Formed in 2011 in Porterville, California, Hotel Books is the project of spoken word poet Cameron Smith. Delivering his intense, cathartic poetry over a musical blend of ambient, post-hardcore, and emo, Smith and his bandmates have toured extensively throughout the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Smith was drawn to both the fringe aspect of spoken word poetry and to the chance to focus on writing lyrics unhindered by melody. A devout Christian, he sees Hotel Books as a way to tell his personal story without excluding nonbelievers. Employing a rotating cast of bandmembers throughout the years, they recorded a series of four EPs beginning with Call Me Human in late 2011, all released on Smith's own Dead Letters Collective label. After signing with InVogue Records in 2014, the band released the double EP I'm Almost Happy Here, But I Never Feel at Home in July of that year. Hotel Books' first full-length, Run Wild, Young Beauty, and Smith's poetry book Most Nights, I Wish It Was You were both released via InVogue in 2015. The book acted as a sort of companion piece to Run Wild, Young Beauty, containing poems derived from both new and old Hotel Books songs as well as short stories from 2011. A follow-up album, Run Wild, Stay Alive, was released the following summer. Smith issued his third LP, Equivalency, in 2017. ~ Timothy Monger