As The Joy Hotel prepared to release their debut album Ceremony, a number of teaser singles have been drawing in fans old and new. Surging lead single ‘Jeremiah’ immediately caught the attention of media including Clash, DIY, Dork, The Line of Best Fit, So Young, Under The Radar and more. The intimate balladry of ‘Black Balloon’ soon followed, with the buoyant electricity of ‘Old Man’s Eyes’ not far behind. As Ceremony sees its release the band are sharing a video for ‘I Decline’, of which lead singer Emme Woods comments: “We shot the video for I Decline with basically no budget in our own rehearsal space in Glasgow. We wanted it to resemble an MTV style music video that had been uncovered from some old discarded VHS tape. The reference points were the videos for Men’s Needs by the Cribs, Mamma Mia by ABBA and Fanny covering Hey Bulldog in 1971. We really enjoy the grubby, heavily stylised aesthetic of these old format videos and it felt really right for the song.”
The band spent eleven days at Rockfield, the legendary studio in Monmouth, Wales, recording live-to-tape. When they left, they had a sound. It is often contradictory, in that it combines the songwriting sensibilities of pop and country with arrangements reminiscent of the psychedelic scene of the 60s, six-part vocal harmonies with elements of noise rock, beautiful balladry with a sense of humour, and a cinematic quality. The result of those eleven days is debut album Ceremony, a record that searches for the profound in the seemingly routine, and reaches out with arms wide open to wring celebration out of each moment. The band today shares their making-of album documentary, Come The Ringing Bell. Lead singer Emme Woods continues:
“The documentary is something we put together ourselves in the months following the recording of the album. Rosie Sco had filmed about seventy hours of footage and we worked it down to a fifty one minute depiction the process behind each song, capturing the initial live performance and then the work we did late in to the night on overdubs and finding what made each song special. We only spent ten days recording at Rockfield and the film gives you a sense of how quickly we were working to capture takes that felt powerful and then committing them to a master tape. We called the film Come The Ringing Bell which is a line from our third single Old Man’s Eyes, it’s about capturing the moment while you have it. We spent around nine months putting it all together and were glad people can finally see how the album came together and what a labour of love it was.”
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