Hotel Fiction Return With “Cold Cold Heart” Ahead of Shaky Knees Homecoming
By : Josh Kitchen / September 18, 2026
Athens, Georgia duo Hotel Fiction are entering their next chapter with “Cold Cold Heart,” their first taste of new music following this year’s deluxe edition of their 2024 sophomore album, Staring at the Sun. It arrives just ahead of a full-circle Shaky Knees homecoming for Jade Ireland and Jessica Thompson, whose friendship has deepened alongside their songwriting and become inseparable from the music they make together.
That bond has been nurtured specifically in Athens, where they not only bask in the influence of bands like R.E.M., but have enjoyed full-circle moments of their own in Athens music history—like filming the video for “Margot” at R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry’s home. (They even did some swimming.)
I talked to Jade and Jessica about what it means to play Shaky Knees, how their friendship has evolved alongside Hotel Fiction, the art that continues to inspire them, and the new single - all while getting a preview of their as-yet-unannounced next album.
You've got a lot of shows coming up, including Shaky Knees in your native Georgia, and then dates throughout October. Talk to me about how exciting it is to be playing Shaky Knees.
Jessica:
We are so, so excited. It's like a dream come true for both of us and a longtime goal of ours to play Shaky Knees. It's probably the most exciting thing that's happened this year, honestly, or as a band.
Jade:
I remember going to Shaky Knees when I was 15, and all the artists there shaped my music taste so much. It's such a huge honor to be able to be an artist there now.
Jessica:
And Summerfest in July—my dad used to go as a kid, and that was where he and his friends discovered all the new artists they loved. So it's cool to think that we could be that artist for someone else.
Being from Athens, GA, there's so much musical DNA around you. It's hard not to think about the lineage of R.E.M., Pylon and the B-52s. The "Margot" video was even filmed at R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry's house. How did that happen? DId you Get to go Nightswimming?
Jade:
We're friends with his son, Owen, and it's just a very close-knit scene. Bill was very, very kind to let us film at his house. Rowan had done a practice there for one of her other bands, and she was like, "This would be perfect for this song and this music video."
It was really cool to get to meet him. He came out of his house with these tiny cherry tomatoes he had harvested, and they were the best tomatoes I'd ever eaten. He's a fantastic gardener.
Jessica:
And he did let us use the pool, which we didn't expect. He offered us use of his four-wheelers and his pool, and we were trying to figure out how to fit it all into the music video.
It goes to the heart of Athens being such a communal music community. That's part of the history of bands like R.E.M.—having the support of their "elders," like the B-52s. It's special to hear about that tradition continuing with you.
Jessica:
It was really beautiful. I feel like they understand—and he specifically understands—being young people who are excited with a vision for something. How eager he was to help us felt really, really kind. I'm sure throughout his life so many people have come up to him and asked him for different things, and it felt amazing that he cared about our art and wanted to help us.
Jade:
He showed us the inside of his house, too, and I was able to play his grand piano. It was the best piano I'd ever played. Then he played us a song that he was writing. It was a very magical experience.
People love to ask musicians, "How do you write your songs?" or "Who are your influences?" But as a listener, I imagine all these small experiences make their way into a songwriter's head.
Jade:
Definitely. The small, beautiful, spontaneous moments of life are amazing musical inspiration—and books and friendships and physical media and visual arts. We're not just inspired by music; we're inspired by so many different art forms. I think that makes music more unique, more believable and more connected to the human experience.
Friendship is obviously crucial to the music Hotel Fiction makes. How have you grown as friends over the course of this journey?
Jessica:
Very quickly when we became friends, we started telling each other everything. We're the kind of friends who could share things that we hadn't ever shared with anyone else before and be as honest as we thought we could be.
Throughout our friendship, it's become more of a free-flowing pipe, especially when we're writing music together or talking about things that are important to us. We're able to really exist as ourselves with each other, and I think that's really grown in our music too.
Jade: It's grown in our musical connection and our artistic connection with each other. As our songwriting gets deeper, so does our friendship. Navigating such a crazy world and such a crazy career together, I feel like we've grown as people and as friends.
That's what makes a new record so interesting to me. The Hotel Fiction that made your first record couldn't have made Staring at the Sun, because you've had all these experiences and grown as people. So, with that in mind, I'm loving the new single, "Cold Cold Heart."
Jade:
We actually just finished recording our next project. We had been in such a phase of writing, but we just finished a phase of recording and now are trying to figure out the creative world around it. That's also an exciting phase—bringing the other aspects of the music to life.
Jessica:
It could not be more different than Staring at the Sun, I don't think. At least to us, it couldn't be. A lot of people will listen to our music and be like, "It's Hotel Fiction," but to us it feels like a big, big step.
I see an upside-down copy of Rubber Soul behind you. I know you both love the Beatles, which makes me wonder: What was each of your first concerts?
Jessica:
Technically, my first concert was an American Idol concert. But my first concert by my own choice was AC/DC with my best friend in the fourth grade, and it was a great time. I was obsessed with AC/DC in the fourth grade. I had the metal guitar-pick necklace and the studded belt. I would doodle snakes around guitars and band logos. You should have seen my sketchbook.
Jade:
My first concert wasn't until middle school. I think I was in seventh grade, and it was One Direction. I was a big fan. I feel like my music taste went from liking what my parents liked, like the Beatles and Pink Floyd, to finding my super-girl fangirl phase in middle school, and then going in the opposite direction once I got to high school.
What's the best concert you've each seen?
Jade:
Jess and I both really loved seeing Stevie Nicks at Bonnaroo. It was unreal, just her being such a legend and such an inspiration to us, and having such a magical career that she's still singing. It's very inspiring, and we got to watch it together, so it was very magical. I also saw the Killers live, and that was amazing.
Jessica:
We've really been to hundreds of concerts, and right now the Stevie Nicks one is in my brain.
What else is inspiring you these days?
Jessica:
I'm very inspired by books right now. I just finished Martyr!, and it was incredible—so well-written and so creatively written. And I'm reading this book by George Saunders about Russian literature that I'm really into. I think I'm about to go down a Russian literature rabbit hole.
Jade:
I've been inspired by a lot lately. This past album cycle, I've been very inspired by Southern Gothic writing, like Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. I think it inspired a lot of the dark feelings about what it's like living in the South as someone that's kind of different.
It's also been a very hard year with my family. My mom's been very sick, and I've been very inspired by her and experiencing new feelings of grief and also hope, and getting through those in music. Through feelings of darkness, I've been finding beautiful things still in this world, whether it's my friends or beautiful flowers blooming in the springtime in Georgia, or touring in different cities out West recently.
I've also been finding a lot of visual artists through social media and Instagram. While it can be a very dark place, I've found a lot of joy discovering different visual artists.
What else can you tease about the next record?
Jade:
It feels darker and more rock.
Jessica:
Angrier. Edgier.
Jade:
There's a lot of inspiration from psychedelic rock from the '70s and punk rock in the '90s.
Jessica:
We've started taking a lot of our inspirations and taking different pieces from them for this record. I feel like we pulled from our inspirations in other ways for the past ones, but this feels different.
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