Amanda Tannen - bass/vocals
Shawn Christensen- voice/guitars
Arthur Kremer - drums/keys
Michael Jurin - guitar/vocals
Stellastarr* is a veteran band who has risen out of the new rejuvenated NYC
rock scene. Their local following is dedicated and obsessive. At clubs like
Mercury Lounge and Luna Lounge people have been faithfully attending their shows
for a few years. These are special people who are drawn to a unique sound
that's parts British guitar rock and 1980s new wave. Stellastarr* is also an
intense live act. They mix thrashing guitars and driving beats, and they all
contribute the vocal sound. Although Shawn Christensen leads the way with his voice
and provocative stage manner. Amanda Tannen and Michael Jurin add a complexity
to the songs that are inspiring.
Their live shows are special because of their chaotic nature. They have just
released an EP on Tiswas Records. Stellastarr* has just played this winter in
Boston and Los Angeles for the first time. I spoke with guitarist and lead
singer Shawn Christensen recently from his home in New York City. Now they have
released their first album on RCA Records. They are touring this fall with The
Raveonettes.
****
AL: How did you meet the other members of the band?
Shawn: Amanda, Arthur and I went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. It was about
five years ago. I studied Illustration and painting. They studied graphic
design and advertising. I am from Upstate New York. Arthur is from Lithuania
originally. He moved to Pennsylvania. That's where Michael is from too. Amanda is
from Fairfax, Virginia. She grew up in New Jersey.
AL: What did you do musically while you were going to school?
Shawn: We has a band then. I wasn't the lead singer. Some other guy was.
There was another guitarist. It was a five-piece band. It was a rock band but more
like grunge rock band. When we left finished in 2000, we got back together to
practice. We met Michael and we asked him to join us. We played our first
show that summer.
AL: Were all the songs written in the band in the past two years?
Shawn: There were some songs that I had written before we had formed
Stellastarr*. There was one song that I had written called "Moon Girl." I wrote "The
Pulp Song." It's a live favorite. It will be coming out on the album. All the
members wrote most of the songs.
AL: How does the songwriting happen in the band?
Shawn: It happens many ways. Usually I have the format of the song and a
vocal melody. We work off of that. Sometimes Michael has a riff. We will then
build a song around that riff. That is the main way now how our songs get written.
AL: In some of your songs, everyone plays and sings different parts. It gets
busy at the end.
Shawn: That stuff just evolved. We come up with a lot of parts and ideas and
line them up in a song. Many song ideas get thrown out. For every three songs
we create only one song will ever get played out live.
AL: How did the song "Like Coco" start out?
Shawn: It will be on the album. Michael came up with the opening riff and we
decided to go with it. It just stuck.
AL: How did you get the name Stellastarr*?
Shawn: It's spelled as one word with two r's and an asterisk at the end.
People have spelled it wrong in the past and I am just pointing this out. It needs
to spelled right. We just had a big write up in the Washington Times and it
was spelled completely wrong. I got the name from a girl who I went to high
school with. I never met her actually. I never knew that I went to school with
her. I saw her name in the papers because her boyfriend had committed suicide. I
always liked the name. The asterisk is just another confusing way of spelling
it.
AL: I just heard the EP and after seeing you guys live I noticed that as a
live act you guys bring a lot of energy of the music. You have a lot of sound
and feedback going on and you actually engage the audience and have
conversations with them.
Shawn: It's a little bit more obnoxious live. It depends on the vibe of the
crowd. Only shows at Don Hill's or the Luna Lounge get a little crazy. Outside
of there we are more into introducing our music to people in different cities.
If there is a great moment, we sit back and enjoy it. Things don't get too
out of hand.
AL: What is the song "Somewhere Across Forever" about?
Shawn: It is a very literal song. It's about leaving town with somebody and
not coming back. It's an underlying theme to many of songs that will be on the
first album. It's an attitude of going away with someone you might not know or
who you just met, and never coming back. Or even leaving on your own. It's
based on feelings and thoughts that I have had over the years. I just wrote them
down. I am not sure if people can relate to that, but those thoughts are
important to me. Whereas a song like "No Weather" is a standard song about being
dumped.
AL: Are many of your songs about relationships and love?
Shawn: Not really. I never really sat down and said to myself "I am going to
write a love song." Maybe "Moon Girl" is the closest thing I have written to a
love song. It's bad though because is it about an imaginary alien. It might
be a good thing too.
AL: What is the song "School Ya" about?
Shawn: It's about how I felt in high school. It has a darker tone because
it's about feelings about not fitting into high school. I don't think that you
get that often in pop songs about high school. They are general songs about
relationships and breaking up. Songs about how a boy didn't say "Hi" to them in
the school hall. When I was in high school I felt extremely rejected. I didn't
understand anybody in my class. I didn't get what they were saying or what they
were into. I didn't get along with other people.
AL: You didn't understand high school politics?
Shawn: Basically, yeah. I always related to kids younger than me. When you go
to high school, you are thrown into this environment where you are with
hundreds of students and everyone is trying to be the most popular person. They are
not trying to be who they really are. I never understood that. Maybe when I
was trying to be popular it didn't work out for me. It's sort of a black hole.
I didn't wake up till college. I didn't play guitar, or paint, or act, until I
got to college.
AL: With teenagers they express themselves to the outside world through
fashion: what clothes they wear or what music they listen to. That stuff is
important because it defines the self. What music did you grow up listening to?
Shawn: When I was a kid I just listen to the Oldies. I didn't know anything
about contemporary music until 1990. Up until then, I didn't know anything but
"Splish, Splash" or Jerry Lee Lewis. When I listened to the radio, I just
listened to what you were fed, which was a bunch of hair metal bands.
AL: People compare your band to some of the new wave bands of the early
1980s.
Shawn: Maybe those were things that I heard on the radio when I was a kid
driving in a car and didn't quite remember. So maybe it's a subconscious
influence. Everyone in Stellastarr* was a kid in the 1980s. Maybe everything you hear
as a child sticks with you forever.
AL: Since you have a girl bass player, people might think of you as being
like The Pixies or Luna.
Shawn: I know both of those bands. Those bands are great so it makes no
difference being compared to them. Maybe it's more common for a girl to be on bass
guitar than other instruments? Maybe not? Maybe those bands are the only bands
that people can think of off the top of their heads besides The Smashing
Pumpkins. I don't know why that is. I don't think it's a problem. Amanda is an
interesting case. She had musical training. When she played in the first band she
didn't know how to play bass guitar. Nobody knew how to play anything. She
played upright bass or cello before that.
AL: What else do you guys do besides music?
Shawn: I am a painter. I make paintings of musicians and barely make a living
off it right now. Michael went to film school and he is still interested in
doing films. Both Arthur and I were actors before we were in Stellastarr*. This
band took over and we don't do it anymore. Arthur will audition for something
once in a while. Amanda is an art director where she works. She does graphic
design.
AL: What is your favorite part about doing music?
Shawn: Writing a song is an awesome thing to do. I really like to do it. I
write about two or three a week. To see a song make it to the band, and make it
on the stage, and on to an album: that's awesome. I have been an actor for
years, and there's something about music that is more appealing to me. With
acting, you have to read a script, and work with a director, and you are at the
mercy of the editor, and you have to look beautiful: all that bullshit.... I am
not down with that. In music, there's all these rules that can be broken.
Especially now, where there's a bunch of walls behind put up. It's going to be fun
trying to take some of these down.
AL: Are there any bands that you like?
Shawn: The bands we are listening to are Interpol and The Faint. Lately I
have been listening to a lot of musical scores to movies.
AL: What did you think of CMJ?
Shawn: This year was great. We didn't even know it was going on. Last year
they didn't accept us. This year we played two shows during CMJ. It was a blast.
There was a lot of excitement this year because it was during Halloween. It
felt like a lot of people were interested in the festival this year.
AL: What was it like recording with Tim O'Heir?
Shawn: He is pretty amazing at recording. One thing about him is that he has
patience. He'll listen to things over and over again. He never got angry. He
stays in the studio for twelve hours at a time. He loves being in the studio.
He came and saw a song of ours back in April. He said he wanted to record us.
He has done a few albums in my record collection. One of my favorite records of
all time is Bake Sale by Sebadoh. When I found out that he produced that, I
said "Let's get this guy to produce or album."
AL: Did he record a full album of songs?
Shawn: Yes. We did it this past summer. We have been ready to release it for
a while, but our record company, Tiswas Records, couldn't afford to put it
out. So we have put out this EP now. Hopefully early in Spring 2003, Tiswas can
collaborate with a bigger record and put it out with full distribution. It's
been a while. We are already halfway into a second record. We have released the
EP now because we wanted something out there. If they want to buy the EP they
came come to our shows or go to our website.
An interview with Stellastarr*
by Alexander Laurence
