When you think of the current New York music scene, The Strokes, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, and Interpol, inevitably come to mind. Having garnered impressive record sales and hordes of media attention, these bands, among others, have come to represent the new, New York rock. But there’s more than meets the eye with Gotham city and its rock and roll – and if those bands have come to represent the city’s major league roster, stellastarr* are eagerly awaiting their chance in AAA.
Formed in Brooklyn in early 2000, stellastarr* may very well have the staying power to outlast some of their contemporaries. With the release of their self-titled debut last fall, and their first US headlining tour (capped with an appearance at Coachella), stellastarr* are positioning themselves for a break out year.
Resonating the sounds of eighties post-punk and new wave alike, this quartet, comprised of Shawn Christensen (vocals and guitar), Amanda Tannen (bass and vocals), Arthur Kremer (drums) and Michael Jurin (guitar and vocals), is a must see and hear for 2004. Their debut was spotted amongst numerous best of lists for 2003 and their singles, “My Coco” and “In the Walls” have already made appearances on MTV2 and modern rock radio throughout the US and UK. And with a galvanizing live show to complement their fine studio work, stellastarr* are one of those rare bands that excels in both mediums. But don’t be quick to label stellastarr* retro, or throw them into the new music juggernaut filling the pages of the glossy music magazines. stellastarr* are the real deal, and have quickly separated themselves from their musical peers.
Glide recently had the chance to catch up with Jurin in Columbus, Ohio, during a tour stop at the CD101Fest, a co-bill with The Thrills and Phantom Planet, to discuss the state of the band and their infectious blend of rock and pop.
Let’s talk about the origin of the band. I’ve read bits about the band attending The Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, and some of you meeting there, but how exactly did stellastarr* come to be?
Yeah, actually the other three members met at Pratt Institute, and I had just moved across the street from Pratt, apparently where Arthur used to live. One day he came over to pick up some mail, and we got to talking about music. He told me about how he and some friends were thinking about starting a band and asked if I would be interested in coming to rehearsal the next day. It was actually one of those things where some other people were just showing up, coming to see if they were going to be in the band. It was very, “Let’s get together and play music.” It was never like, “We got a band.” Well, I showed up and things went well. We started writing right away. One girl that was trying out for vocals didn’t quite stay. But us four kept on going.
What are your musical backgrounds? Amanda is a classically trained cellist, but does anyone else have classical music backgrounds? And how long have you all been playing instruments?
Yeah, Amanda started on cello. And I’ve been playing guitar since I was 12, and actually went to Temple University for film, video, music and drawing. But Shawn didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 19. And Arthur even a bit later than that. He was still learning quite a bit when I met him. But he picked it up very quickly, and developed his own unique style. He had no one to go, “This is standard.” So you don’t know standard, and you do whatever the hell you want.
What are your own musical influences? I hear a lot Talking Heads and Cure in your music, and it has a very 80’s feel to it.
I think that is what really ended up soaking into us. Just because we were young in that time period, those kinds of melodies and changes soaked into us. I listen to a lot of that, maybe more so than the other guys. Shawn grew up listening to hair metal and he’s into Bob Dylan and David Bowie, and a lot of classic rock. Arthur grew up listening to ABBA and random other things like that. Mandy listened to Elliot Smith, and I think she might have been a Deadhead for a while. We’ve all kind of strayed in different directions, and all that kind of squished together is how we came up with our sound. But we never discussed it in any way. We weren’t like, “This is how it should sound.” We just played songs.
Do you consciously strive to create music reminiscent of a past era?
No, none whatsoever. I hope it doesn’t. I hope it never gets called retro. I hate that term. It’s such a diminishing term. It’s like specifically saying we are looking for sounds and ideas from a certain time period, without looking beyond it in any way, shape, or form. And I feel we look beyond it in a lot of ways. I would hate to be limited to only taking stuff from a certain time period.
Do you think the fact that a lot of music being made today is categorized as “retro” and talked about in reference to past time periods is something the music media is too quick to do, or are the possibilities truly being exhausted?
There are two great sides to that. The possibilities are somewhat getting exhausted. A lot of variations have been done in the rock format, and it’s come down to the point where you can narrow down anything. The strangest stuff can come out and you can say, “It’s kind of like Black Sabbath meets Bach.” You can say something like that, that kind of puts an image in someone’s mind. And everyone’s used to that format. Everyone’s used to saying “it’s this band, and this band, and this band put together.” So yeah, the media and everything loves to do the comparisons. Everyone loves to do the comparisons. I think its best when they can’t pinpoint it to one band.
Luckily, we usually get such a strange list of bands that we technically sound like, half the time the other guys don’t even know. Every once and awhile, it’s just like, “Michael, who’s XTC?” And I’ll be like, “Well . . . ” and I’ll have to explain who this band is because they don’t even know who they were, yet we were getting compared to them.
I think the bigger the little lists, where its kind of like “this, plus this, plus this,” as many elements as you can get, that’s about as good as you can get anymore. Because anything can be broken down.
So how do you describe your music in your own terms?
I don’t. I avoid it like the plague. Just because, I hear it in a different way than other people hear it. I think I have a biased opinion on it.
How did you eventually come to sign with RCA? I know Carson Daly said he went to last year’s South by Southwest to specifically see stellastarr*. Did he play a part in the band getting signed?
Being on his show helped, but we had been talking to RCA for a long time. We were talking to a lot of labels for a long time, and basically saying the same thing to each one of them, which was, “Look, this is what we are trying to do. Who is willing to help us?” And it came down to a couple labels. Carson Daly was forming a label at the time, so his thing wasn’t quite ready. He had some good ideas though, and he booked us on his show without a product to sell, which was pretty cool, so we were pretty happy. But it actually came down to RCA and this kid starting a label, and we’d be his only project. Those were the two biggest bidders. Both were considered to be on equal turf because both listened to what we said, and said “okay, we’d like to back that.” But RCA was established, and this kid was yet to be established, so we went with RCA. And they’ve been great since.
How do you feel the response has been stateside?
The states are a really big place, and it’s really hard to infiltrate. We got a reaction in the UK, but over there it’s like touring New Jersey. It’s small. You can drive from top to bottom in nine and half hours. They can have a weekly paper because there are so many bands in the area, and then they can write about big bands, whoever happens to be popular at the time. But they can also write about some band you never heard of, and people read about them, and then go see them. America doesn’t have those weekly papers and it’s such a big territory to cover that news doesn’t travel that fast.
nd the monthly magazines like Rolling Stone put so many ads in they don’t have space for smaller bands. They stick to things that America knows, so you have to have your name across America or they won’t write about you as much. But reaction has been good here. We’re slowly getting radio play and the shows are slowly getting bigger. We can finally headline a tour here, and we’re pretty happy about that.
We’re actually having a really good time [too]. The best part about it is, that you go touring and opening with different bands, and most of the time it’s the first time listening for anyone in the audience. On this tour it’s revitalizing to go and play the same songs on the same record and then have people know the words and sing them back to you. It rejuvenates the whole thing.
I’ve heard a couple of new songs in the sets this tour. Are you currently writing new material?
Yeah, we sneak them in as much as possible. You got to stick to the record to promote it, but as much as possible we try to sneak in the new songs. We just write a lot, and we actually want to be in the studio in the late fall. We road tested everything on this record, so why not road test as much as humanly possible for our next record?
So lastly, what are your plans for this summer?
We are on a couple of festivals in Europe. We are going to Japan for their rock festival. We are hoping to do another American tour late summer, like August or September. And there is a possibility to do a couple of short little things here too. We’ve been in the UK a lot and we want to dive into Europe a bit, but we really want to pay attention to America now. We want to try and hit this huge area and see if we can make things bigger.
