing this without Jess. And having someone there that grounds you is what keeps me going.
JESSICA: Yeah, I feel like even though the song is kind of sad, there is a lot of present gratitude in it too for friendship. So the message of the song is to be grateful for friendship in the present, and that can be a fleeting friendship or a lifelong friendship. I think people have a lot of friends that they’re peripherally close with, but it’s very rare to have a friend like Jade. Feels like the same kind of bond you would have with a romantic partner, but with a friendship. So a very soulmate-esque friendship.
JADE: Twin flames, as they say.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: You put out a music video for “Golden Days” nearly three years after the song’s original release. How did you decide on this timing, and can you tell me more about any of the symbolism in the video?
JADE: Shout out to our friend Carrie [Miller]. It was their idea, and they were awesome. They were like, “This is my favorite song, can I [direct] it for my film class?”
JESSICA: And we were like, of course.
JADE: Absolutely.
JESSICA: Also, whenever we have an album, we sort of imagine music videos for all the songs. If we had unlimited funds and time and energy – because it takes a lot of time and energy – we would make them for everything. And [“Golden Days”] always seemed like it would be such a trippy, cool music video. One of my favorite things about it was that we just used what we had. I don’t think we spent really any money on it at all. We just used outfits in our closet, used Aaron’s backyard, went to this park. We literally took all of our furniture from our house at the time and brought it into this yard. So that’s sustainable, but it also felt like the music video was very representative of us in our dreamy, weird, trippy states, for that reason. Even though I love using new props and stuff that’s kind of out of the wheelhouse, we’ve done that [sustainable approach] for most of our music videos and it’s been cool.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: At this point in your career, what kind of fanbase or audience are you most hoping to reach with your music?
JESSICA: A passionate one.
JADE: I agree.
JESSICA: I think it’s so fascinating how different artists have very different fan bases, and there’s not necessarily a total rhyme or reason for why. But I’m hoping that ours are friends with each other, which made me really excited that [our fans] made new friends [with each other] tonight.
JADE: Our fans are so amazing. I’ve been to other shows, we’ve opened for other bands, and I don’t think anything compares to the fans that we have. So I just want, like, more of them.
JESSICA: Just multiply. Clone.
JADE: So that we can do this for a living, you know? Just like 10,000 [fans] in a stadium.
LOUDSPEAKER COLLECTIVE: Are there any projects in the works that fans can look forward to after this tour comes to an end?
JESSICA: Yes, and we can say no more.
JADE: Yes, we can’t say anything, but yes.
JESSICA: But maybe we’ve dropped some hints in this interview already.
JADE: True.
JESSICA: But maybe not. Potentially. Read between the lines.
Loudspeaker Collective 