Interview w/Velvet Starlings: retro excellence from young talent

When you first hear the refined and rowdy retro stylings of Velvet Starlings you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a band with a few more years and records under their belt; the profoundity of their lyricism and the quality of their musicianship belies their youth. Their eponymous debut album packs seven great tracks, the standouts for me being 'If Life Ain't Getting You High', 'Sold Down The River' and 'I'll Be There'.

Their music combines the punchy and gritty energy of the best of Brit Invasion and modern Britpop and indie with a sixties infused sound. Not only is it refreshing to see the musical roots of a band be so respected but it's great to hear a style that is often poorly imitated added to and presented well. Gisbourne's powerful vocal presence combined with great instrumental performances and production make for a noticably high quality act. In order to find out a little more about this young group I caught up with frontman Christian Gisbourne.

Interview:

1. Where does the name Velvet Starlings originate from?
 
“Tired starlings” was a lyric from one of my favorite Cream songs, “White Room” and I was also listening to a lot of Lou Reed and The Doors at the time, hence “Velvet Starlings.”

2. How did you guys meet and decide to form a band?

 Up in northern CA where I go to school at Inspire school of the arts. I was playing around by myself writing songs and looping keyboards & pianos and doing the one man band thing. Then I knew I needed a real bass player and Keyboard and Roni can play both. Michael filled in for a few flakey drummers we had and just of kept showing up to jam.

3. It's your dream gig- where are you?  Whose sharing the billing?  


Living: Jack White / White Stripes / Raconteurs / Cage The Elephant / Ty Segall / Tenacious D.

 4.  Who are your musical or artistic heroes?

Beatles timeless melodies, endless hooks and lyrical imagery just struck every chord in my soul’s songbook. The angst of The Who; the colorful characters from the world of Syd Barrett's mind; the distorted, driving, simplistic, yet sophisticated songwriting of The Kinks; the vocal stylings and keyboard playing from both The Animals & The Doors; and exposure to artists such as Blur, Gorillaz, Jack White and Arctic Monkeys.

5. Which bands are you listening to right now? Recommend some tunes to our readers!

Ty Segall “Finger”, Syd Barret “Set Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”, Gorillaz “Green World”, Beatles (Revolver / White Album), The Animals “When I Was Young” & The Zombies “Butchers Tale” As well Cage The Elephant “Spiderhead”

6. Do you have any weird writing habits or techniques?

I like to write more in certain seasons and summer just doesn’t seem to the new the right time. I think the heat effect my abilities to tune in or stream of consciousness. If there is an interesting true story or even crazy conspiracy that can spark an idea for a song. People watching, which has now turned to people watching people online? I haven’t had that many relationships so not that many tunes coming from those experiences.

7.  Do you have any funny or weird stories from your time as a band?

I remember the time when I was playing a big show at The El Rey for a benefit and my guitar strap broke right in the middle of our big rock finale number “No Soul To Save” during a riff section, so I had to stop and put the strap in his mouth to hold it so I could play on. I’d say We have it on video somewhere, but we edited it out for YouTube. It’s pretty funny to see me like a wild animal clamping my teeth down on a guitar strap. “The show must go on".


 8. What's the best advice you've ever recieved?

I would say the best advice legally from my very musical parents would be “don’t follow trends or run with or trail behind the herd. “Don’t be afraid to wear your musical influences proudly on your sleeve”, especially if they are coming from the best singer songwriters that ever roamed the earth.

 9. What's next for you? What should readers keep an eye out for? 

Yes, definitely. We have another E.P. already in mix stages that we are excited about. We tracked it in 6 days so hoping it’s gonna turn out. We are also releasing another video for our single, Sold Down the River, which we will shoot in Northern CA where the fires were. In 2019 We want to head Austin for SXSW and then to the UK and hopefully more Scandinavia as we loved it there and they seemed to dig us too.
To be honest though I think we need to see more our nation and it’s absorb some of its bluesy rock roots. Nashville, Memphis and Kentucky are on the cards. Catch some of that blues rock vibe in ThirdMan Records territory. Open for Jack White, now I’m day dreaming again.

 You can keep up with Velvet Starlings on their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Spotify and Youtube.