Rock may have been boring recently, but it’s the live stage theatrics of Starcrawler that has been captivating interest. It’s a whole new generation, not your parents’ band.
Rough Trade just announced the 2018 release of the first self-titled album. We interrupted what my early childhood educator mom would describe as “Centring time” on the glam-rock quartet. Made up of Arrow de Wilde, daughter of the famous Wilde photographer and American director Autumn (Beck, White Stripes, Sonic Youth, and many, many more) and Aaron from Beachwood Sparks (drummer of Father John Misty, Tobias Jesso Jr. and Ariel Pink among others), Henri Cash whom Arrow met in high school, Austin Smith on drums and Tim Franco on bass. Tim greeted us with calming strums while the other members explored the box of crayons, markers and water colors. Henri’s drawing showed a comic side, while Austin was psychedelic, I’m sure the school counsellor would describe Arrow’s as nihilistic.
Arrow is a modern day Hannah Montana with a supernatural magnetism having spent her last year in high school as a regular teen who hates school and playing raucous gigs in the evening as seen in their video Ants. The song captured the attention of Elton John who played the title in his show on Beats Radio 1. Shortly after LA Weekly put these enfants terrible on its cover “makes rock feel dangerous again.”
You recorded ten tracks on analogue tapes. Was the idea behind it for people to listen to the full cassettes, not just singles and why analogue?
Henri: We recorded most of the tracks live too, which is different because you aren’t having takes. Its a much more interesting thing to do. We recorded with Ryan Adams, but he kept it very raw, barely editing anything.
Austin: It was a very quick process. It was great working with Ryan, he is awesome.
Henri: his mind is so fast and he has so many amazing ideas. He is very hands on, its amazing to see how his mind works.
First song I heard from you was “Ants”. It sounded like a paranoid drug trip with lyrics “I got ants when I don’t, I got ants when I won’t, I got ants on my chair, they bite like a bear.”
Whats the real rock’n’roll story?
Henri: I live in a house that every summer gets invaded by ants, they come in through all the windows and creases in the wall. One time I forgot a sandwich in my backpack during the weekend and ants got all over it. Back at school Monday, first class, everywhere in my backpack as well as myself were covered in ants. The teacher just happened to have had an ant phobia. He sprayed the backpack with Raid and I had to sit outside.
Were you stigmatized?
Henri: Now I’m at terms with it. The music has been very therapeutic. That’s what the song is about, everyone has their own fucking problems with ants I guess.
Henri and Arrow just graduated Echo Park high school earlier in the year. I think you are the youngest band I know. Do you love LA?
Arrow: I think growing up in such a musical city has already inspired us in many ways. A lot of people talk about the light in Los Angeles, our senses could also be different because of all of the smog, but it creates this pink type of sunset, I think John Waters talked about it before.
You were recently touring and Dave Grohl who was curating the CalJam festival invited you guys to perform. Any good stories from the road?
Austin: We played Desert Daze in Joshua Tree and we were half way through, everyone out there was smoking weed or drinking, and there was this one guy in the audience dancing so strangely that I couldn’t help but focus on him. I ended up fucking up a good portion of the song because I couldn’t stop laughing, his dance moves were so weird. He had this big bushy beard and these porn star 70s sunglasses. It was almost a cliché of someone psychedelic rock dancing.
Can you psychedelic rock dance to your music?
Austin: Yes you can! He was on another plane!
Arrow: There was also a woman with a tambourine with no rhythm whatsoever.
Austin: She was messing me up as well. She had a tank top and no bra on and was like just being free.
She was heckling you guys.
Arrow: She was supportive, just with no rhythm. Plus she was really loud.
Henri: You could really hear it.
Austin: Let her live life, it was probably her only weekend to let loose.
Probably a teacher.
Henri: After the show, they were taking pictures. There were shooting cactuses all over and this woman was taking photos. When the cactus dries up it shoots out these little balls with fifty to one hundred spikes. She decided to sit down on the floor to get a better angle of us, and I warned her that there were a bunch of cactus and to watch out. Then she sat, in short shorts, on the cactus while taking the photos and insisted that she was okay. Then she had a cactus in her butt and Austin offered to take it out.
Austin: I thought I was being smart by using a thick cloth, but stupidly it went through the cloth, then eighty little quills were in my hand. Two other people went in to help, and then it snowballed. A guy got it under his nails.
Henri: Me and Arrow were not gonna help.
Austin: Yeah, they weren’t very helping (laughs).
So that’s your rock’n’roll tale of caution from the road.
Arrow: Its more an embarrassing story from the road. I made the mistake because I once had a little cacti plant that fell over so I went to pick it up, it had the tiny needles so you don’t see them in you, so I knew not to go over and help. They were going to have to figure it out.
Henri: Then she took her shorts off, and her butt had all these needles.
Do you know if she is fine?
Arrow: Oh yeah, she was laughing about it.
Henri: The next day she came up and said “my butt’s okay” with a thumbs up.
Austin: She had way more than any of us and dealt with it way better than any of us.
