:: Spotlight :: Interview with Starky

By: Con Koudsy

Hot on the heels of their latest single ‘Hey Bang Bang’, Australian pop-rock band Starky has just wrapped up putting together their second self titled album, and are currently touring both Australia and New Zealand. I caught up with vocalist Beau Cassidy to chat about their upcoming album, their favourite tracks, and their adventures in the UK.

How did you come up with the name Starky?

I can’t remember! It kind of came out of nowhere.

How did you discover the rest of the band?

We’ve been friends for a while; we had been playing together for about five or six years. Saul joined the band about three years ago and Johnny joined about a year ago. We were all friends first and became bandmates after that.

How would you describe Starky’s musical style?

Basically we’re a pop band… at the centre of everything we do is pop music. I think this record is pretty different to our first one, and our next one is going to be different again! It’s hard to describe, we’re fans of pop music but we have so many influences between us [so] how we produce or present stuff is continuously changing. It’s mainly pop, but pretty dark as well.

How is your new album different from the first?

The first album was recorded in a week in the studio. It was recorded really quickly and it was basically just our band playing live. All our influences were pretty similar, so this time around we really wanted to do our own thing, so we tried to listen to other types of music while making this record. We had a few weeks in the studio so we had time to really make it the kind of record we wanted to. We just had a lot of extra time in the studio to really work on things and make the record the way we had imagined it to be.

What are your favourite tracks on this album?

I really like our new single Hey Bang Bang, its one of my favourites. Also, the last track, She Bends Up The Night, I really like as well.

Are there any particular themes or messages that you have tried to communicate through the album?

I guess there’s a theme running through the whole record really, all the songs fit around a certain period. They’re a lot about relationships, love and loss. The songs that I like are the ones that came out the way I imagined they would. Sometimes the way you think a song is going to sound and the way it actually turns out are pretty different, but the ones I mentioned (above) came out pretty much exactly how I thought they would in my head, and there’s something pretty satisfying about that.

What was the most challenging part of putting this record together?

The whole recording process was really smooth, nothing really went wrong! It’s really funny because obviously when you record everything can go wrong or it can be a total disaster, but everything seemed to come together and we were really lucky. We wanted to make an internationally sounding record. We want to be an international band and the people we came in contact with and who we wanted to work with just happened to be in the UK or New Zealand, so we were really lucky to be able to do it. The whole experience of making this album has just been really incredible.

How would you say this record stands out from the other pop rock stuff out there?

We tried to make it a really personal album that people can really relate to. We tried to break down that barrier between the band on stage and the crowd. MySpace is really great for that, we can have conversations with people that like our music. It’s the kind of album we wanted to make that people can find something in it. There are a lot of sad songs, and some “up” songs as well, hopefully people can find their own thing on it.

How important is MySpace in getting your stuff out there?

Really important. It’s great for people to find out about the band. We’ve been waiting for this album to come out for a while now but [through MySpace] we can put tracks up online which is cool.

Is it hard putting your heart and soul into your music and releasing it to the public for people to either love or hate?

Yeah, especially when someone says they hate it! It’s a personal thing, it comes from the heart and it means something to us. I’m not expecting that everyone's going to like this record, but the feedback we’ve had so far is really cool.

just scored a record deal with Island Records in the UK, which is great news. What
s being released there?[/b]

Yeah, we’ve got a seven inch single coming out at the end of October which is coming through Lobe Records, so we’re really excited.

Is it a challenge to release something somewhere other than Australia?

Yeah,, I think it definitely will be, but we’re pretty buzzed about it.

Starky’s self titled album is out in Australia on August 12. For tour dates and locations, and for samples of their music, check out their MySpace page