Their music has been dubbed new-wave, pop-punk and various combinations thereof, but stellastarr* just likes to call it "rock." Between watching soft-core porns and touring to promote their album, Harmonies for the Haunted, stellastarr*'s pretty busy these days.
Street: How would you define your music?
Michael Jurin: I try to avoid that question 'cause I don't really know a good answer for it. Usually when people ask, I just say "rock." It's funny when you give it a title, people lump it in with a lot of other things instead of making up their own minds about what they think it sounds like. So, one of the easiest ones is probably post-punk, because frankly there's no real good definition to that one.
Street: What kind of music has inspired your work?
MJ: We all kind of grew up on a lot of music from the '80s and the '90s, basically. The Velvet Underground did a lot for me, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine -- things like that.
Street: Any guilty pleasures?
MJ: Hmmmm.
Street: No Kelly Clarkson?
MJ: Um, not at the moment, but when that song comes on at basically every single bar we go to, everyone seems to have a good time. We don't own the record, but we appreciate it when it plays.
Street: Do you think your sound has changed since the last album?
MJ: It has gotten a little darker. We went for atmosphere and space, I feel like we did a pretty good job of capturing that. And it's probably just going to keep moving and bending like that.
Street: What's with the asterisk in your name?
MJ: Um, that's not really an interesting story, but we've made up all kinds of different stories now. We were really into lying about where we got it for about two years.
Street: What's the best story?
MJ: One of them was about a purple hearse with glitter on the side. We would just make up, just ramble, and people would just write it all down. You could probably check the internet and get like eight different reasons
Street: Any favorite ways to fight boredom on the tour bus?
MJ: We have this amazing movie -- our film man introduced us to it. It's called The Room, and it's atrocious in the best way possible. It's kind of like a Cinemax late-at-night, soft-core movie, you know, but it's not at all. And this guy wrote and directed it and shot it and did everything, and he's also the main actor and he's terrible. Oh my god -- incredible movie. I also watch a lot of Family Guy to keep me sane.
stellastarr* will play the Trocadero this Saturday at 8 p.m.
