Belmont Lounge, NYC
Monday, July 7, 2003
Interview by Courtney Reimer and Rodrigo Perez
Intro by Rodrigo Perez
Photos courtesy of Formula
Stellastarr* will be the first to insist, they’re not just another
Gotham band. And as far as we know there’s no Casablancas modeling
agency or dirty money behind them (at least not yet). Thanks to good
timing, word of mouth, and a solid stage performance on their side,
the Stellas have cultivated a following and could be on the verge of
something.
Still, it’s hard not to be suspect (envious?) of their good fortune.
Despite a seemingly out-of-nowhere press deluge, the quartet has actually
been around the New York block and paid their dues (at least in one
form or another). Though they admit to taking their cues from ‘90s
sweater geeks in the past, their sound has evolved closer to something
plucked from the ‘80s; a shock of dark-pop.
We chatted with three out of four Stellastarr* bandmates at the noisy
Belmont before a Placebo show (yeah, that Placebo). But, despite the
approaching menace of a band we were all not too fond of, the Stellas
made for good conversation and did their best to justify their existence
in these skeptical times. Shawn Christensen, the affable and handsome
singer even offered us his calamari – after paying for it himself
(RCA, are you listening?).
With a much-coveted bit in Vanity Fair, a swelling fanbase in the U.K.,
a blurb in Rolling Stone and now a groundbreaking interview here in
your trusty ‘Sup magazine, the Stellas could be on their way to
becoming household names. But, only time will tell if your mom will
namecheck them over chicken pot pie.
South By Southwest kind of got the ball rolling for you guys,
right?
Amanda: Yeah, an NME writer saw us. He just came up to me after the
show and was like “You guys were great.” After that he just
really started pushing us, and he’s been really great.
Shawn: All kinds of people that would’ve never seen us before
were exposed to us down there. At that stage in the game, we felt like
if we’d leave the city, we’d play empty rooms. But it was
a sold-out show. A couple days later we played a brunch, which was pretty
well attended for a brunch show since no one’s up at that time
at SXSW.
So after that you guys did the Carson Daly show?
Shawn: Two days later, they booked us.
Did you guys meet Carson?
Amanda: Yeah, he’s really nice actually.
Shawn: He’s trying to change his whole TRL image. He actually
had some pretty decent acts on his show like Interpol, The Walkmen and
French Kicks.
Carson’s starting a label, right? Didn’t he try
and sign you guys?
Shawn: Yes, they would’ve, but we were already pretty far with
RCA in negotiating. They did a sort of tricky thing that we probably
shouldn’t really get into. By then we were already pretty far
on our way with RCA.
Did you have any trepidation about signing to a major?
Shawn: There’s always a fear when you go to a major. The plan
was to do an indie label, but you know what? The major labels were –
this may sound weird to you – but the major labels were much more
understanding. They were actually getting our vision more. Ironically
enough, they were much more at ease with us having creative control
and our vision.
Amanda: They were really flexible.
Shawn: They got it. There’s this big fear, “Oh, it’s
a major label, we don’t really want to have to deal with that.”
But one of the draws to RCA for me – and I don’t think they’d
be offended by this –I feel like they’re an indie label
with major label power.
Their roster is so small it’s almost ridiculous. It’s
smaller than most indie labels. It’s only 25 acts, including Elvis.
Seriously, they’re probably only going to have 18 or 20 releases
this entire year. Our album will have time to breathe at RCA. They’ll
have time sort of push it, promote it and market it well. And it’ll
be more of a priority there than it would be at other labels.
Amanda: At a label you have to be a priority or you’re just screwed,
no matter what. We were going to go with a label that really and truly
was going to make us a priority and weren’t just bullshitting
us.
Shawn: Maybe we were being snobby or snotty about wanting [control],
but that’s what we wanted. We wanted to be paid attention to.
We have control over the album covers and the vision. We design all
that stuff ourselves, and we can just walk in the office tomorrow and
most people will know who I am. I can go into the art department and
we can work on things together and it’s a very nice, intimate
setting there.
You guys had another band before Stellastarr* called Ghistor
and it sounded like Weezer and was kind of “alt-rock”?
Shawn: I was obsessed with Weezer at the time. I was obsessed with Weezer
and Bob Dylan. I didn’t sing in that band, so for me it was very
Pixies also. That was the big problem with that band, overall. Our influences
were far too contemporary and our influences were people who had just
released albums a year earlier.
Amanda: Yeah, like Nirvana.
Shawn: Yeah, not very far back. We weren’t thinking far back.
I hadn’t gotten into Leonard Cohen or anything like that. I wasn’t
even really into David Bowie. I really love David Bowie now and I didn’t
even know much about him yet.
What year was that?
Shawn: I graduated in ‘99 so it was like late ‘90s.
Speaking of influences, who are your influences now?
Michael: The Jesus And Mary Chain is my favorite band. Tom Waits is
a huge influence on me.
Shawn: Bob Dylan is the single most, largest influence on me. I learned
how to play guitar from a Bob Dylan book. I played his songs and I got
obsessed over his lyrics. There’s never a week that goes by that
I don’t put on some Dylan.
Amanda: I listen to The Police a lot, Sonic Youth and David Bowie. As
an influence, bass-player-wise I’d definitely say the Police and
Sonic Youth.
You get compared to lots of different bands. There’s
Brit-pop and there’s New Order and The Cure, especially in Shawn’s
voice. There’s some Robert Smith in there.
Shawn: It’s like that or David Byrne for me.
David Byrne?
Michael: Have you been to our show? I see more David Byrne onstage.
Shawn: I don’t know much about either of them. You know actually
I have a theory that I myself don’t think I execute very well.
I wanna have the ability to change my voice or change my vocal approach
per song. Just like you’d change an instrument or change your
tuning. I don’t like it when a singer sings exactly the same all
the time. I wanted to alter my voice for certain feelings of certain
songs, depending on the mood. If the songs don’t just go in one
direction, why should I have the same exact vocal approach? In doing
it, I think I just ended up having inflections and stuff that reminded
people of other singers.
Tiwas released your first EP. What role did the Tiwas club
night (a recurring Don Hill’s Saturday night gig), play in your
band’s life?
Shawn: A pretty large role. Some of our biggest shows were there.
Michael: In the earlier days that was the hot place to play.
Shawn: Don Hill’s is actually a really great place for shows and
Tiswas in itself is a Britpop sorta night. I don’t think [Tiswas
founder] Nick Mark would like that term, but it kind of is. He plays
Stone Roses, James, the Pixies. Ultimately, though, it made sense for
us because it was music we were already dancing to so why not play there?
He wanted to start a label. He had the Realistics on there and was looking
for a second band and we wanted to cut an album. And he said he’d
fund it for us, so we were like “Sure.”
Michael: We still haven’t signed anything with him.
Shawn: We should.
Michael: I don’t think we even shook hands, you know.
Shawn: We decided to go 50-50. We didn’t care that [the label]
was just one guy. We loved that. And we didn’t have a manager
back then because he would’ve probably hated that. We would never
have gone to another label if he’d had decent distribution. Or
at least we wouldn’t have gone on a [major] label this early in
the game.
Michael: This album was recorded as a Tiswas record. RCA bought it,
basically, off of us. We did some touchups in the spring, but it was
basically done. We were like “Nick, we can’t quite give
you a record if you can’t put it out.” (laughs)
Shawn: Nick’s cool. They gave him a nice chunk of change to do
things with other bands when they bought out the album.
Michael: We overcompensated nicely so we could set him up a little bit.
You’re already pretty big over in England.
Shawn: Well we have radio (over there).
Amanda: They all knew the single, and when we played the single, everyone
cheered. We’re not used to that.
Shawn: In the U.K. after a show, they’d have the magazine, and
we’d have to sign them. We’d sign the NME. In America we
don’t have radio play and we don’t have a magazine on a
national level that’s plugging us like that. So obviously it’s
50 times the size over there. The U.K. is like the size of Texas.
Amanda: It’s tiny. It’s like one state.
Shawn: America’s huge. It’s a huge market, so it’s
a lot harder to break in this country.
How about New York in particular? How has this city been to
you?
Shawn: Our shows have been really good. I’m not really part of
the music fabric though.
Michael: We worked for it a lot. We did a ton of free shows at the Luna
Lounge and any other place that would let us play. We’d hand out
a lot of demos and stuff like that. Everything was free. It cost us,
but it brought in people. People wanted to hear stuff and because they
knew you were going to give stuff out, they would show up. It’s
not hard to go to a free show.
It’s not a bad time to be a New York band.
Michael: It warmed up nicely.
Shawn: It could backlash, you never know.
Amanda: It definitely could backfire.
Shawn: But it’s not a bad time now.
Michael: Yeah, we get a lot of (sarcastic tone) “I know. Another
New York band.” That’s how half the articles start.
Have you guys started experiencing any backlash?
Shawn: There’s this whole obsession with where you’re located
geographically and I understand why because Seattle was this huge deal.
It’s amazing that New York is finally being recognized because
it hasn’t been recognized since the early ‘80s. I think
that’s great. But we don’t know many of the bands.
Michael: To tell you the truth, the best bands in New York still aren’t
getting much notice.
Shawn: You can’t make a comment like that.
Michael: OK, but there are great bands that aren’t getting attention
and I think it’s because they don’t fit into that [garage-post-punk]
genre.
Shawn: Well, actually Elefant’s getting attention. We’re
friends with them and they’re getting some press now. Aerial Love
Feed gets press sometimes.
Speaking of New York bands, fashion is obviously an significant
element for some bands. What role does “the look” play for
you guys?
Shawn: Fashion and music are one and the same, but we’re not as
obsessed.
Michael: It’s funny, too. We have done one or two things where
they get a stylist and they get the fashion clothes in there and half
the time we end up wearing our own stuff.
Shawn: We don’t sit down and say “OK, let’s all wear
suits, or “Let’s all wear skinny ties.” We all differ
from each other. We have a pretty clear vision. There’s no one
wearing baggy shirts and baggy jeans. There’s nothing casual in
this band.
Amanda: But we don’t conform to each other, but I feel we still
fit together as a group, style-wise.
You want to hate on anyone? ‘Sup’s big scheme is
to create a big NYC band battle.
Michael: We’ve been playing with this band called The Vue a lot.
They’re nice people and we talked about creating bullshit between
two bands for no good reason like, “I heard The Vue hates this
band and wants them all dead.” And then they would respond somewhere
with, “Stellastarr* said they wanna kill Britney Spears and Interpol
are assholes.” That woulda been just for shits and giggles.
Do you ever get the feeling that people may perceive that you
might not have earned your newfound success?
Michael: Definitely. I’m sure it’s a common perception.
You hear of a band for the first time and you’re like “This
band started here.” But you can Google us and can find articles
for the last three years showing you every step that we took. I’m
not saying people will, I’m just saying whoever those disbelievers
are, there is documentation.
Amanda: Still, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Shawn: You can’t be afraid of it. What are they going to do, come
up to me on the street and go “You fuckin’ came outta nowhere!”
and punch me?
Amanda: There’s always gonna be rumors, people love talking shit.
Shawn: The Internet is a big gossip thing, I’m sure we’ll
be gossiped about.
What’s up with the asterisk?
Shawn: It started out as a kind of a joke, footnote. “Yeah, let’s
just put an asterisk there.” We had no idea it was going to be
taken so literally. We put it on our Web site when we felt like that’s
how everyone was spelling it everywhere, so we thought “Let’s
just stick with it.” I’m sure people are going to think
it’s pretentious, but it started out as kind of a joke and then
it just stuck.
Amanda: We could B.S. why it’s there, but you really don’t
wanna hear it.
Shawn: Everything is kind of an art project for us. Making a song or
designing a logo. We actually have a symbol for our band, too. It is
kind of an art project for us.
What about the double consonant at the end. Is that your tribute
to Ratt?
Michael: Oh yeah, yeah. Print that. That is definitely our reason.
Shawn: Yeah, we love Ratt, that’s our homage to Ratt. Or Puddle
of Mudd I guess.