The Escape
White Hotel 1987-1990
After returning back to Bristol in early 86 I started putting together a new recording set-up, which included a few bits of the then new cutting edge 'midi' gear. Linn sequencer, Drum machine, DX7 keyboard & a Mirage sampler.
After having gone on a tangent working for other people now felt like the right time to try out some writing.
I remember from the Stonehouse days another fine Bristol band called TVI's, I had been impressed by their singer & main writer John Kelly. I had briefly played one show with TVI's back in Oct '80 at the Berkley Rooms, so I called him up to see if he would be at all interested in a collaboration.
He was and we started working together in early 87.
John handled most of the vocals, I had always enjoyed his voice & he was also a superb lyricist/poet. I was more than happy with this as I was now getting deeper into the production side of things. We wrote quite a number of tracks together, they all started sounded much more cinematic & cerebral with various keyboards & piano featured quite a bit.
We decided to call ourselves 'White Hotel' after the infamous D M Thomas book.
Trouble was we took rather a long time getting the 'right' demo tape finished & out to people. In-fact we never even got to play one gig together.
When we finally did get the demo tape out we got very good interest from Atlantic Records in NY.
But as with so many record companies they were a bit unsure of jumping straight into a deal.
They decided to fund us for some additional demo tracks to try & convince them.
In the end Atlantic decided not to go for it.
Disappointed we decided to call it a day & move on after having come so close.
Alan Griffiths 2008
White Hotel 1987-1990
John Kelly - Vocals / Keyboard
Alan Griffiths - Vocals / Keys / Vox
Next: Alan Griffiths RIP (The Retrospect)
