Painkiller Hotel checks in with a different sound
The four guys in Painkiller Hotel grew up in Aurora, Ill., and say that living in the Chicago ‘burbs had an effect on their music.
“A lot of our sound is shaped around our influences,” lead singer Kevin Presbrey said in a telephone interview. “What the suburbs taught us is what we didn’t want to be like, and that’s a cover band. We didn’t want to come out and do something that everyone else has already done. We just want to make good rock music.”
Painkiller Hotel returns to the Rock Island Brewing Co. tonight for its second show there in as many months.
The four-piece band, which has been together for about three years, is up to 150 dates a year, including a recent gig at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
Presbrey said the band’s sound is comparable to Pearl Jam, 3 Doors Down and Lifehouse.
“It kind of started off as an acoustic thing and has grown into a full sound, electric sound,” he said. “It’s got some of the elements of the softer stuff that Stone Temple Pilots or Pearl Jam would have done in (Pearl Jam’s CD) ‘Vitalogy’ or an album like that, but it’s got some of the harder elements of the faster stuff those guys did, the more aggressive tunes.”
Painkiller Hotel’s first album was released a year ago on a Nashville-based independent label.
“The album’s been doing really well, several thousand copies, with no major label backing — just through our playing shows in this area and stuff, all over the Midwest,” Presbrey said.
The band is working with its attorneys and shopping for labels after getting interest from a couple of major companies, he said.
“We’re fishing around right now. Deals aren’t quite what they used to be,” he added.
The band has gained some national exposure thanks to MTV.
Painkiller Hotel doesn’t appear on any videos, but it has been featured in nearly a dozen different series on the cable channel, including “The Hills” and “The Real World: Sydney.”
“It was great exposure for us. It was some very big placement for us to get on TV,” he said.
The band’s sound, heavy on the romantic ballads, “fits well for TV and movies and stuff like that,” he said.
Presbrey is one of three 27-year-olds in the band; the drummer is 41.
Painkiller Hotel’s roots rock, Midwest-almost-Southern-rock sound is the key to its future, he said.
“A lot of the stuff that comes out now is just overproduced and becoming cookie-cutter with a lot of the bands that are out now,” he added.
To listen to one of their songs go to http://qctimes.com/multimedia/audio/painkiller.mp3
David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.
IF YOU GO
What: Painkiller Hotel
When: 10 p.m. today
Where: Rock Island Brewing Co., 1815 2nd Ave., Rock Island
How much: $3
Information: (309) 793-1999 or RIBCO.com on the Web
Also on the Web: PainkillerHotel.com