George Van Den Broek, popularly known as Yellow Days, has released his new album, ‘Hotel Heaven’, described as a “surreal”, otherworldly concept album set in a dystopian future where Earth has been destroyed and the rich and famous have escaped to a space cloud called Hotel Heaven. As he said in an interview with NME, the albums and accompanying music videos feature a character called The Concierge who is “this foul-mouthed, benevolent character similar to a chorus from a Greek Tragedy of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio” and writes out people’s lives as they live them.
Yellow Day’s first trilogy of records, Inner Peace, Slow Dance & Romance and Apple Pie, were inspired by frank honesty, but ‘Hotel Heaven’ is a concept album that sees him take a different approach to his music, “making a concept album unlocked something for me”, he said. In recent years, Van Den Broek has worked with a number of jazz fashion musicians, and wanted to take those new-found skills into a rock album. He experimented by bringing together rock and funk and the result is a product that feels a lot like Prince, he said.
Van Den Broek also spoke about his journey and challenge to stay true to himself as a musician. “Before this record, I’ve always treated music as biographical storytelling and never spoke about things that weren’t too far removed from the truth. With ‘Hotel Heaven’, I wanted to play a version of myself”, he said. He left school at 16 to pursue music and spent most of his time alone attempting to reconcile his dream with real life. “I was in a position where I was basically the CEO of a company with contracts and various other legal bits to think about”, but even that didn’t prepare him for the “weird time” of being isolated and travelling half the year.
To celebrate the release of ‘Hotel Heaven’, Yellow days is going on his first UK headline tour, after five years, before heading out for a run around North America. He is excited about the future and his next record but realizes it is not about writing hit songs, its about making interesting music that wakes up the listener’s soul. Ultimately, he wants his music to make people feel alive
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