New York post-punk band dumps RCA, begins work on 3rd album

 

By the dawn of the new millennium, the fabled music scene of New York City had fallen into decay. Clubs were closing, fan attendance was down, and cash-strapped bands were disappearing into 9-to-5 office hell. Things looked pretty bleak.

That’s when a few upstart graduates from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn decided to try something different from their normal routine, and start a band. “It was pretty much a chance gathering,” stellastarr* bassist and back-up vocalist Amanda Tannen said. “I saw Shawn [Christensen, stellastarr*’s vocalist] on the street one day and he invited me over to jam. And it just went from there.”

For those not familiar with stellastarr*, the band found fame in the alternative/garage-rock revival that arose in New York City in the early 2000s. But whereas the Strokes were the scene’s ultra-hip rockers, Interpol catered to a slightly more gothic, much more depressed clientele, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ gave hope to women rockers everywhere, stellastarr* from the very beginning just seemed like a band that was there for the pure fun of playing music.

“Only our guitarist [Michael Jurin] wanted to be a musician when he was younger,” Tannen said. “I had played cello in high school but I had never played ‘rock music.’ I was pretty much forced into it,” she said, laughing. “But everything just clicked when we played, so we decided to keep on doing it.”

Picked up by major label RCA in the music industry’s scramble to capitalize on the “New York” sound’s success epitomized by the Strokes, stellastarr*’s self-titled debut album radiates the members’ newfound excitement for playing music. Firmly rooted in the post-punk, indie-rock tradition of bands like the Rapture, the album also shows a fixation on the new wave scene of the 80s, most apparent in Christensen’s yelping, emotional vocals and the often bright, poppy guitar lines exemplified in popular single “My Coco.”

Although boosted by their scene’s burgeoning popularity and the backing of a major label, Tannen insists that their jump from relative club obscurity to headlining concerts across the country was a long and hard-fought one.

“We played constantly, at least once every two weeks but usually more,” Tannen said. Word-of-mouth also played an important role in building their fan support: “We would put up our stickers in the back of every cab we took around the city, and then people would meet us and be like, ‘hey, I’ve heard of you guys from somewhere,” Tannen said. “We put our hearts into all of it.”

Their work paid off, as stellastarr* received generally favorable reviews from the indie press and their tours garnered enough attention to convince RCA to support them for a second album, which eventually became Harmonies for the Haunted.

It was around this time, however, that tensions between the band and their label arose, a familiar story to many bands that have been catapulted into the big leagues of the music industry.

“The label was breathing down our neck looking for ‘the single,’ and by the end of recording Harmonies and the accompanying tour, we were just done with the whole process,” Tannen said. Declining sales for their second album and a general lack of support from RCA all contributed to the band’s decision to drop their label and strike out on their own.

“It was good and bad at the same time,” Tannen said. “It was awesome how we got to write what we wanted and how we got to work with no guidebook, no system in place, but that whole fear of being on our own was pretty strong. Also, we all had to get day jobs again.”

Nevertheless, the band’s energy remains high as they record their third album in Brooklyn, demos of which can be heard on their Myspace page.

“The third record is a little more aggressive, very poppy,” Tannen said. “It’s got a bit of an ‘in-your-face,’ sarcastic vibe to it. Oh, and there’s definitely going to be party music in on this,” Tannen added. “We’re putting an emphasis on party music.”

With no label-supported distribution system in place for their upcoming album, will the band try something akin to Radiohead’s revolutionary “downloadable album, pay whatever you want” approach?

“I think it’s great that Radiohead did that,” Tannen said, “but only a band like Radiohead could do it. They’re huge, but for up-and-coming bands or bands that don’t have that kind of support like us, the traditional way of selling CDs is what you gotta do.”

While the future may look bleak for indie bands and the music industry in general, Tannen insists that it is still possible for future rock bands to succeed.

“If you are doing what you really want to be doing, and you really love what you’re doing, then you’ll be good,” Tannen said. “There’s not much payback for creating, but if you keep at it and you keep loving it, things will work out.”

For a band that built their reputation on hard work and persistency, stellastarr* is proof of what your mom always said: dream big, work hard, craft ridiculously catchy songs, and you’ll succeed.

Comments are closed