Hotel St. George combined punch-in-the-gut garage-rock guitar work with fierce glam vocals — simple and tasty.
The band was fronted by Matt Binder, of Vinyl Radio, and Erik Visnyak, of A Week’s Worth. After incorporating Simon Leader and Brian Riley, they made their live debut at the Casbah on November 30, 2007. They went on to share the main stage with local boys Writer, as well as perennial threats to national breakout, Louis XIV.
Their debut EP, produced by Mike Kamoo of the Stereotypes, is called Yipee. In November 2008, they released the full-length Hundreds and Thousands.
In 2009, the band won a contest to have their song “It’s the Blues” appear in the video game Major League Baseball 2K10. The band’s singer-guitarist Matt Binder noticed the contest on Spin.com.
“We didn’t hear anything from them for a very long time, so we figured that they weren’t interested,” Binder explained. “Then months later, they told us that we were a finalist, and then months after that we were told that we’d won. Mainly, we are psyched because we are on the same soundtrack as Iggy Pop, Phoenix, Pearl Jam, and a bunch of other rad bands.”
The band got paid for their song, though Binder assumes that they “probably didn’t make as much money as Pearl Jam.” In the end, he was happy to have his band’s name on the same box as them, though he was a bit bummed that there was no release party for the game.
“I’m a huge baseball fan and would have loved to party with Chase Utley and Shane Victorino. But since that didn’t happen, maybe it will open the doors for something else cool to happen. Who knows?”
After the band dissolved, local label Aural Gravy Records announced plans to re-release their entire catalog digitally online, one per week from late April 2014 through May, each priced at $3 the first week and then $5.
Matthew Binder released his debut novel, High in the Streets, in April 2016 via Roundfire Books. He also cofounded Bang Bang Jet Away (whose name pays tribute to a song by the Stereotypes) with Mike Kamoo (the Stereotypes, Fuzz-Huzzi). Their debut EP Valentines was released in early 2016, followed by an LP called Forget the Sunshine.