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Released as a single two weeks ago, Cristina Vane's 'Getting High in Hotel Rooms' has been on heavy rotation in the Holler offices ever since. A magical blend of '70s countrypolitan and dreamy Laurel Canyon folk, the song captures the often melancholy moments and isolation of a touring musician out on the road.
"'Getting High in Hotel Rooms' was written in a Las Vegas hotel tower, at a low point in my solo tour a few years ago," Cristina Vane told Holler. "I was feeling the continual paradox of touring; the elation of a good show or a magical new place that will be juxtaposed with the emptiness of experiencing them alone, being far from your loved ones, and questioning what you're doing. I look at the drive that keeps me going like the original fire that sparked in many of us musicians a long time ago, that sometimes burns low, and sometimes really brightly."
"I travel far, I travel light and I can sing the blues all night," she sings, as the song builds softly around her. "I smoke too much sometimes I try / Try to keep the dream alive / But I am only human too / Singing to an empty room."
"There is something eerie about being packed into a structure with thousands of people, and feeling so alone, as well as overlooking the edge of where the artificial landscaping of the city faded into desert rocks," she explained about writing the song. "I was dealing with a failing relationship that was also many miles away and felt both the freedom of being on the road as well as the cage of isolation that comes with it. I felt lost, and without purpose (as I do occasionally when I get really worn out on the road), wondering what I was really doing in this strange setting, smoking in my hotel bathroom just to numb out and cope."
"This song is about so much more than what the title suggests," Vane says. "I often joke about this when I play it live - it's a song of perseverance in the face of desperation."
"The song touches on the tiniest flicker of the flame that never fully goes out within in me- when it is dim, things feel overwhelming and irrational, but I wanted to write something that reflected how many of us musicians follow that dim flicker through heartache, exhaustion, and sometimes even pain because we believe it is our calling and, in a way, our duty."
"I came home and recorded this with my touring band, Geoff Henderson on the bass and Roger Ross on drums, and then we had Ty Bailie come in and put some B3 on it all at The Studio, Nashville with Brook Sutton producing."
The song now has a suitably dreamlike video, filmed and produced by Oceanna Colgan, to go with it. Gorgeously dark and dreamy, the video feels like it could have been directed by David Lynch, as it fades between the hotel room and the breathtaking landscapes of the Vegas desert.
Watch the video for 'Getting High In Hotel Rooms' exclusively on Holler below
'Getting High In Hotel Rooms' is out now on Blue Tip Records
