The Los Angeles band Starcrawler is starving. If you’ve ever seen the band live, then you know that these young punks are hungry and determined to take over. Lead by the striking and dynamic front person, Arrow de Wilde — who is the daughter of famed rock photographer Autumn de Wilde and musician Aaron Sperske — with guitarist and vocalist Henri Cash, drummer Austin Smith, and bassist Timothy Franco, the band is making a big impression on the indie rock scene all while being under the legal drinking age. With their sophomore effort, “Devour You,” the band has created an album that reaches for the ceiling while standing on its tippy-toes while trying to gain its balance on a step ladder. From start to end, it is all at once dangerous, thrilling and satisfying. You know, like how a great rock and roll album should be.
“We didn’t have that much time because we’ve been on tour for the past couple of years on our first record,” says Cash about the recording of the record. “So basically our first break we had to write a whole record. And so we pretty much just stuck together and see where we were at and after doing a bunch of demos and it’s kind of just what came out, all that constantly being gone and just wanting to perfect our live show too.”
But to strike that balance is a tricky thing for most artists. As a band you want your albums to live on their own as a document separate from your live show. But if you go with the intention of decimating your audience night after night, making an album that lives up to the live show can be a big mountain to climb for a band like Starcrawler. The band rips with efficiency onstage while de Wilde contorts and wails as if her life depends on it. That kind of ferocity is something you can’t necessarily bottle.
“I wouldn’t want a record to sound completely raw or live, you know?” says de Wilde, whose thrilling and sometimes menacing stage presence makes Starcrawler such a captivating force to behold up close and personal. “You want [a] record to sound like a record. But also I wouldn’t want it to sound too polished to where it’s not us anymore.”
The band was able to navigate these waters with a sort of aggressive grace on “Devour You.” In some cases, this is the most aggressive and heavy material that the young band has committed to tape yet. Songs like “Toy Teenager” and “Tank Top” perfectly capture the restless punk energy of bands like X and the Fastbacks. But the album also shows a considerable growth towards expanding the band’s sound, with touches of country-inspired songcraft on songs like “No More Pennies,” which finds them veering towards the dangerous and sentimental swagger of the Stones in their prime ‘70s cowboy-soul worship.
“It was interesting because when it came time to record, those were just like the demos that I made for the country-ish demos because we’d just been listening to a lot of country-ish bands. And I was actually worried that no one was going to like them because you know, it’s a bit different,” explains Cash with a laugh.
As the band has been constantly on the road, their unique sound and undeniable live show have attracted some attention from pretty high-profile fans like Elton John, Beck, Foo Fighters and Shirley Manson of Garbage. For such a young band, having such an upper-echelon group of fans from the rock community is something that de Wilde doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to.
“I can’t imagine ever just getting used to like, Mick Jagger, liking the album. No matter who it is, it’s never going to be on a first-name basis [laughs].”
Make sure to catch Starcrawler on tour this Fall.
