With the release of their debut album ‘Scream From New York, NY’, BEEN STELLAR discuss how they carved out their sound, the highs and lows of living in New York, and the cliquiness of the city’s music scene. Check out our latest Hype playlist cover feature.
Words: Rebecca Kesteven.
Photos: Jennifer McCord.
“I’ve just checked the weather… and it’s gonna be raining as soon as we land,” laughs Nico Brunstein, bass player of Been Stellar. Zoom calling all the way from New York, the band are only a few days away from crossing the pond to embark on a short UK tour – and in classic British fashion, a discussion about the weather gets the conversational ball rolling.
The band’s debut album, ‘Scream From New York, NY’, is imminent. Sonically swerving from the shoegazey sounds of their earlier stuff, the album captures the industrial, unrelenting sounds of New York City. It’s a mish-mash of influences from Sonic Youth to Radiohead, with the overarching theme being what happens when language fails. “In a place like New York, you hear screams all the time,” vocalist Sam Slocum explains. “Noises that in a ‘normal place’ you’d be alarmed by. But in New York, it’s so prevalent and it’s so chaotic that it’s just kind of normal. Sometimes, you’re walking down the street or laying in bed at night, and you hear a scream – whether that be a good scream, a bad scream, or what have you.” This kind of subdued animosity, the eeriness of New York streets, was a huge inspiration. “It’s like words failing, and then resorting to something more carnal, to let an expression out.”
“It feels like a million years ago that we were actually recording it,” says guitarist Skyler St. Marx. “I feel like, in a lot of ways, I’m a different person to the person recording that album.” For Been Stellar, ‘Scream From New York, NY’ was an overhaul in collaboration and mutual trust – the basis of which being the members’ almost 10-year strong friendships. “The way we work together has a lot to do with our relationships as friends, being so comfortable with each other… It wasn’t without its hiccups; there were totally moments where we were pulling our hair out, but we just kept our heads down and tried to mull over every detail. Sometimes, to a fault, we have a tendency to overthink stuff – but that can be a good thing, too.” Knowing what the title of the album would be early in the process of writing, the band honed their focus on a couple of key themes and wrote around them. “It’s not a concept record, really, but we knew we wanted to create a cohesive body of work,” Slocum explains.
The album was produced by Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, who the band say provided a peaceful – if not slightly chaotic – atmosphere in the studio. “He’s one of my favourite people ever,” says St. Marx. “He puts a lot of passion and focus into everything he does.” He was especially involved in the making of ‘Can’t Look Away’, a song involving almost unfathomably huge, soaring guitars. “I really wanted to capture the same natural tremolo that The Smiths did on ‘How Soon Is Now?’. We were in this live room, and we had six massive amps – some of them super old, some of them new – all cranked up to ten. We’d record a take in one amp, then we’d move the mic over to the next amp and the next. It was the loudest fucking thing ever, and I had earplugs in and headphones on!”
‘Scream From New York, NY’ marks a solid progression and solidification of the band’s sound, but also marks a foray into more unchartered territories. Discussing their favourite points on the album, drummer Laila Wayans mentions track ‘I Have the Answer’ – “I feel like the record touches on a lot of different points and sounds, but to me, that song sounds like a natural progression to the sounds we started with on the EP. I don’t feel like we’ve perfected it, but we’ve definitely got to a new place with that sonically.”
“One of the coolest feelings that comes with being in a band is when you ‘wow’ yourself a little bit”
Sam Slocum
“‘Scream From New York, NY’ has always been one of my favourite songs,” says Brunstein. “It’s the oldest idea we’ve had. It was the only song that we restructured and reworked in the studio, it’s very nostalgic for us but also really refreshing.” ‘Take Down’ is also discussed as a highlight of the record. “It’s really uncharted territory for us,” says St. Marx. “It was really exciting to figure out because it sounds very classic, and that’s something we were always trying to reach for.”
Slocum, on the other hand, often finds himself returning to ‘Sweet’. “Whenever the chorus, or the ending, of ‘Sweet’ gets played live or we hear it on the recording, it just gives me chills. There’s an urgency and immediacy in that song that I’m really proud of. I think ‘Sweet’ is a logical progression for us, but also the type of song I wasn’t sure we could pull off.” Because of this, it’s a song that the band are particularly proud of. “I think one of the coolest feelings that comes with being in a band, or involved in a music project is – it doesn’t happen a lot – but when you ‘wow’ yourself a little bit… I listen back to ‘Sweet’ and I’m like, damn. I’m really surprised we did that.”
The word ‘loneliness’ also crops up for the first time while discussing the album’s themes, which Slocum takes a moment to ponder. “I think that word – loneliness – is a really, really strong thing to take away.” It’s perhaps most evident in ‘Can’t Look Away’, which lyrically describes a world where things are supposed to be very connected and how we’re so focused on connection but feel so far away from each other. “That’s the only song where I think I really wanted to create an alienated feeling in the lyrics.” Lyrics of which, he explains, are based on a documentary called We Live In Public (“an awesome watch”) – about an early Big Brother-type project where people were recorded living in an underground complex in Soho, New York and filmed constantly. The documentary, and how it hones in on how much we all care about how we appear to others, served as a major source of inspiration because “we’re so focused on projecting… documenting everything, and yearning for connectedness with other people.”
“I was actually thinking the other day,” adds Wayans, “the idea of loneliness is so interesting to me – especially in a place like New York. You’re constantly surrounded by so many people, there are so many things going on, and you’d think that because of that you wouldn’t feel lonely… It’s kind of scary because of how concentrated it is, and how loneliness is such a polar opposite feeling to what you think you should feel in New York. Maybe there are underlying tones of loneliness in the record because we’re in New York.”
The sights, sounds, smells, the ambivalence, nihilism, volatility, and unrelenting chaos evoked by life in modern New York is – even on a subconscious level – the album’s major touchstone. Notwithstanding the city’s extensive music and cultural history, just the very act of living there, experiencing day-to-day life, continues to make a huge impact. “I really wanted the record to sound like it could only exist in one place,” St. Marx explains as he discusses a Thurston Moore quote that had recently struck a chord with him. “Even the songs that don’t reference New York – if someone put it on and closed their eyes, I wanted it to take them there. I feel like the best records are very cemented in a particular place. It’s like the classic adage: write about what you know. Every day I wake up, I get on the subway, I go to work, I hear the same sounds, I see the same things. We weren’t trying to make a record about New York, but it’s literally the only thing that you ever think about when you’re living here, because it’s throwing itself at you everywhere you go. We had no choice. To not talk about that… I don’t really know what else we’d have to talk about. At least for now.”
“Every day I wake up, I get on the subway, I go to work, I hear the same sounds, I see the same things”
Skyler St. Marx
Being a band in New York has also come with its own unique hardships – with impenetrable music scenes forcing the group to find their own way, put on their own shows, and build themselves from the ground up completely independently. “No one wanted anything to do with us for a really long time. New York bands are very cliquey, very removed,” says St. Marx. “If we tried to play a bill or whatever, people just didn’t want us. It would be something we’d have to fully organise ourselves, and a lot of times, they weren’t even in venues.”
Despite this, they say that in hindsight, they were lucky to be isolated – it allowed them time to figure themselves out, to think critically about moving past their influences, and carve out a sound they could completely call their own. “I think it was the only way we started to get anywhere. It kind of makes sense that nobody wanted anything to do with us… we really, really needed to figure out our sound and what we wanted, and I think that was the best way for it to happen – to be kind of excluded, and then be forced to do our own thing,” Slocum explains.
“That’s a thing I do love about New York,” St. Marx adds. “Opposed to a city like London, where I feel like the music scene is so, so omnipresent – here, that doesn’t exist at all. You only hear about A&R people showing up to a concert if it’s already a pretty massive band… and it wasn’t until we started playing shows outside of New York that people here started to take us seriously.”
‘Scream From New York, NY’ captures the disconnection haunting New York City in a way that’s immersive. Achieving what the band intended, it places you right in the middle of it all – its ferocity, its harshness, but also, the beauty that shimmers just beneath the surface. “I’m so looking forward to people hearing it,” St. Marx says, smiling. “I’m also really looking forward to getting another record together. It’s like a mountain – and I’m ready to start the next climb. I’m gathering my materials to begin the summit.” Everyone laughs – and it’s clear that despite their city’s relentless noise, Been Stellar have found the sounds to cut through it all, and they’re only just getting started. ■
Been Stellar’s debut album ‘Scream From New York, NY’ is out now. Follow Dork’s Hype Spotify playlist here.
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