On Sunday we found ourselves in the 60 capacity Camden pub The Elephant’s Head with New York band Been Stellar, a day after they played amongst a star-studded line up opening for Fontaines D.C. at Finsbury Park. An hour before doors, as the band were still soundchecking, the venue was packed to the brim with excited fans, others waiting in line with the hope of sneaking a peak through the windows.
It is no secret that we are big Been Stellar fans – the four-piece blends elements from all our favourite genres, from post-punk grit to dreamy shoegaze and alternative pop. They have had a big start to the year, opening for bands such as Fontaines D.C. and Inhaler in addition to their own headline shows across the US and some of Europe. They are in the midst of various festival appearances, and if you aren’t already familiar with them you are missing out!
A year on from their scintillating debut Scream from New York, NY the band have just released two of three standalone singles this summer and are deep into writing their second album. We caught up with guitarist Skyler Knapp and bassist Nico Brunstein, covering everything from the impact of politics and the real world on their songwriting to water parks and sweet and sour chicken feet.
You played Finsbury Park yesterday and have other big festivals this summer. How does it feel playing bigger festival stages compared to more intimate shows?
Skyler: It’s just a different thing. Playing more intimate shows feels more like a show if that makes any sense. Playing a festival you can’t really see anybody and it’s just this big wash of people, so it almost feels like you’re practicing – it doesn’t feel like an actual thing that people are seeing. It’s kind of bewildering a little bit, but at shows it’s very visceral and I kind of prefer it because they’re all very unique; a crowd could be one way so you play a little bit differently, but festivals tend to be more or less the same. They have been really fun to play, this is our first summer of actually playing big festivals like that, we’ve played some before but it was 11:00am to like 20 people.
If you were to headline Finsbury Park, which other bands would you want to bring along with you?
Nico: My favourite band in New York right now is Hello Mary so they would be there for sure.
Skyler: I’d bring the Cardinals lads again, good friends with them. There’s a couple New York bands – I’d have Fcukers play and I would have our friends in the band Catcher.
Nico: and then Just Mustard.
Skyler: and then Just Mustard, that’s our favorite band!
A year on from the release of your debut album Scream from New York, is there anything that has surprised you about its reception?
Skyler: I’m surprised that people like it! Making that album was us trying to experiment with ourselves and push ourselves into making something that sounds – the word we kept saying was dangerous – more aggressive than we usually do. We wanted to sound like a scream and so we knew going into that, cause we are a pop band as well at our core, we knew that it would be a lot more challenging for people than some of our earlier stuff. So I’m surprised that people liked it. I thought it might be like we do this one, we get that out of our systems, and then we’d make the album that people actually like, but people have gotten on board with this one. It doesn’t sound anything like what we’re writing now for the next record so that plan is still the same. But I’m happy people like it!
Congratulations on your new single ‘Breakaway’. It is very catchy and seems to have been well received by both fans and a wider audience. Is this something you were aiming for when writing the song, or did it just happen naturally?
Nico: I think so, yes. Sky started with that riff and then me, Sam and Sky wrote the song around it, building off of it and we liked how instant it was and how driven it is, how direct and pumping it is. So we were trying to build a song around that and trying to balance it out with a nice chorus and a building and almost intimate pre chorus. Like what Sky was saying is that we’re at heart more of a pop band in the sense we’re just trying to write the best songs possible. I think [Breakaway] and the two other singles that are coming out with it are a window into us writing fun songs.
Skyler: yeah they don’t really exist in either world of the album we’re writing now or the album before – they’re just three fun songs that we wanted to put out.
You have mentioned you are working on your second album. Scream from New York has a clear theme to it, both sonically and aesthetically, does album number two have a theme in the same way?
Skyler: I’d say the theme came first for it. I don’t really want to talk about what the theme is, but with Scream we were coming up with the songs and then the meaning behind it came along the way, but with this one it was very obvious what we wanted to write about and how we want the aesthetics to appear.
Second albums often come with a different kind of pressure, do you feel the weight of expectations going into this one? And has that influenced the way you’re approaching it?
Skyler: I would say I don’t really feel pressure with it. We’re very surprised that we have the opportunity to be doing what we’re doing now and I think it’s something that we strove for but something that we didn’t really expect, so I think there’s pressure on ourselves to make a really good second album. But as far as external industry pressure, we don’t really care.
How has the writing process for the music you are currently working on differed from previous projects?
Nico: We have a new drummer now and we’re focusing more on the songs themselves. All the songs now basically start more or less on an acoustic and already have a strong verse and chorus. With Gigi, our new drummer, the four of us are able to finish the song within an hour or two. It’s really motivating to be able to have an idea that no one’s heard before, one of us will bring it in, and then it’s done and we have a version of it and are able to tinker with it over the next few weeks and months. It’s very streamlined, in a good way – a very collaborative and immersive way.
How has your life over the past year shaped the music on this record?
Skyler: A big thing is definitely having a new member. I think the other thing is we’re financially better off now, so we don’t need to be working five days a week to pay our rent. We have a lot more time to actually dig into the record. I think a lot of it too is the world and politically. I don’t think we’ve ever necessarily been a super political band, what we’ve written in the past, but it’s inevitable for us now, especially being in the US and in New York. There’s not really much of an American voice for that right now, at least in guitar music, so we really want to fill that gap a little bit. Talking about real stuff, not talking about our feelings as much.
When you look back on this era of the band in five years, what do you hope it represents?
Skyler: I always think at any point in the band I hope it represents the thing before the other thing. I think the thing that really scares me is the idea of not being in a state of becoming and being there already. So I hope when I look back on it in five years I think we weren’t there yet but we were on the way there. Hopefully we’re still on the way there in five years but maybe a little bit further along the way!
Despite being a New York band, you guys seemed to initially take off here in the UK first, but now your audience seems to be more widespread. Do you notice big differences in the crowds depending on where you are playing?
Nico: I feel like the best shows are the bigger cities. In the US it is hard because it’s more spread out. Here in the UK, you can get to all the big cities within like 5 hours which is insane because 5 hours can’t even get you from one end of Ohio to the other. We did our first US headline tour in January and May and I think we were all so surprised, especially on the East Coast, the shows were packed and people had the merch and knew the lyrics. That was really fulfilling. Knowing that we can come back and have a fan base, it feels like it’s working.
Do you have a favourite location to play?
Skyler: I like playing in the Midwest of the US a lot; I like playing in Chicago and Detroit. And in Europe, I really like the north of England, I like Leeds a lot and Glasgow. I like playing in Berlin, I thought that was really cool, we played a really cool show in Milan as well.
Nico: We just played these two shows of our own in Spain and those both were amazing. We’d only opened there once before and the crowds were great, that was really cool, very fun.
Have there been any unexpected or surreal moments on tour that really stuck with you?
Skyler: Honestly it’s whenever people are singing our songs at all, that kind of blows my mind, like the last London show we played was like that.
Nico: The LA show was like that, our minds were blown because LA shows have notoriously for us been very muted crowds.
Skyler: and it wasn’t just old white guys – it’s way more fun to play for kids because it means something to them. You don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you but it’s also like let the kids have fun.
Nico: yeah that was cool because there were a lot of kids there where it was one of their first shows, if not their first show. They’re all dancing and moving and it was the most energized crowd we had in LA, so that was really awesome.
If you could do a show anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you want to play?
Nico: Japan
Skyler: Definitely Japan
Nico: It literally came up like 20 times yesterday so trying to manifest.
Skyler: I’d love to play there, and Australia.
As a band you guys seem to have a wide range of influences, both musically and in the arts more generally. Is there anything in particular that you have drawn inspiration from recently?
Skyler: I’d say with the art and visually I always really like old 80s punk zines a lot. My dad used to be a music journalist and he would collect them and as a kid I’d go through them a lot. I really like the hand drawn mixed media stuff so that’s a big inspiration for us. I also like a lot of photography; there’s this French photographer called Dolorès Marat who I’m a really big fan of and a lot of pictures on the album and on the album sleeves are inspired by her.
As far as music goes, it changes a lot. Starting out we were really into Sonic Youth and noisy New York stuff. I feel like each of us is different; Sam definitely more into singer songwriter like Elliot Smith and Bob Dylan and stuff like that, I like a lot of early punk stuff like The Birthday Party.
Nico: I guess I’ve had a big folk year.
Are there any collaborations you dream of, whether totally realistic or a bit out there?
Skyler: I’d really like to do a song with our friend Scarlett Rae in New York – she’s really good and her voice is really awesome.
Nico: I would love to do some fashion stuff, like a clothing collab. I don’t know who it would be though. Or some jewelry.
Skyler: Gucci look out!
What’s something you’ve never done as a band that you really want to try, whether that’s musically, visually or in terms of performance?
Nico: I don’t know why I was gonna say amusement parks. We always say that we’re gonna do a water park together.
Skyler: We’d love to go with the guys to a water park.
Nico: You know like school trips with all the grades but it’s all the bands.
Skyler: Or bungee jumping.
Lastly, our signature question – what is your favourite flavour crisps?
Skyler: When I’m in the UK I’ll do the prawn cocktail a lot and it’s crazy because I tried it at first and I thought it was horrible but then it got so addicting. But you can’t get them in the US, so if I’m in the US I’ll usually do anything dill pickle vibes.
Nico: The Japanese lays flavors are also insane. There’s some Bodegas in New York that carry those, I tried sweet and sour chicken feet and that honestly was probably the best chip I’ve ever had!
Watch the full interview: