From lockdown beginnings to a band ready to light up the stage, The Joshua Hotel opens up about honesty, influence, and the Highlands scene.
Born during the stillness of lockdown, The Joshua Hotel began as a deeply personal creative outlet for frontman Joshua Mackenzie. What started as solitary experiments in a bedroom studio has since evolved into a sharp, forward-looking indie-electronic trio with Louis Slorach on guitar and Joshua Gilbert on drums.
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Their debut album Rapture Party arrives on 26 September 2025 via Glasgow label Last Night From Glasgow, following singles including Easy Feeling, Show Me Around and Local Girl Builds A Rocket. To mark the release, the band headline An Seòmar in Inverness on Saturday 27 September, joined by Swiss Portrait, before heading to Music From Big Blue in Glasgow on 10 October for an in-store celebration.
The Joshua Hotel began during lockdown as a personal creative outlet. Looking back, how did that moment of isolation help you discover a voice that felt distinct from your work with Lional?
That first lockdown was the start of a real transitional period for me in my life (as I’m sure it was for many others). I began shedding a lot of my old self and digging deeper into what I could do in a creative sense without any expectations. There wasn’t a conscious effort to make it different from Lional as such.
It was just for my own amusement initially and there wasn’t any strategic plan to conceive and launch a new project. I just found I had time for a healthy gestation period of soaking up books, art, films and and new music discoveries before self-producing and recording songs from start to finish for the first time in a home studio setup. It was the most efficient way to achieve actualisation of my ideas and it was really quite a revelation! I am very, very restless when it comes to creating things. I get bored and want to move on very quickly, so it’s important an idea is acted upon and preserved as soon as possible. I figured out my little system to do that, so there’s more natural immediacy to the material as a result.
You’ve said this project gave you space to be “unashamedly yourself.” What does that freedom look like now, especially as you prepare to release Rapture Party and share it with a live audience?
That stems from the foundation of it being a very solitary, isolated process when the writing began. The identity of the project was informed by the material before anything else and the material was very straight-from-the-source. I’ve maintained that honesty with the writing; it wouldn’t make sense to retreat now; you need to go further! I think the origins of its conception really informed, in a very natural way, exactly who would be a good fit when it did come to evolving into a band. When it was more defined as a solo project for the first couple of years, Louis and Josh G were very supportive and receptive of the material as friends before there was any discussion about it being a band. It made perfect sense to have them come onboard when that time came.
When bands are assembled before a clear sonic vision and identity is established with the material, it can lack cohesion. That wasn’t the case with us. They back up what was already there and enhance it in a way that is aligned with the essence of it. I can be unashamedly myself, but with the support of 2 trusted partners.
The album is described as a life story told through sound — touching on love, identity, mental health, and memory. Was there a moment in the writing process when you realised this wasn’t just a collection of songs, but something more autobiographical?
Yeah, on the first day I started writing the songs for the album, I was just sat at the little studio station in my bedroom with a blank notepad, a bass guitar and a synth and I asked myself “well, how did ya get here?”. You know, in the sense of; why does my life look the way it does, why am I a bit mental, why am I good at some things and incapable of other things in adulthood, why did certain people I grew up with have more social capital and insulation from negative consequences than me and why did some of us scrape through when others didn’t. It just seemed like a natural line of investigation to go down to make a collection of songs with an arc that would pour out of me in an honest way.
I kind of reflected on the general cultural and socio-political landscape of the world I grew up in too, but from the perspective of how it informed my little life in the Highlands. In some ways I feel it’s a love letter to Inverness. Particularly the streets of Hilton, Lochardil and a bit of Culloden. That’s where all the best parties and most memorable kisses were.
Your influences range from Bowie and Björk to Aphex Twin and Kate Bush — artists known for emotional depth and sonic risk-taking. How do those inspirations shape the textures and moods of Rapture Party?
Bowie’s Scary Monsters and Super Creeps felt like a great blueprint in terms of getting your freak on but maintaining a good pop sensibility. I’m a whore for a pop song and I always will be. Kate Bush’s Never For Ever was another one that felt like a good striking of that balance. There is quite a lot of stylistic nods to both those albums on Rapture Party, particularly in the dynamic of mine and Shanine’s vocal interplay. There’s an eccentric, theatrical Englishness to those art-pop albums in the late 70s and early 80s that I absolutely love and I like to channel a bit of that.
We also did some chord building vocal ambience with Shanine’s voice a la Björk’s Vespertine, particularly on the first couple tracks, but I really don’t think anyone is going to listen to our album and pick Björk up as a glaring reference. I don’t know if Lou intended this at all, but I think a lot of the guitar parts he laid down on the tracks are quite Robert Fripp or Adrien Belew (Bowie alumni) at points. So, there’s another nod!
There are so many influences I can hear throughout the album from The Cure, to Soulwax, to Cocteau Twins, to Yves Tumor to George Michael and back to The Smiths. I was really inspired by the soundtracks to the films Donnie Darko and Rules of Attraction in how they use the songs in a visceral way to reflect formative moments in the coming-of-age arc.
You’ve built a trio that brings these songs to life on stage, with support from Swiss Portrait at the upcoming Inverness show. What kind of atmosphere are you hoping to create for the audience — and what do you want them to feel walking away?
We just want to create a fun, positive atmosphere. I want people to feel like they’ve seen a band with real intent and charisma, and I want them to come away feeling uplifted. The world is so exhausting at the moment, I don’t want people walking away with bleeding hearts. People need to let off a bit of steam. I feel when it all clicks for us on stage, we are the perfect cocktail of transgressive, progressive, propulsive, nihilistic and theatrical. It’s infectious.
Joshua Hotel at Belladrum 2024
Tracks like Local Girl Builds A Rocket and Show Me Around have already struck a chord with listeners. How do they fit into the emotional arc of the album, and what do they reveal about where you are now as an artist?
Both of those songs are reflections on how social standing affects the dynamics within relationships. Show Me Around touches on being involved with someone who has access to exclusive areas of life and how – against your better judgement and prior moral compass – it’s remarkable how quick you embrace it yourself! Local Girl… is similar in the sense, when it all falls apart, you realise the disparity more palpably than ever before. Funnily enough, they are about 2 different people and locations and genders have all been changed for the safety of the subjects. For example: Local Girl isn’t about a girl at all, and they aren’t even local – they’re from Perth… Australia! And there’s no bitterness. I took a rather sangfroid approach to what were ultimately voyeuristic experiences in the end. It’s just observational.
Anyway, the idea of social standing and everyone’s desperate urge to make some kind of material legacy in defiance of mortality is touched upon a few times across the album.
You’ve spoken about choosing joy over strategy — letting creativity lead rather than chasing industry expectations. As you stand on the edge of this album release, what does success mean to you today?
I probably have a different answer to this question every day. I actually don’t really know. I suppose my default has always been to say that success would be getting the project to the point where you make enough of a living from it to keep doing it, but if we are being honest with ourselves, most people involved in music just want to look cool. I mean, the process of writing songs gives me a deep sense of joy and meaning, and I don’t know if how the songs are then packaged up, commodified and put to market changes that initial therapeutic process. Ultimately, I just want cool people to think we are cool.
Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams said ‘if you build it, they will come’. It’s not that simple when it comes to gaining an audience (both at gigs and listeners) what would make it easier for musicians to be ‘heard’?
Well, it’s the dilemma of the age we live in: it’s never been easier to be heard, it’s never been harder to maintain people’s attention. Culture is just changing so quickly now, I think people’s reasons for going to an event centres more around the idea of celebrity than ever before. When I was a teen, there was more taking a punt on an under-the-radar indie band’s midweek gig at the Ironworks because they were tipped in the NME and you were passionate about finding your new favourite band before anyone else.
People seem to need an artist or musician to have been initiated and verified as a big deal before they are motivated to go out and see it. I’m not blaming the audience either though, it’s just the way the times have changed, and people are a bit skint and probably have event fatigue with the volume of tours that have been rammed down their throat since the pandemic. It’s understandable they want a bit of reassurance before parting with their cash.
Maybe being a bit more DIY and grassroots is the way forward. House concerts, smaller festivals and things with less licensing red tape and expenses to run and maintain. I’m not sure though, I don’t have too many solutions – I’m just a musician.
The Joshua Hotel has been building recognition throughout Scotland, what do you think the strengths and challenges are about being from the Highlands as a musician?
It’s a beautiful place to live in one sense. I love the countryside here more than most places on Earth, but goodness me the town is in a bad way. There’s generally just a total lack of venues to play for one. The ones that are here are great, don’t get me wrong, but we all sort of end up playing the same gig twice a year. It’s a wider problem, though. Multinationals have been pandered to and local businesses have been driven out by rising rates. Hence, the high street looks like a dystopia of dereliction with the odd tourist shop here and there.
I think the issue is whitewashed somewhat by the ‘gateway to the highlands’ tourist draw, but if you take a step back and just look at the state of the town centre itself compared to say even 2018, it’s rather chilling. Thank God for Leakies and Eden Court. I mean, Eden Court isn’t perfect, but if those 2 go, that’ll be the death knell.
Having been covering you on the website since way back when Lional had an e in it, what’s your feeling about the local scene as it is at the moment?
The hole the Ironworks has left is massive. The town does feel stripped of any kind of presence of a contemporary music scene since it closed. People decry that all that is left is just wall-to-wall trad, but trad in its truest sense is suffering just as much, as that relies on more purpose-built venues the same way original rock, pop and alternative music does.
People are mistaking novelty cover bands with the odd whistle or accordion for trad. That’s tourism-based hospitality entertainment, which does seem to be thriving(and power to it, it’s part of how I make a living), but there’s a lack of support and cultivation for the talented original trad and contemporary artists in the area. Which makes no sense, because it is the rich history of local artists, writers and musicians that contribute so heavily to Inverness having a strong cultural identity.
For The Joshua Hotel, Rapture Party isn’t just an album — it’s an unfiltered reflection of life, love, and the landscape of Inverness itself.
The Joshua Hotel is performing at An Seòmar in Inverness on Saturday 27 September 2025, with support from Swiss Portrait. The new album Rapture Party is released on 26 September 2025 by Last Night From Glasgow. The celebrations continue with a special in-store performance at Music From Big Blue in Glasgow on Friday 10 October 2025.
