Painkiller Hotel

“It should surprise no one when Painkiller Hotel is finally named a VH1 Artist of the Month” - The Trades Magazine

“It should surprise no one when Painkiller Hotel is finally named a VH1 Artist of the Month” - All Music Magazine

“With strong guitars and great vocals, Black Roses is an album that sticks with you. As one of the first albums of 2008, this album is a sign of good things to come in the music business” - Lumino Magazine

Black Roses is strong, consistent in quality and power throughout its ten tracks. It's almost hard to believe that this is the band's debut, because their sound has a certain comfortable familiarity to it. Some of these songs seem to be made for radio airplay: smooth, polished and accessible, but still very much in the category of rock n' roll. Highly recommended.
-Abigail Wright - Elmore Magazine

It’s no secret that Painkiller Hotel is quietly making big waves in the national music scene these days. Following their performance at the 2007 South by Southwest Music festival in Austin, TX where the best Indy bands go to impress the masses, the release of their debut album Black Roses this past May, and airplay on 160 radio stations nation wide including 93 WXRT Chicago, this Aurora based rock quartet is quickly making a name for themselves. With an upcoming television debut on The WGN Morning News set to air on Dec. 7th and licensing deals with MTV, VH1, Oxygen, Lifetime, and USA (Real World, Road Rules, Super Sweet Sixteen), its no big surprise that these boys from Aurora are attracting attention from several major labels.

“In the summer of 2006 I decided that if I wanted to take my music to the next level, I was going to have to go to the place where the music scene was really happening”. And that’s exactly what frontman, and songwriter Kevin Presbrey did on that muggy summer day. “I just packed up my car with a guitar and a bag of clothes and drove down to Nashville to see what it was all about. I knew that Nashville was known for it’s country music, but what I found down there changed my entire perspective on music. It just seemed like everything was happening down there, and not just in country music. Rock, blues, alternative, they had it all. Live music every night. Music executives and producers hanging out in local bars watching bands, and not to mention some of the best live bands I’d ever see before”.

Following the eye-opening experience in Nashville, Presbrey’s new perspective led to him to the doorstep of Severe Records where he began working with Nashville based producer Chris Sevier (Elliot Morris, The Rewinds, Paris Luna). “It was an intimidating situation for me at first. I’d never worked with a producer before, let alone a producer of Sevier’s caliber, so those first days of pre-production were pretty intense”. It was during those days that Presbrey and Sevier found a musical mesh that could only be described as magical. “After Kevin auditioned for me in the studio in August, I came to Chicago with a vision for the record. I knew that his strengths were in his vocal and songwriting capabilities, so I tried to take to exploit those elements throughout the record,” said Sevier.

For a debut release, their record holds up stylistically, sonically, and song for song to anything you’d hear on main stream radio today. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise though after seeing the track record of the man who mixed the record. Engineer George Tutko (Duran Duran, Bob Segar, Rod Stewart, The Rolling Stones) was another important part of the team that made this album such a success.

Drawing comparisons to 90’s rockers Pearl Jam, Matchbox 20, Tonic and Live with the sentimental songwriting style of John Mayer, it seems Painkiller Hotel has found it’s niche in the music community. Performing a tiresome jam packed schedule of 100-120 tour dates a year over the last few years, the group comprised of bassist Adam Harker, guitarist Klaus Luchs, and drummer Jeff Kissel is putting on a live show that is a MUST SEE. PkH will be performing at several major venues this month including Chicago’s Cubby Bear, Nashville’s infamous 12th and Porter, and Aurora’s very own Walter Payton’s Roundhouse. If you like staying home and surfing the web, download a few of their songs on ITUNES, I promise you’ll love em’, but if you really want to see what this band is all about come out and see for yourself why everyone is talking about Painkiller Hotel.
- Suburban Nitelife Magazine