PLAYBACK ST. LOUIS
ON THE COVER stellastarr*
24
here’s a lot of talk lately about the ’80s sound coming out of New York. You’ve got hype-mongers The Strokes, The Rapture, Interpol, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. On the lesser-known side are bands such as stellastarr*, groups who, like the aforementioned, wear their ’80s influences proudly on their tornoff sleeves. In stellastarr*’s case, you can hear shades of The Pixies, The Cure, Talking Heads, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Joy Division. But don’t stop with the inspirations; this New York quartet breathes its own artistic life and energy into every song they write and perform, resulting in a sound that is at once shockingly unique and comfortingly familiar. One spin of stellastarr*’s full-length self-titled debut and you’re hooked: catchy pop melodies, synth grooves, dreamy instrumentals, and howling vocals. Singer/guitarist Shawn Christensen provides much of the lead work, his voice alternating between soothing, wailing, or roaring. Playing Kim Deal to Christensen’s Frank Black is bassist Amanda Tannen; in addition to her vocal duties, Tannen lays down a mean rhythm undercurrent. The other half of the rhythm section is Arthur Kremer, an Animal behind the drums who also strokes the keyboards and lends the grooves. Rounding out the mix is guitarist and third vocalist Michael Jurin, the fourth and solidifying member of the group. The roots of stellastarr* were planted at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, where Christensen, Tannen, and Kremer first formed a band while attending art school. All three were tentative
musicians at best: Christensen, whose first love was art (painting, specifically) followed closely by acting, had only picked up his first acoustic guitar months prior; Kremer was a graphic designer; and Tannen was a classically trained cellist, only turning to bass guitar when she joined the band. Following graduation, Kremer wanted to form another band. Christensen, who was happy paying the rent via commissions on his paintings, held back, stating he didn’t see music as any sort of reliable career. Eventually, he agreed to the band, but only if two conditions were met: one, if Kremer was able to re-recruit Tannen, who’d moved to Los Angeles, and two, if he found them a truly incredible guitarist. Miraculously, Kremer accomplished both, stumbling across Jurin in one of those only-on-TV moments: the former, a previous tenant of the latter’s apartment, returned to check for lagging mail, and the two got to talking. Ironically, considering his unique voice and strong stage persona, it was never Christensen’s intention to front the band; he didn’t consider himself much of a singer. Instead, he envisioned stellastarr* (named after a high school classmate whom he never met, the asterisk and lowercase both intentional additions) as led by a female vocalist. As the band came up empty in recruiting a suitable vocalist, Christensen reluctantly tried singing the songs himself; Tannen and Jurin soon followed. “She [Tannen] wasn’t singing in the beginning,” explains Christensen. “Once I started singing, then it was like, well, now it
would make sense if Mandy would sing. Then Michael would come in some times, and there would be three harmonies.” The fact that Jurin had similar influences to Christensen (he was a Jesus and Mary Chain fan, too) only helped solidify the union. stellastarr* made its first splash on the other side of the globe. Initially signed to U.K.based indie label Tiswas Records, they released their debut EP, Somewhere Across Forever, in December 2002. The band quickly received accolades from the British press, including New Musical Express, which proclaimed them “a band with wit, imagination and a knack for hooks.” As for why they broke in the U.K. before their home country, Christensen says, “That’s just how the stars aligned. It’s all about radio play in America, whereas in the U.K., if you were never on the radio and you got nothing but press, I think you could still sell out certain venues.” Returning to the States, the four, like so many bands before them, made the spring pilgrimage to Austin, Texas, for their first foray into the musical showcase that is South By Southwest. A nearly unknown band at the time, they were one of the highlights of the festival. “The first trip [to SXSW] was pretty exciting in the aspect that we’d never really left New York before, and we’d never been at a festival. So when we went to Texas and [our show] was sold out, and we were approached by all kinds of agents and labels, it was kind of a shock. Also when we went down there, we had a lot of press: we were in the Austin Chronicle, and we were in all these publi-
