|
Hello, is now a good time?
Yeah, I just got
finished with my shopping.
With your
shopping?
Yeah,
I had to get some guitar stuff ya know?
Right on. Where you
guys at right now?
We're in Tampa,
Florida.
Cool, not far from
us.
Where are you?
I'm in
Jacksonville.
Oh yeah. Yeah, I've
been to Jacksonville; I have cousins there.
Do they still live here?
Yeah.
Did you grow up in New York?
Yes, I grew up in New
York State and I moved to the city for college.
Very cool. Where
did you go to college?
Pratt Institute of
the Arts.
Right on. Yeah,
I've read that you were basically a painter and an actor first. I guess,
before the music thing took off. What got you into that career?
I went to school for
painting and for illustration.
Were you painting anything beforehand
or was it just something on a whim?
I went to school to
be an animator, but when I got there I changed majors.
Right on, and did
you start acting in college?
Yeah, I started doing
plays and then after college I got an agent and a manager. I did some
auditioning and a couple of commercials and then I kind of just centered more on
painting.
What type of
subject matters did you paint?
Well, my thesis
project was painting musicians. Painting musicians, rock stars, I painted like
Bob Dylan and Simon and Garfunkel and Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones and
Beatles and stuff like that. And then I brought it to rock clubs after college
and started selling them.
Did you ever do any gallery shows or
anything?
No, I did all of my
shows in rock clubs and I sold all of the shows and made my living off of that
for a bit.
Right on. How long did that go on for?
About a year and a
half or so and then we signed to RCA.
How's that been going?
Great. We love RCA.
Yeah? I had some
friends that were on RCA a few years ago, they didn't fare so well.
Oh
yeah? What was the name of that band?
Trinket.
Yeah,
and uh, what happened to them?
Um, they were from
Athens, Georgia and they had sort of an image going on their own and I
guess RCA tried to sort of mold them into a band instead of bring out
what they already were. But, it just depends on who you're working
with I guess.
Yeah, I think so.
It's good to hear.
Some people have really good experiences with record labels and others
don't.
Well it could be
different a few months from now but for now it's good.
Yeah, it seemed
rocky from the start for them so if things are going well for you I'm
sure you'll have a good run. You guys certainly have the buzz going
very quickly.
Yeah, we've got a
little bit of word of mouth going on.
Just a bit. And
you had a bit following even before RCA picked you up right?
Um, yeah. Well we had
a following in New York and in the U.K. a little bit before we went over
to RCA. We were on a small label in New York, we were on a small label in the
U.K. and then RCA picked us up in May. So yeah, we had a pretty loyal fan base
by then in certain regions.
How did the original three members
meet up?
Mandy and Arthur and
I were in a band called Gifter, which we didn't name. That was a
band, it was two guys, and then they brought me in, and then we brought in Mandy and
then Arthur. And it was a joke band, then we started writing serious
songs.
It was a joke band?
Yeah, it was just uh,
I wasn't the singer, it was another guy and he would sing sort of funny
lyrics over music that I would write. And then that band dispersed and
basically we left college at that point.
Right, and that
was the only other band that you've really been experienced
with besides
Stellastar so far?
No, I was in another
band called Circus and that was with the lead singer of a band called Elefant.
Oh wow, are there
any Circus releases out there floating around anywhere?
No, there were MP3's
up for about a year or so and now they're down, that never released
anything.
Is any of your art
out there online anywhere? Did you ever photograph any of your
paintings or document them in any way?
Well, I have a web
site but I took it down because certain publications and magazines were
exploiting my artwork so I took it down temporarily. My website is
Shawnyboy.com, so
if you go there you can see like one image on the front page. Or if you go to
Shawnyboy.com/images you can maybe see a few of them.
How do you mean they were exploiting
your stuff?
Oh they were. They
didn't mean anything but they were making accusations. Basically when I
paint musicians and rock stars I distort them a bit and sometimes I use odd
concepts for certain artists and people were starting to interperet that as
not complementary which is, you know basically wrong because I don't waste my time
painting a musician I'm not a fan of. So I shut down the site temporarily.
Oh I like your
Bjork one.
Oh, you're on there
now?
Yeah.
Yeah, I've got like
four or five up there right?
Yeah, there's like
Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy, Nirvana.
Yeah, that's all I
could put up temporarily, and I'll probably put a whole bunch more up later.
Right on. Yeah,
nice style though.
I still illustrate
for some things here and there?
Do you have any favorites as far as
visual arts?
My two favorite
artists are Gan Sheely and Vincent Van Gogh.
So what was the
most difficult element for you starting the band coming from
being I guess
amateur musicians?
Well I didn't want to
start this band. I was sort of disenchanted and Arthur really wanted to do
something with the drummer. So it came down to, you know, I asked him, "If you
can get Mandy to play bass, and if you can get a really good guitarist." And
he went out and did it. That's basically what happened. Michael lives in
Arthur's old apartment, so that's how he found him. We just did what I think a
lot of bands do, we played our home town and built up a fan base there and then
started scouring ?.
How was your first gig?
Our first gig was
pretty stagnant. You know? I mean, we obviously weren't very tight the first
few gigs, you know? We were still trying to flesh out the songs and tighten up
as a band.
Where was the
first place you played?
It was called the
Luna Lounge. Basically, we booked the gig, and we showed up and the
sound guy had no idea we were supposed to be there he had never heard of us and he
put us on anyway because he only had on band that night anyway. But you know
it was a miscommunication and that was our first gig and we didn't invite anyone
to that. We only invited a few friends because we were playing four days
later at a place called Baby Jupiter.
Right on. Have you
guys been taken aback by the quick success you've had?
To us it hasn't felt
that way. To us it's felt pretty natural, pretty organic and gradual. Uh, it's
been gradual enough so that when things happen for us today or last week or
last month that a year ago I would have been jumping up and down very excited
about, it's gradual enough so that now when things happen for us not to say
we're not excited but we're not as filled with adrenaline as we would have been
a year ago because every step seems a bit natural to come after the step before
it.
What's the biggest
show you've played to date?
I guess it's a tie
between the Reading Festival and two Jane's Addiction shows that we played
in London.
Opening for Jane's?
Yeah.
Awesome. Perry is
a trip.
::laughs::
We had some
interesting party experiences with him here in Jacksonville. Was
playing to that many people intimidating for you?
No, our first gig
with them was on Halloween and it was a pretty crazy crowd.
So we were pretty, we
were trying to step into the hot water on that gig. But then we played the
rest of the tour and ended up back in London and it was a really, you know once
you get used to those size rooms you start to really get more comfortable with
it.
What is one of
you're favorite acts today? Do you have any favorite bands or act that
you would like to open for?
Today, uh? Well, a
bunch of bands I'd like to open for. I read somewhere that the Pixies were
reforming. That would be a nice gig to get. I don't know so much. A lot of times
if I'm into a band they're not a band we would necessarily play with they're
just sort of starting out on their own or whatever. There's a band called Metric
that I'm really into. They're originally from Toronto. I think they're part of
members from the Broken Social Scene, I don't know if you've ever heard of
them. Yeah, Metric, they just had an album out recently, it's a great album.
It's really great.
How is the tour going right now?
We just started
yesterday with Placebo. But it was really a great gig, I have a feeling it's going
to be a really fun tour for us. Sometimes you never know, but this one's
going to be really good I think.
Very cool. With all of this stuff, are
you still going to work on your visual arts stuff?
I try to sometimes. I
put up a show last month on Wallstreet. But It's really hard, that show was a
show of ten paintings that was mostly leftover paintings that didn't
sell at my other five or six shows. There were only one or two pieces that were new.
So it's really hard to have time to do that. And the band, between
tours we're constantly writing and we're halfway into a second album already.
So there's sort of that creative thing going on at well that at this stage
I'd rather invest my time in.
Gotcha. So no
acting aspirations, huh?
No. Not right now.
Right on. That
should help with video-making though.
Yeah.
What is the
asterisk for in the name?
Design element
really.
It doesn't
actually reference anything?
No, it's strictly to
balance out the word. That's it. |
