@ Truck Festival '24
(Been Stellar - [from left to right] Nico Brunstein, Skyler Knapp, Laila Wayans and Sam Slocum)
Following their Truck Festival return, we caught up with New York’s Been Stellar to chat all things Scream From New York, NY, music festival experiences, nostalgia and the creative process…
The last time New York’s Been Stellar were at Truck Festival, it was pouring down with rain - typical English weather. “That was like one of our first festival experiences. That summer was the first time we played outside of the US, so it’s very surreal to be back.” reflects frontman, Sam Slocum.
It’s late afternoon on the second day of the festival and Been Stellar are sitting around a picnic table in the press tent, having just played to a packed Market Stage.
“The second we saw the tent, it felt like we were stepping into a portal, but it was very cool - the crowd seemed really into it today!” he continues, before perfectly capturing the essence of Truck; “I was talking to a guy by the fish and chips counter and he was telling me and Laila [Wayans, drums] how this is one of his favourite festivals because of how communal it feels, which I completely understand now.”
“Festivals in the US don’t really book small bands, the money is way tighter so they only really focus on the big pop artists.” adds guitarist, Skyler Knapp.
“There’s a few exceptions, but we don’t really have the festival culture like you do here with up-and-coming bands playing the bigger stages, so it’s cool!”
Bassist, Nico Brunstein, is quick to add, “You guys definitely have a more healthy path of growth for smaller artists here, for sure.” before Sam explains, “In the US, it’s either zero or 100. There’s either really small festivals where there’s tons of people playing and it feels very scattered, like a festival like SXSW where it’s spread out across a city, or it’s something like Coachella, which is like a whole other league of trying to play.”
It’s only a brief stop for Been Stellar at Truck this year - they’re all looking fairly tired having played Tramlines festival merely 24 hours prior, and in for a long drive ahead for Latitude festival the day after.
But the busy schedule is just the price you have to pay having just released an album as highly anticipated as Been Stellar’s debut, Scream From New York, NY. Blending elements of shoegaze, post-punk and laden with distortion, it’s a record telling the tales of youth and coming-of-age and all of its ups and downs.
“The objective for us with this record was that we really wanted to explore more rhythm, so we were listening to a lot of trip hop.” explains Skyler of the influences behind the record.
“There’s this band called Bowery Electric from New York that we got really into who were really influential. Prior to that, we thought everything would be written on guitar. But also in terms of the visual influences, we were really inspired by My Dinner With Andre and Jim Jarmusch movies, like Coffee and Cigarettes and things like that. It was those that gave us more of the vibe and the concept of the record.”
A festival scheduling change means mid-way through the interview, The Pigeon Detectives take to the main stage, only a few metres from the corner of the festival we’re huddled into. Fighting to still be able to hear each other, leaning closer across the wooden frame of the table, we rearrange ourselves and begin to discuss some of the album’s track listing in more depth.
Personally, one of the stand-out tracks of the record is the closing sequence, I Have The Answer, an emotive track with an ‘as the credits roll’ feel to its sonics.
“When we wrote it, we thought ‘ok, this should end it’. But in terms of the album order for the other tracks, it kind of took a sec - it wasn’t super easy to decide on what the order would be. It’s a complicated thing, like for the EP, it was all very self-evident, but when it’s an album it feels like the order of the tracks can almost be as important as the tracks themselves. It’s like what compliments what, so it took us a while to figure out.”
“Originally we had 12 songs that we recorded, but we knew we wanted the album to be concise and not too much going on, so when we were in the studio, we decided to cut two.” reflects drummer, Laila Wayans, of the recording process.
“I think it was kind of obvious after we recorded them which were the songs that were going to make it, but there was a debate over one of the songs, where it turned into me against everybody, where I really wanted it on there, but it wasn’t in the state that it needed to be in order to be on the album. But other than that, it was pretty obvious which would feature.”
One of the key features of a Been Stellar track is their ability to story tell through music, especially within the lyricism.
“On this album, I stepped into more of a lyrical role, which makes sense as the person who says the lyrics, but prior to that, I don’t think I’d fully found my voice or stepped into being confident with that, so Sky would write the majority of the lyrics prior, but it made a lot of sense for me to start doing it for this album.” explains Sam of the lyrical process.
Sam continues, explaining how whilst in the writing headspace, you “start to live your life through more of a poetic lens, so you see things and experience things more.”
He expands, expressing how he feels that during that process he notices things more, helping to inspire the songwriting. “When you’re having thoughts about the concept you’re working on and you’re living in that world, everything is happening with respect to that, so the lyrics start to happen over time.”
In the context of this, I ask him to elaborate a little bit more on the process of putting the lyrics to the music, especially in relation to the album.
“Typically, I’ll record a track of me just doing gibberish, and then I’ll have a notes app going on with everything I’m thinking about with lines and stuff, which I then use to start filling in the gibberish with actual words."
“Every now and then, you get really fun things from the gibberish, something to work off of, rather than just sitting there twiddling your thumbs.”
Despite tracks such as Kids 1995, a number that in a live setting feels like the pinnacle of the set, the band are quick to express that the lyrics don’t necessarily come from a place of fiction.
“The main concept of Scream From New York, NY came after we discussed what the through line was, and then it just naturally felt like my life was happening adjacent to the idea.” explains Sam. “I didn’t want to put a big bow on it and keep tying in the concept over and over, but by virtue of talking about the theme, everything just seems to happen next to that."
“There’s no characters on the album or anything like that. Kids 1995 is obviously named after a movie, but it was just something I’d seen at the time, and there were things going on in my life at the time that it made me think of, so it felt like a cool song title.”
When you listen to Been Stellar’s discography, and particularly when you hear it live in a packed-out, grassroots venue, it feels less about the music, and more about the feeling it gives its listener. Within their music, the band encapsulates a youthful, heady feeling that almost leaves a listener feeling giddy with nostalgia. There’s a real main-character energy to their songs, a feeling conveyed so strongly when you hear the record start to finish.
One of the stand-out moments being Sweet, a Mazzy Star inspired track that came from a jam session with three poppy sounding chords, which when added to the Dave Roebuck-esque open chords, produced a “wistful, Americana feeling that Mazzy Star had.” From there, the band explains how the song came really quickly, and it was obvious where to take it, everything falling into place.
Though, Skyler expresses that none of the members are “big theory heads” so capturing emotion within their music “comes from the fact we always bite off more than we can chew in some ways, and the ideas are really big, and we don’t always have the right tools to convey them. So it’s just like being as intense as possible with the tools you have."
“I think music is something that’s universal. I’ve never understood where you’re supposed to learn to get to certain types of music or listen to this in order to get that. For me, the essence of it is all you really need.”
So how do the band translate that soundscape to their live performances?
“I think we’re still learning. The EP was pretty simple and straightforward as to how to play it live, but a lot of songs on the album are trickier to play. The production was much more of a conscious thing this time, so we’ve had to figure out a lot about dynamics, and we’re still learning to do that.” Skyler explains.
“I think it’s just being more deliberate with live shows. This time around, it’s not as much of like plugging in and playing the songs; we need the dynamics to hit. Because if the dynamics don’t hit, then the song altogether falls flat.”
Nico, sitting on the edge of the table, is quick to express disagreement.
“I think what makes the songs work live is that we write them live as a band, like we never write within a computer. What I really appreciate about us is that we’ve always focused on the live performance first, and this is the first time we’ve had a challenge with live performance because there’s all this added production."
“And there’s a certain point where when you’re live and don’t have any backing track, it’s just up to you to focus on and dial into those dynamics. And sometimes it’s impossible, but I think that’s what I like about us; it’s just very raw and intimate. It’s what it would sound like in our basement.”
Whilst there’s a packed festival schedule still unfolding, Been Stellar are showing no signs of stopping. Having already supported label mates, The 1975, as well as UK post-punk band, Shame, the band have a support slot with Fontaines D.C. on their US and Canada leg lined up.
Of these slots, Skyler describes it as an “uphill battle” as you’re playing to people who don’t know your music and therefore balancing “what you actually want to do and how you want to show yourself to these crowds”, but expresses how the band always feel that they “walk away from a festival having learned new things about the songs that [they] didn’t know before”
It’s a similar story for support shows too, Sam explaining how you learn something from everyone you play alongside. “I learned a lot from Matty [The 1975] and Charlie [Shame] as a frontman. From Charlie, he has a performance quality that makes you feel so connected to him and it feels like he’s really looking at you. And when we played with The 1975, it felt like a proper stadium show. Those support slots made us want to let other parts of ourselves show.”
The band is also preparing for another UK and Europe headline tour towards the end of the year, where they’ll be returning to some of the cities they played back in May (Bristol, London, Manchester), pre-debut release.
Compared to the shows earlier this summer, the band promise a longer set and be able to play the album the way that they want to.
“It’s really refreshing to play in other countries.” says Nico, before slipping into an anecdote about the band’s last show in Amsterdam. “We were driving to this little get together but we just looked at the street sign and it was one of the craziest street names ever, you know how in like Dutch names there’s loads of Ws and stuff and Laila was like, ‘I need to go back to America’ and that was the funniest thing.”
This provokes Laila to reflect on touring in America and its differences to the UK. “I think I prefer to tour in America. Actually, that’s not true, I think it depends where you are because we drove through The Alps at one point and you’re not getting that in America! I think both are cool but for different reasons.”
“For the US, it’s like you’re in an epic story every time during a tour because everything is so weird. Like, nothing is the same - you pull over somewhere and you’ll see the weirdest shit ever. And that’s a no slight to the UK and Europe, but you guys have your shit together much more than we do! It’s much more predictable - in the US, it’s like fucking lord knows…” Skyler trails off before Laila adds, “It gets really weird out there!”
“I encourage any British person to go to any truck stop in Oklahoma. And just… tell your kids about that!”
Been Stellar’s debut album, Scream From New York, NY is out now. You can buy a copy here.
The band will be touring with Fontaines D.C. in the US and Canada in September and October. You can get tickets for those shows here.
The band are also returning to the UK & Ireland for their headline tour in November. You can get your tickets here.
Been Stellar UK & Ireland tour November 2024:
Tue 19 Nov 2024. Bristol.
Thu 21 Nov 2024. Manchester.
Fri 22 Nov 2024. Glasgow.
Sun 24 Nov 2024. Newcastle upon tyne.
Mon 25 Nov 2024. Leeds.
Tue 26 Nov 2024. Nottingham.
Thu 28 Nov 2024. London.
Sat 30 Nov 2024. Dublin
Sun 1 Dec 2024. Galway
Mon 2 Dec 2024. Belfast
Where to find Been Stellar:
Instagram: @beenstellar
TikTok: @beenstellarnyc
Twitter: @beenstellar
FaceBook: Been Stellar
Website: https://beenstellar.com/
KATIE HILLIER
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