Who: Ariel Strasser

From: Boston, MA (by way of Twin Cities, Minnesota)

Song: “Big Hotel Room”

Latest Record: Motivation (released October 26, 2018)

What About It: “This track started out as kind of an outlier on the album and became one of my favorites. It was an acoustic track in a bowl of full band, old school electric keyboard driven songs. I wrote it about my fiancé, Ken Budka, in the first few months that we started dating. I was quite literally in a “big hotel room” by myself after playing a show in northern Vermont.

Ken plays guitar on every other track on the album, but I suppose you could say he is no less present on this track.

To me, one of the things that’s most lovable about this track is the warmth of all the acoustic instruments – the guitar, upright bass, and violin. With all the violin layers, it sounds like a whole orchestra of resonating, wooden boxes. I love it.

Beloved Boston local Ian Kennedy played violin on this song and a few other tracks. Ian passed away suddenly pretty shortly after recording these songs. The week he died, I showed up to the studio and heard the news from my producer/engineer – Nick Zampiello. This song, drenched in Ian’s playing, was the last lead vocal track we had to record. Something about that felt like fate. We cried, and then we picked ourselves up and recorded it.

After that, this song took on a whole new life. I’m singing about the emptiness of that room and missing a new love, but the feeling of missing someone has a new depth when I listen to it. It’s filled with so much love and longing.”