NYC’s best kept secret no longer, Dirty Hit-signed indie rock band Been Stellar discuss their origins, their inspirations, and their brutal and brooding debut album ‘Scream From New York, NY’ – a heavy-hitting, unapologetic, urgent, and all-consuming record that captures the raw ruthlessness, and the utter seduction, of life in their home city.
for fans of Radiohead, The Strokes, Ride, Interpol
‘Scream From New York, NY’ – Been Stellar
True to its name, Been Stellar’s debut album really is a Scream From New York, NY.
And yet, the quintet’s first full-length effort is so much more than that: Embedded within that scream are whispers, shouts, howls, and roars from the nether reaches of a city full of life, overflowing with stories untold and strangers who will never be anything more than passersby. Into that primal scream, the band pack heavy, visceral drum beats, lush, overdriven electric guitars riffs that send shivers down the spine, and passionate vocal performances that stop us in our tracks. It’s a thunderous metropolitan tempest – a spellbinding superstorm of intimate, aching emotions channeled into raw, ruthless noise. Brutal and brooding, seductive and soul-stirring, Scream From New York, NY is a sonically and emotionally charged indie rock fever dream: A heavy, unapologetic, urgent, and all-consuming record that hits hard and leaves an instant, lasting mark as Been Stellar unleash all the energy and tension built up within them and their city.
It’s the end of the world
And I feel fine
A moment away
I take my time
Middle Church
Burning in the low cold
hum of holy motors
Black smoke
Coughing through their mask
Old man is taking pictures
The people didn’t make a sound
A humming bled all around
– “Scream from New York, NY,” Been Stellar
Released June 21, 2024 via Dirty Hit Records, Scream From New York, NY is as volatile as it is vulnerable: A heated, high-octane longform introduction to one of the most promising rock bands to come out of New York City in the past decade. Comprised of frontman Sam Slocum, guitarist Skyler St. Marx, guitarist Nando Dale, bassist Nico Brunstein, and drummer Laila Wayans, Been Stellar formed at NYU and, after playing live for a few years, released their very first single in March of 2020. They spent the first three years of the pandemic steadily churning out songs while honing their sound and, quite simply, surviving. They released a self-titled debut EP with British indie So Young Records in 2022, which landed on several best-of lists, including Atwood Magazine‘s own Top Discoveries of the Year.
“Dramatic, dynamic, and absolutely unrelenting, Been Stellar have a great band name and sound like a crossover of Radiohead, The Strokes, The Smashing Pumpkins, and The 1975,” we wrote at the time. “They’re callous, yet polished, having found (and honed) the special sauce that gives rock artists control over the chaos they create.”
The five-piece have since cut their teeth on tours with The 1975, Fontaines D.C., and Shame – building an early name for themselves through an electric live act that mirrors the bluster and fervor of their recorded oeuvre. The band announced their signing to Dirty Hit Records this past winter, and subsequently spent the first half of the year teasing out song after song, leading up to June’s album release. They’ve played a handful of shows on both sides of the Atlantic since the record’s release, and will commence their full North American and European headline tours (set to run from September through December) after a highly anticipated appearance at Lollapalooza in Chicago this August.
A fresh young band with a timeless sound and an ineffably cool aesthetic, Been Stellar are (or at least, were) one of New York City’s best-kept secrets. They carry forward the torch once held by The Strokes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, transforming their lived experiences in the concrete jungle into achingly expressive songs yearning for human connection, comfort, and understanding: For a sense of balance in the gritty, endless turmoil. Disenchantment and nihilism inevitably bleed through – a salient sentiment of the 2020s held by so many of their peers, as we all look toward an uncertain future with both hope and fear, denial and disaffection. The band themselves have likened their music to “a tidal wave as viewed from underneath,” a vivid description that speaks to the sheer weight of the songs.
“The underlying idea has to do with this theme of when words fail in a situation, and the tragedy that comes with language and trying to convey how you feel,” Sam Slocum tells Atwood Magazine. “A lot of times people will resort to a scream or something in those situations. In a place New York, in cities like this, you hear screams a lot… and you have to just normalize it.”
Before I lay back down and close my eyes
It won’t always be this way, I know the tide
It’s just another time, and I sit- I’ll try to write
I stumble through the day, I stay inside
Feel at the root
that I need you, and I need you
I don’t mind all the words
They just sound like, like the feeling
And it’s all getting old
Cause I need you, and I need you
You let it take up every moment
Just a life to hear you say-
Speaking when we don’t know what to say
It’s all the words I give and take from you each day
How can I look into your eye
and know exactly what’s behind?
It’s in it: all I keep aside
When words fail, our primal emotions take over; Scream From New York, NY is, in its essence, five young adults trying to make sense of the world into which they’ve been thrust.
Their music is a direct reflection of this situation; it is inevitably fraught, tense, larger-than-life, and at times overwhelming. From the fiery opening moments of “Start Again” to the cinematic and searing finale “I Have the Answer,” Scream from New York, NY sets out to evoke something far greater than the sum of its parts – something that goes beyond five twenty-somethings navigating New York City, instead speaking to deeper truths common to all of us 8 billion people, just trying to get by; just trying to survive the ebbs and flows of the tide. We hear it in the relentless churn of “Passing Judgment,” in the charming angst of “Pumpkin,” in the fiery roar of “Sweet,” in the inescapable rush of “Can’t Look Away,” and in the cathartic exhale of title track “Scream from New York, NY.”
I wanna take it back
Look at the camera now
Scratch on a microphone
And say thoughts out loud
I had a feeling then
The words escape me now
If I could be alone
And leave it all but I
Can’t look away
Be still, oh my heart now
And won’t you be quiet
We hold onto something
All through the day and all through the night
So what you say?
I will forgive you
And won’t you set it down
The dream you were having
You gotta live it now, we wanna leave it now
– “Can’t Look Away,” Been Stellar
Been Stellar have without a doubt released one of the year’s most spirited, gripping, and galvanizing debut albums.
Atwood Magazine caught up with the band for an in-depth conversation about their origin, their sound, and their debut album: Dive into Been Stellar and Scream from New York, NY in our interview below, and catch them on tour all over North America and Europe throughout the second half of 2024!
“It would be great if people connect with it, and it serves as a little soundtrack to living their lives,” Slocum says of the album. “The reason we make music is that music’s had such an impact on our lives, that it feels kind of like, what else could we do besides try to pass that feeling onto somebody else? So if people can interact with it the way that we interact with our favorite music, then I consider it a job well done.”
Leaving behind the driving shoegaze of their early recordings, the NYC-based five-piece tap into the disaffected sound and spirit of New York luminaries like Sonic Youth and Interpol, as well as the nihilistic, yearning cool of Iceage and Bends-era Radiohead, striking upon a sound that’s fearsome, buffeting and beautiful at the same time – a tidal wave as viewed from underneath.
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:: stream/purchase Scream From New York, NY here ::
:: connect with Been Stellar here ::
Stream: ‘Scream From New York, NY’ – Been Stellar
A CONVERSATION WITH BEEN STELLAR
Atwood Magazine: Thanks for chatting today, everyone! The first question I want to ask is about your band name: How did “Been Stellar” come about?
Sam Slocum: Sky came up with the name over ten years ago. He and I had just met and we were starting to play some music, becoming familiar with working with another person. We knew we needed a name, and at the time there was this electronic artist named Com Truise. And we thought that was kind of a funny name, so he just threw out, “What about Been Stellar?” There were a couple other ones in the hat, but I think that just had a nice ring to it. We liked the double meaning of the idea of something that once was good. It was Stellar, but it’s not anymore. And we thought that was cool, but for a long time we wanted to change it.
We talked about changing it, especially once the five of us started working together. Once the band became its full form, we wanted to change it to something else, but I think now we’re all really happy we kept it. I think it sticks out and I like that it’s past tense. The way “Been” and “Stellar” work, one word is really big and one word is kind of dull. So anyway, that’s the name.
I want to go back to your debut EP before we talk about the new album, as I first fell in love with your song “Kids 1995.” That whole record really blew me, and it’s also the starting point, that ultimately got you to your album. Take me back to that EP for a second; how did it come about, and what's your relationship with those initial songs now?
Nico Brunstein: It’s interesting ‘cause “Kids 1995” is actually the only one that was from the batch of music that predated the post-COVID band. The band started with Sam and Sky with their own music, and Nando, Laila, and I joined in, and “Kids” was probably the first song pre-COVID that we all started collaborating on. It took a ton of different forms. We recorded it for a pre-COVID album that never came out, and then we re-recorded it in our basement, and then we re-recorded it for the EP for So Young. So it’s been through a lot of variations. It’s definitely our oldest song that’s out that I think we’re all still really proud of, that still encompasses what we want to do with our music. The EP itself was just a random batch of songs that started with Sam, Sky, and Nando jamming over COVID, and Laila and I would come in and round them up… There was a ton of songs, and then I think when So Young asked us to make an EP, we just kind of dwindled it down to what made the most sense, stylistically.
When you talk about your vision for the band, were there talks about exactly what you were going for, or has it all been organic? What's your shared vision for Been Stellar?
Nico Brunstein: We haven’t had a “full conversation.” I do remember Sam, Sky, and me talking a lot about two things; there’s one thing where Sky likes to talk about the balance between two different cathartic releases in music: With melody, grabbing for the melody and belting that out, but also very loud noise and aggressiveness in songs. I think that was definitely a thing we wanted to try to balance with the stuff we were writing, the five of us.
And then there’s the other thing that all of us have been trying to do over the last couple of years. We want to try to write songs that aren’t just in a certain style, but more like, if you can just sing the song on guitar or sing the song on piano, and it could still carry the same weight as it would on a fully produced version, if that makes any sense. I think a lot about The Beatles, honestly, in that sort of way, where so many of their songs are just guitar and vocals, but they still carry the same weight as a fully produced song.
That's awesome that this was the goal coming into Scream From New York, NY. This brings us to the full album. Can you share a little bit about the story behind this record?
Sam Slocum: The underlying idea has to do with this theme of when words fail in a situation, and the tragedy that comes with language and trying to convey how you feel. A lot of times people will resort to a scream or something in those situations. In a place New York, in cities like this, you hear screams a lot, and that’s something Sky will talk a lot about, because a lot of the lyrics stem from conversations that we’ll have as a band. Even though I’m handling the lyric duties most of the time, they’re stemming from these ideas. Sky would talk a lot about how he noticed he’ll be laying in bed at night or something and in the apartment above you, there’s just screaming going on, and in Nando’s room there’s a lot of that, where it’s above him for some reason and there’s this guy who’s just screaming.
Nando Dale: It’s totally just our super’s kid, I found out he’s just playing Call of Duty or something.
But that's the thing, you don't know! You don't know who's screaming and why. And you just have to get on with your life. You can't be concerned every time you hear a scream in the city.
Sam Slocum: Yeah, that’s the main idea: You have to just normalize it. Even on the street or in the subway, you hear these things that in any other situation you’d be like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” But in a place like this, it’s so concentrated with people. So anyway, that was the idea; it’s not really a concept record, but that’s definitely the main theme. The title actually was a title we’ve had for a really long time. It was just a pun, a play on “Theme From New York, New York,” and I just thought it was funny. It came back up once we started working on the record, I think it was Sky who brought it back to light and he was like, “I wish we could name it this.” So that’s the theme.
I love that you spend the first 30 seconds of the records just building thunderous overdrive with the guitars and drums. It's such a raw entrance, and you immediately hit with the lyrics, “Back from the war, he sits in the car and holds onto his baby, who still feels far” in “Start Again.” Can you tell me about the scene you wanted to set as people got into the album for the first time?
Sam Slocum: Yeah, that song is one of the older ones. We’ve had that for a few years. Part of it’s the title “Start Again,” it made sense for the beginning of the record, and we used it as a live opener for a while, so it logically made sense for it to open the record. One of the jobs I’ve had over the past couple years is working with people who have dementia. Obviously all of them, we get into some pretty crazy stories and whatnot. And so one of the patients I was working with, she was telling me about her dad, and that’s sort of describing him. Lyrically it started looking at New York and people’s relationship with the city, because then later in that verse it’s talking about a coworker I had named Amani, when I worked at Grand Central Station. It’s just looking at people’s relationship with the city and surviving in the city, and people’s relationship with work and having to work in the city, and then it gets into the toll that takes on people’s minds and bodies and whatnot.
You can read “Start Again” in a couple different ways, what that means. I think the other thing is talking about how a city changes over time for different people – people talk a lot about “old New York” and “New York’s not what it was” and whatnot. It’s this idea of wanting it to “Start Again” in some way; to get back to when something was better, but I think it’s a moot point because it’s just this cycle that keeps turning over and whatnot, and things continue to change. That song to me, musically and lyrically, just kind of sounds like a door opening, and so I like that about it.
May I ask, in what capacity were you working with people with dementia?
Sam Slocum: They call it a companion. I worked at a company and would handle day-to-day tasks, helping them with simple tasks, but mostly just serving as somebody to spend the day with and to keep them engaged.
That's a tough role to play. Thanks for sharing all that. It sounds like what really came together for everybody was a lot of different things, but there's a lot about how your environment affects your own human experience, and how that same environment can affect others very differently. What was the vision going into Scream From New York, NY?
Nando Dale: I feel like in some ways we’ve been wanting to make this record for a while. Especially with the title, Scream From New York, NY, which was something that we were throwing around ever since we wrote that song, or even before we wrote that song, I think it used to be called something else… But with some of the EP stuff, as we were writing that, we were getting to this concept and idea. Originally, we were always wanted to have the end goal of writing a full record. As we kept going and writing more, the EP just happened because it was what we had to put out with a label, and what we could accommodate. In the moment, I think we realized, “Okay, we’re actually going to do a record and it’s gonna come out properly on a label and everything.” I think the vision started making sense as we kept going.
Laila Wayans: At least sonically, I feel like with the EP, we started scratching the surface as to what we were as a band and our sound and stuff. But with the album, that was when we were able to fully dive into who we are now and what we hope to become. The whole process just felt very vulnerable and it was really just the five of us in the basement, feeding off of each other and going into our sound even further. I don’t know that we had a plan, like, “Oh, I want the songs to sound this.” We had overall ideas, we wanted things to be more immediate and for lyrics to be more specific rather than broad ideas, maybe, as opposed to the EP. But I don’t think that we had an exact plan; we kind of just let it unfold, and then one day we had the album and it all strung together somehow.
Nico Brunstein: We didn’t have much intention, but we were definitely more in a cohesive head space, I feel. We started writing right after we had done three months of touring together. So we’d been talking nonstop about it and listening to all the same music together in the band. It was just a good, cohesive mind space to be in, just being in the basement all together like that. It’s a very small dingy room that I feel like we feed off of, for sure. But then I think what ties it all together is definitely the theme and the lyrics that Sam wrote; I feel like the music is definitely a bit more scattered, but the lyrics tie it all in.
Whose basement got to have the honor?
Nando Dale: The three of us, me, Sam, and Sky. There used to be a band there, who used to live where we live, called The Britanys. And then when they were breaking up and leaving the place, they were like, “You guys wanna get the lease or something?” It’s a pretty iconic spot; It’s very nice, right next to my bedroom.
Who are some of the artists that you listened to together? And do you feel they had an impact on the music that you ended up making together?
Sam Slocum: We have a couple artists that the Venn diagram crosses over for the five of us, but we all come from different musical backgrounds. But the big ones for this record, I think we were very inspired by, or we really love Ride. For the five of us, that’s a big touchstone. Also Just Mustard, who are good friends of ours. When we first saw them live, that was also a pretty influential moment. I’d say those are kind of the big two. We all like Smashing Pumpkins too, for sure
Ride just came back with a new album a few weeks ago.
Sam Slocum: I was just listening to it actually, before this call. We saw them play an acoustic set. They played an in-store in London, and a friend of ours manages them, so we were able to catch that. I actually really, really liked it… There was one new song they played called “Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dream,” and I’ve been really playing that song. I really like that song.
Nando Dale: It was cool. It was definitely interesting to see a band that we admire so much stripping back the songs – past all the aesthetic of whatever shoegaze, dream pop that they have, like, it’s actually a really good song, and hearing “Vapor Trail” like that was unbelievable.
It reminds me of the first time I ever saw like, Nirvana's MTV Unplugged set. That used to be a thing, where heavy bands would completely strip their music down regularly. I feel like that's not a thing that you see as much these days; maybe we should bring it back.
Sam Slocum: Yeah, that Alice In Chains Unplugged is something else.
Laila Wayans: I was just gonna say that!
Sam Slocum: Laila and I are pretty big Alice In Chains fans.
Your live act got a lot of people talking about you, and fast. You've now toured with Fontaines D.C., Shame, and The 1975… What has your experience been bringing your music to the live audience? And has performing onstage impacted the way that you approach your recorded material?
Sam Slocum: It’s not totally something we think about too much. Before COVID, we were playing live, and that was the main focus. We were playing within a small scene of musicians at our college, NYU, and the main thing was playing songs live. It wasn’t until COVID that I think we stopped and thought, “Maybe we should stop and focus on these songs we’re playing and make them better,” because we weren’t able to play live.
Now, there’s certain technical things where you’ll do something one way in the studio, and then you’re kind of figuring out how to emulate it live. I think that happens a bit with the closer on the record, trying to make sure that it’s as booming as it feels on the album. And I think certain things about playing live did inform the songwriting. There were a couple songs that we were testing as we would go. The most obvious example of that is “Passing Judgment.” We were finishing that while we were on the road. I didn’t have really many lyrics and we were kind of tweaking things here and there, and each night we’d sort of be able to look at the song through a new lens and road-test it. And that was the first time we had done that – so yeah, that’s the relationship between the recording and the performance.
You mentioned “Passing Judgment,” which is one of my favorite songs on the album. Laila, your drumming is phenomenal here. You bring so much energy. I feel like that's a big signifier of the entire band's ethos. There's such strong drumming throughout. Who have been your drumming inspirations, and where do you pull from when you're coming up with your back beats?
Laila Wayans: Thank you very much! That’s so funny, ’cause somebody asked me this, my friend’s dad asked me this the other day. And I don’t know, to be honest. There are some drummers that I look up to, and maybe subconsciously I try and pull from that… I think the things that I like most about the drums is just the feeling that it gives you. To be quite honest, I took drum lessons when I was a kid, but I always would rather teach myself. So I kind of just went based off of learning something by ear, it wasn’t ever technically right. I don’t really know rudiments and stuff. That’s why I never do fills or anything, because I honestly don’t know how, but what I do know how to do is make a beat that will stick in your head.
I’m inspired by hip-hop, because I feel like the drums in hip-hop are very simple, but they are driving the whole song – and without them, the song wouldn’t have that energy. In terms of rock drummers, I like Jimmy Chamberlin from Smashing Pumpkins. He’s great. I don’t think I drum anything like him, but I really appreciate his dynamics a lot. That’s probably the biggest thing that I take from that. I grew up in pop-punk and emo scenes, so of course I love blink-182 and Travis Barker. Also System of a Down, the drummer from System of a Down (John Dolmayan).
Incredible, thank you for sharing all that. Back to “Passing Judgment,” why did you all start the album journey with this song? Was there a reason for that song to be the band’s reintroduction as the lead single?
Sam Slocum: It’s similar reasoning to why “Start Again” begins the record. “Passing” was one of the first songs, it’s one of the older ones. “Start Again” and “Passing” were written around the same time, so they’re a partnership. One starts the record, and one was a first taste of the record. It just was an obvious first single to us, where I think we liked that it was a little bit challenging. It’s aggressive, but it’s also catchy. It just feels like a nice middle ground where it does feel like it’s one of the pillars of the album, sonically. The album doesn’t all sound “Passing Judgment,” but “Passing” is definitely important to the record’s DNA or whatever.
You’ve mentioned the Smashing Pumpkins in passing; is it me, or does the song “Pumpkin” really sound like a good Smashing Pumpkin song?
[everyone laughs]
Sam Slocum: It’s not just you.
Laila Wayans: That’s really funny.
Nando Dale: We should have named it something else.
Laila Wayans: Yeah.
Nando Dale: Yeah. Low key.
Nico Brunstein: Well, no. The thing is, we have this whiteboard and the names that are on our whiteboard right now are really, really bad. We were just looking at it yesterday and what we’re writing right now, right now the working titles are horrible, but “Pumpkin” was one of those. I think we had a little disagreement on whether we should just keep it as the working title. This song’s really different from where it started, so I think when we gave it that name, it was a bit more dark and brooding, more like a typical Smashing Pumpkins song. And then it totally evolved and it’s now more of the sweeter side of Smashing Pumpkins, I feel. But the name just stuck! I don’t know, I guess I’m happy with the name. It’s funny that it’s still called that, I guess; I don’t really think about any of this.
Sam Slocum: Yeah, it’s so funny you brought that up. ‘Cause I think the reason why I like the name now, the reason why in my head I justify keeping it, wasn’t just totally out of laziness, but I think the whole song is about domestic living and whatnot and what it means to be close to people and sharing space with people. For some reason, this always hits me. Some of the song is supposed to feel looking into a dollhouse a little bit; observing how people interact, how a couple interacts or a parent-child relationship. I think the name “Pumpkin” to me feels like a very domestic thing. Carving pumpkins is something you do with people you love, and it’s something that happens in the house and it’s put on the outside of the house. There’s something about that, that really feels like a song to me. So I think the title works really well, even though, yeah, it was a working title because the demo sounded like Smashing Pumpkins.
One more song I really want to talk about personally is the title track, “Scream from New York, NY.” This song feels like one of the mission statements of the album; I feel like it captures a lot of who Been Stellar is. Where did that song come from and what is special about that track for you guys?
Sam Slocum: Well, that is the oldest song on the album. It predates the EP, and we tinkered with it for a long time. We used to play it live. The first tour we did, I can’t remember if we brought it on the whole tour, but it was a song that we would play live. There was a version of it, but we could never quite get it right. We always felt by the time we got halfway through the song, it just stopped working. That song is probably the biggest example of collaborative lyrics. Most of the opening verse is Sky, from a poem he wrote, and then once it kicks in and starts getting bigger, a lot of that is stuff I wrote. It was the last lyrics that were written for the record, literally in the studio finishing the song, he and I were doing laps around the studio, going back and forth trying to finish the bridge. I think it’s cool that it came together in the end, that we were still working on it together.
It’s gone through a bunch of changes and we originally were going to drop it from the album. And when we were sending demos back and forth with Dan, our producer, we had it in the first batch of demos and then no one really commented on it. Then in the second batch we sent him, we had taken it out, and he was kind of like, “Why’d you take that out?” It made us think a little bit harder about it, and then that one was the only one in the studio that we were properly changing, and then finishing in real time. We did this whole switch and suddenly, once that fell into place, Dan had this idea to not have the song come back down – to just keep building it once it gets big. Once that happened, the switch flipped and it was like, “Oh, this all works now.” That’s another one where I feel like it’s one of the album’s centerpieces.
Nando Dale: Totally. I feel like also that conclusion that we got to the song, I credit Dan a lot for helping us reach the conclusion to that song. I think it’s a move that was only possible for us or shown clear to us, because of what Dan was doing as well in the studio, where he had both of our guitars side-chained and sent to a mixer that the kick was side-chained to, and it was feeding all that. He was manipulating our sounds, the loops and stuff. He was feeding it back to us in the room. So I think that gave it that “turn it up to 11” feel and it really helped us feel our dynamics and realize how much we can actually take it to, and what are the different steps we can take a song to dynamically.
Obviously Dan Carey has worked with Fontaines D.C., he worked with Tame Impala, he worked with The Kills, and a litany of other legends. Was there any apprehension going into the studio with him?
Nico Brunstein: No. [laughs] For me personally, it was a dream come true for two years for me. It was like, this is the guy, this is a pipe dream if we could work with him. And then, when we went to SXSW early last year, he was doing something with his label and he was just inviting artists to record a song with him. And so that’s when we first met him, and we recorded a version of “Passing Judgment” with him. He is just an evil genius, just giggling the entire time, and he has all these crazy ideas. So I’m glad we got to do that because it might have been a little scary going into it, but I was personally also just reading a lot about the way he records bands and just watching a lot of videos. So the way we recorded all of our demos was the way that he records bands in the studio. I think we were literally practicing for him to produce our record.
That’s the music equivalent of dressing for the job you want, for sure. If folks are to listen to just one song off of your debut album, what song do you hope they really hear?
Sam Slocum: Well, “I Have the Answer” probably.
Laila Wayans: Yeah, I agree.
Nando Dale: I would say maybe “Scream.”
We've talked about “Scream,” but why “I Have the Answer?”
Sam Slocum: To me it feels like the platonic idea of a Been Stellar song for me. It feels like we got as close to as we could have to something that we’ve been trying to say for a long time. I forget who described our music this way, but I think it was Aaron, who is a good friend of ours and he engineered the record and we’ve worked with him for a minute. He was describing our music one time and he described it as “epic,” and that we’re not afraid to get epic. I think epic is obviously a word that’s been completely ruined, but I do feel that; I feel what he means, and I think our songs do get dramatic, and I’m proud of that. We do it in a way that I think the reason why people shy away from some of those more intense emotions sometimes is that it can be a little bit cringe, but if you can do it in a fully committed and wholehearted way, that’s some of the most powerful art. And so I feel like that song does it in a way that we’ve been trying to do for a long time. We’re all really proud of that one, and it feels really good to play live.
Sonically, it really captures who Been Stellar is. What about lyrically, the refrain just for a little while, “I have the answer,” repeated like that. There's something very cathartic about that phrase. What does it mean to you?
Sam Slocum: Sky came up with the initial chords to the song, and that was one of those instances where the lyric just came. And so as he was writing it, and as he was strumming the chords, he just kind of came upon that phrase and just started saying, “I have the answer just for a little while.” And then when he brought it to the band, that was one that clicked instantly. All of us were like, “Oh, wow. Yeah.” Like, this is really, really, really good. I guess what it means is, there’s moments where everything kind of makes sense and it’s almost the same feeling you get when you have déjà vu. You stop questioning things and life just kind of clicks.
It can come from a variety of things, but it’s a fleeting moment. It’s something that always passes, and so that’s why it’s the idea of like, “I have the answer,” and then like, right when you say you have the answer, that’s gone. All the verse lyrics are trying to paint one of those moments where I had a trip to the Natural History Museum in New York. I was there with someone, and it was one of those moments where it was really simple… The lyrics are just kind of describing, watching this thing at the science museum and then leaving the science museum. And then there’s this moment that it amounts to, which is probably my favorite lyric on the album. Nico and I have talked about it a bit, but it says, “This is just here now. This is just happening.” I feel that sums it up, that’s sort of the bridge between the verse and the chorus mantra, where it’s like, “Okay, this is one of those moments. I feel it, I feel it,” and then you know.
What do you hope listeners take away from Scream from New York, NY, and what have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?
Sam Slocum: I just hope… It would be great if people connect with it, and it serves as a little soundtrack to living their lives. The reason we make music is that music’s had such an impact on our lives, that it feels kind of like, what else could we do besides try to pass that feeling onto somebody else? So if people can interact with it the way that we interact with our favorite music, then I consider it a job well done.
Nico Brunstein: I hope people will give it a listen front to back. It is hard for me to listen to it again after recording it, but it’s really fun just to listen to the whole thing.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who are you listening to these days that you would recommend to our readers?
Nico Brunstein: There’s am artist whom we met just as a friend, and I’m obsessed with her music. She goes by Theo Bleak. She’s from Dundee in Scotland, and she’s got an EP that’s probably one of the best EPs. I wish it was a full-length album, because it’s so, so, so, so good. That’s my shout-out.
Sam Slocum: Shep Treasure is another artist – they’re a great band. They used to be located in New York, but now I think they’re upstate or maybe in Philly.
Nando Dale: I just saw this band at a theater in London called Taper, and their music is great. I just listened to the record. It’s really good. It’s kind of all over the place, and it’s a very nice journey and storytelling kind of record. But the performance, if you’re ever able to catch them, is on another level. It involves performance art and spoken word, and it’s kind of an insane spectacle really. So if you’re ever able to catch them, I’d recommend that.
Sam Slocum: Also that last Catcher EP, and it’s called 30 Million Windows, they’re good friends of ours, but I think that that EP is one of the most incredible things I’ve heard someone close to me make.
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