New York City-based rock band stellastarr* joined the national music scene with the release of their debut album on RCA Records in September. Since then, the four-member band has toured extensively across the country. Recently, drummer Arthur Kremer found time while on the road to talk to the Emerald about the origins of the band, touring and audience reactions to the music.
Emerald: What sort of influences do you think the band has?
AK: Well, that’s kind of a hard question to answer. I don’t mean to be vague, but everybody comes from a different background. Me personally, I think everything is an influence to me — even stuff I don’t like. You always learn something. It’s never really a thing where I hear an artist and I want to sound like him or play drums like him. I’m more interested in the creative solutions that artists come up with. It’s sort of inspirational. Say someone like Bjork, you know, someone doing something interesting and creative and expressing themselves in a way that people can connect to it. That’s very inspirational.
Emerald: How did you guys get together?
AK: Me, Shawn (Christensen, lead vocal/guitar) and Amanda (Tannen, bass) all went to school together. We started a band together, kind of a joke band. We were all novices, didn’t know how to play our instruments. After school ended, we went our separate ways. I kept up with Shawn and kept nagging him to start a band again. We got in touch with Mandy again, just called her out of the blue and asked her. Mike (Jurin, guitar), we met after he moved into my old apartment in New York. I went back to get some mail and told my old roommate I was starting a band. He told me that the new guy living there was a guitarist. So we invited him along for rehearsal and he was fantastic.
Emerald: So it just kind of clicked?
AK: Yeah. We really just got together to have fun, you know? It was something to do on a Tuesday night. We were never thinking that we ought to go out and get a record deal and be this big band. We just wanted to get together, write some songs and have some fun.
Emerald: How does it feel to start out that way and to now come into something bigger?
AK: It’s great. But it’s hard to look at the big picture though, you know, because when you’re inside of it, things move really slowly. We didn’t just get a record deal after our second show; we’ve been doing this for four years. It was really building up gradually. Now it’s kind of like a job, but when you step back and look at it, you think, “This is incredible. We’re touring the world and people are loving us and throwing money at us.” It’s really the opportunity of a lifetime.
Emerald: What would you say is the strangest concert experience you’ve had?
AK: One of the strangest was one where we played the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. This was for a contest. Shawn and Mike broke both their guitars and their back-up and I really hurt my wrist playing drums. It was just a disaster. We lost the contest as well.
Emerald: Who did you lose to?
AK: Some band, I can’t remember the name. That show was rigged or something. But I’ll let bygones be bygones. Another show in Orlando was like that. I broke my kick pedal, Shawn lost his voice. I kept dropping sticks, breaking sticks and all. But the crowd was just going wild, they loved us. We couldn’t get through a song and they were screaming their heads off. I think we played four or five songs and just had to leave because we couldn’t perform. They loved us though. It was weird.
stellastarr* will be playing Friday at Berbati’s Pan, located at 10 S.W. Third Ave. in Portland. Tickets are $8 in advance and $10 the day of the show.