HOTEL SONDER: Tragedy of Living
BY BRUNO S. JELLERMAN
ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE CHICAGO LUCK PAPER ‘MUSIC’ COLUMN
January 11th, 2024
NEARLY SIX YEARS AFTER A miraculous debut with their self-titled first album, the Seattle-based rock band Hotel Sonder has seemingly fallen apart. Out of four members, only one remained by the release of the band’s third album, Untitled, released in September last year. The album’s release was polarizing, the heavy promotional tour with Halloween decorations around the spooky season did not resonate with loyalists, resulting in a sixty-percent drop in ticket sales compared to Hotel Sonder’s last tour. Untitled left most critics, including yours truly, finding the content in the nine songs a wild departure from the earnest lyrics of the past, all nine songs were criticized as disturbing, dark, yet deeply derivative.
(2017-2018)
RISING —
But let’s take a step back to the early days. The lead singer and guitarist, Joseph Quale had the first inkling of forming a rock band during his freshman year of high school in Seattle. He had grown up in relative comfort, living in a two-story apartment in South Lake Union down Mercer Street. His family was Japanese American, two generations of hard-working lawyers had ensured his future. He got decent grades and spent his time at home drawing one-page comic strips and listening to records of Smogie Hope, Led Zeppelin, Anthrax, and Nirvana. The vinyls were left by his mother, a concert fanatic in her own teenaged days.
He was always enthralled at the appearance of 1980’s band groupies and fans, decked out in fantastic makeup and outrageous hair. So, for his fourteenth birthday, Quale began using eyeliner and dyed his almost gray hair jet-black. The well-to-do, unassuming Joseph Quale was slowly making his identity known. And before the age of eighteen, his band would help shape the future of rock music.
But Quale couldn’t find the right one. Instrument, that is. He tried drums—always a half-second too late. Piano—he could never keep his feet on the pedals. But several days at the Music 4 U Center guitar section clicked everything into place. He wasn’t bad on the guitar. Sure, his fingernails were chipped by the strings and his back would ache after five minutes but everything felt right when he hit the right chords in “Heart-Shaped Box”.
Not too long after his guitar awakening, he went to Portland on a family visit and by chance found a thrift shop called “GRANT’S MUSIC EXCHANGE AND SALES”. Quale found a broken ESP LTD EC-1000 electric guitar inside one of the yellow glass display tables. The owner, Grant, let the “poor mug” have the EC-1000 for half of its value, practically a steal at three-hundred and fifteen dollars. The guitar was in rough shape and Quale was broke, as an unemployed teenager ought to be, in need of everything but a shave and a haircut. But with the help of his cousin, Vermont Quale, who had recently been let go from an underground grunge band called SLATHER, they had enough scrap material and spare instruments to buy new strings and a secondhand drum set.
The two went to work on Joseph’s first full song, written in the back of his junior year Algebra II class. The song was called STARVING FOR YOU. Within a month, the cousins Quale had written and produced seven additional songs, revolving around lofty concepts like original sin, teenage breakups and the effects of colonialism on the U.S. West Coast.
the first song from HOTEL SONDER on the debut self-titled album
The tracklist for ‘HOTEL SONDER’ follows:
1. Steps
2. Circadian
3. Starving For You
4. The Next Time
5. On My Way
6. Swivel
7. The End of You and Me
8. Three Notches
Released on their own website for six dollars and fifty-cents and on several streaming sites, it only took four weeks for the song to hit the music charts. Social media apps spread the album like wildfire, helped in part by Vermont’s profile for the band where he actively engaged with fan comments and made specialized chat servers for fans of HOTEL SONDER.
By the time of their next album fourteen months later, the overall reception to ‘HOTEL SONDER’ was mixed but it had sold over three million copies. The album was unpolished, almost rough around the edges, but that was part of its charm. It captured the raw energy of a band that was still figuring out its place in the world, and listeners couldn’t get enough. Songs like “Starving For You” and “Circadian” became instant fan favorites, resonating with a generation that was hungry for something darker and coming from an authentic young voice. Starving For You was Number Three on the Billboard charts on its arrival and remained on the Top 50 until fall of 2019.
Critics, however, were divided. While some praised the album for its authenticity and emotional depth, others were less impressed. Most professional music critics saw the debut as a promising start but most reviews note that the mixing and overall sound quality on most of the heavier rock-style tracks was lacking the “punch” that the album art and overall theme of Hotel Sonder wanted to convey.
Lewis Tide from Screensaver Music Awards was highly critical of the cousins Quale in his summation of the album at the end of his review: “a setlist of songs that wouldn’t even make it as the end credits of a bargain bin direct-to-DVD action flick.”
Nevertheless, the Quales were happy with their newfound success as Vermont’s father put the money in a trust fund and the Quales were forced to use several hundred thousand dollars of their profits to pay for court fees after an Internet streaming error. The young band members were put into a tight spot financially and found themselves hounded by inquisitors and so-called advisors that wanted to be first in line to the burgeoning rock band. Their ordeal that involved moving away from South Lake would be elaborated on in three songs from the band’s second album Surface Tension, released in 2020.
Many critics appreciated the duo’s variety of musical styles and analog techniques fused into an electro-rock angst ride. ‘STARVING FOR YOU’ became a radio hit, still played on some late-night radio stations in the modern day. It was featured in the marketing and end credits of the historical action adventure film, THE KINGDOM OF TARZAN, released in 2020. Shortly after attending the movie’s premiere in Hollywood, Joseph met with two Los Angeles music producers and a short series of contracts later, the boys were signed to the Redd May Company.
They were millionaires overnight as of November 5th, 2018.
Joe quit school and took a vacation to Florida. His family didn’t mind so much. All that remained of it was his aunt who he barely saw. Vermont finished his first year of college and wrote a few songs for the next album. Joe “went AWOL” according to an interview with Vermont in November, 2023 shortly after the band’s breakup…
(2019-2021)
The TENSION of Success —
With their debut album a smash hit, Hotel Sonder was thrust into the spotlight. Their music was featured in films, their faces appeared on magazine covers, and they were hailed as the new saviors of rock. But with success came pressure—pressure to follow up their debut with something even better, to navigate the treacherous waters of fame, and to stay true to the ethos that had brought them this far.
Surface Tension was a surprise upon release.
The cover art did not fit the theme of the hard rock songs presented and included some very candid details in Joseph’s private life about his struggles with his father’s addiction issues and moving away from Seattle.
While their first album’s songs had no expletives, SURFACE TENSION would be riddled with language and an increasingly aggressive state of mind from the lead singer. What were once charming and honest lyrics began to morph into an emotional breakdown of Quale’s regrets in life. Many of Vermont’s fans complained that Joseph’s voice and style overpowered the twelve songs unlike their debut.
Released in 2020, the second album was a response to the massive pressure the teens faced during their quick rise to fame. Now worth eight million dollars in brand and record deals, the Cousins Quale prepped a tracklist of twelve songs and hired a drummer to take some of the pressure off Vermont. The album delved into the challenges of betrayal, the struggles of staying authentic in an industry that demanded conformity, fast food drive-thru, and the personal toll that success had taken on the band.
While Surface Tension was well-received and built on the success of their debut, it was clear that the band was beginning to feel the strain. The cracks that had started to show during the making of their first album were widening, and by the time Untitled, their third album, was released in October 2022, Hotel Sonder was on the brink of collapse.
Click ‘PATCHWORK’ to explore the biohorror world of the Sacred Hollow and its Mendac witches…
(2022-2023)
“I WANNA” Start Trouble —
Beginning production in spring of 2022, Untitled was supposed to be the album that cemented Hotel Sonder’s place in rock history. Instead, it became the catalyst for their undoing.
Quale’s smoking habit, which had reportedly escalated to two packs a day by the time Untitled was being recorded in studio, only added to the concerns surrounding his well-being. His voice, once a powerful instrument in its own right, had become harsh and strained and as such, several songs had to be rerecorded and two songs were removed from the album entirely as Quale could not reach the proper notes. Vermont had to sing the main vocals on the last song “Quittin’ On Your Time” in addition to playing main guitar as his cousin was out of the country during production of Untitled.
The album also planned to feature a new version of “The End of You and Me” this time redone as a soft bass breakup ballad that showcased the band’s ability to blend vulnerability with strength. But four weeks before the release of Untitled, Joseph Quale released the song online for free, claiming in a brief self-filmed video that “it [did]n’t go with the theme of the album. All the songs are about hate in a way. And something like The End of You and Me, the way it was supposed to sound in the first place (laughs)… just ruins the whole picture I’m trying to paint with UNTITLED.” This rendition was well received and seen by close followers of the band as an apology by Joseph (who wrote the song) to the ex-girlfriend he references throughout, Seattle high school sweetheart Luz Baki.
The breakout track, “I Wanna,” shocked fans and critics alike with its brutal honesty and dark, disturbing lyrics. The chorus, featuring the line “I wanna f***ing murder you,” was a stark departure from the more introspective and melancholic tracks that had defined their earlier work but became a widespread ironic meme. Critics were quick to pounce on the song, calling it “irresponsible”, “cringe”, “like a parody” and the most common complaint, “deeply troubling.” Fans were divided—some appreciated the raw emotion, while others found it too unsettling.
The song’s dark themes were further amplified by an exposé published in the National Songbook Magazine in the fall of 2023. Written by Jessica Langley’s sister, the article revealed that “I Wanna” was allegedly inspired by Joseph Quale’s tumultuous relationship with Langley, a former kid’s TV star. According to the exposé, Langley had an affair with a San Diego trauma nurse while Untitled was being recorded in Los Angeles. The article also claimed that Quale had become heavily involved in party drugs during this time, a habit that reportedly began during Langley’s summer stay with the couple when they were both twenty.
The controversy surrounding “I Wanna” was the final straw for Hotel Sonder. The album mixed-to-negative reception and the personal drama that accompanied led to a rift between Joseph and Vermont, culminating in Vermont’s departure from the band. After his extensive work for the album’s final song “Quittin’ On Your Time”, Vermont was asked by the managers of American-Canadian rock band Apocalypse Rag to join as their backup guitar while on tour in Europe later in summer of 2024. Vermont accepted and left all of his ownership of Hotel Sonder to his younger cousin. He remains unavailable for comment as of this time.
‘Doornail Quale’ became a minor meme, the title of Lewis Tide’s review of Untitled. Unlike his review for their debut album, where Tide was appreciating the young band’s style and approach while also shredding them with cutesy insults on their lack of experience, his final review for Hotel Sonder had the dreadful scent of disappointment stamped across its twenty-five paragraphs, two bullet point lists, and relatively bad standup comedy jokes.
(2023- )
LIMBO —
As 2024 begins, the future of Hotel Sonder remains uncertain. Rumors of a fourth album have been swirling for months, but with Vermont gone and Joseph seemingly on the brink, it’s unclear whether the band will ever return to the studio. Some sources suggest that the project is on a permanent hiatus, leaving fans to wonder if Hotel Sonder’s story has reached its tragic end.
For those of us who followed the band from their humble beginnings to their meteoric rise and sudden fall, the story of Hotel Sonder is a cautionary tale of what can happen when fame and fortune come at the cost of one’s soul. The band that once promised to redefine rock music is now a shadow of its former self, its legacy tainted by controversy and personal demons.
As I reflect on the band’s journey, I can’t help but feel a sense of loss, despite their on-the-nose lyrics and try-hard edge style, Hotel Sonder was, for a moment, a diamond in the rough somehow.
Here’s hoping that whatever happens next, Joseph Quale and Co. finds their way to reclaim the passion and integrity that once made Hotel Sonder a name to remember. Whether that means rising from the ashes or walking away from the spotlight for good, only time will tell.