Stellar Young stopped by the WMCX studio this past Tuesday to talk about their tour and latest album, Everything At Once.
John Glenn (Vocals/Keyboard), Erik Flora (Guitar/Vocals), Curt Mulick (Drums), Kyle Hatch (Guitar) and Dave Parker (Bass) pulled up to the Plangere Center for Communication in their white mini shuttle bus, ready to hit the airwaves hours before their show later that night at The Trash Bar in Brooklyn. The band was featured on the WMCX specialty show, “Alternative Riot”.
I caught the indie-pop group in the middle of their “Nor’East Tour” and when asked how the road has been, Flora replied, “Pretty good, you know so far we’ve had the two dates, one out in Oneonta, which is kinda like our home away from home, and our second one was down in Woodstock.” Originally from Upstate New York, Stellar Young explained they were keeping this tour within the New York area.
“Actually, the way this little tour came together, we were just trying to book shows around the area and they kind of all came together in the same week and we were just like, let’s call it a tour. I’m glad it came together the way it did so we can just hop on the bus and make a little trip,” said Parker.
“We all met each other in Albany,” explained Glenn. When Mulick, Flora and Glenn met in high school, they formed a band called The City Never Sleeps. Shortly after, they asked Hatch to join the band (who replied enthusiastically “hell yeah!”) and from there they were introduced to Parker, an ex-live keyboardist for Coheed and Cambria, at an open-mic.
When the final line-up released their eight-track album Madison, they were still The City Never Sleeps. However, they quickly realized people often got their name wrong (examples: City Sleep, The City That Never Sleeps, The City is Sleeping). It became too much of a hassle, and after two years they went with the name “Stellar Young” instead, figuring it would stand out more and would be harder to mess up.
When asked to describe their sound, Hatch explained, “It’s kind of mixed, we all bring our own influences to the table, we all agree on indie rock with some pop-rock influences. I read a review a little while ago that called the new CD ‘Atmospheric indie rock with a healthy dose of pop’ and I kinda like that. It’s indie rock but it’s got some nice catchy hooks so you’ll leave with a song stuck in your head.”
“We definitely play with coloring of the chords and make it interesting, jazzy and you know it’s all over the place,” Glenn added.
Everything At Once made its debut online December 18, 2012 and marked the first album release for the group Stellar Young.
When asked the band how they formed their direction for this album. “I think it was more of a continue to find our sound type of thing, rather than a real decision based on what we should do,” Parker replied. “There are some differences and also some similarities between this and The City Never Sleeps’s Madison album, but I think this is a step further down the road rather than a left or a right.”
Even though they are constantly in the writing process, Stellar Young explained their focus at the moment is to expose new listeners to Everything at Once before they come out with another record. “[With] Madison we were still kind of learning what our sound w as and playing around and seeing what we could come up with. Everything at Once was more like ‘alright, we figured out what we’re about now,’” said Parker.
After their show in Brooklyn, the New York boys headed to Nyack, Saugerties and last but not least, Albany on February 9 for their CD release party at Mcgeary’s Pub.
The digital version of Everything at Once is available on the Stellar Young’s website and you can name your own price (even for the price of zero if that’s what you can afford). For more on Stellar Young, Flora told WMCX listeners, “Just go to stellaryoung.com and all of our links are listed on there, simplest way to find us.”
IMAGE TAKEN from ampkicker.com
