Starcrawler

^{Photo by Autumn De Wilde}

Name, where are you from?
Austin Smith, Los Angeles, California.

Describe your style in three words?
Surfer Goth Moth.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?
I saw Willie Nelson at The Greek Theatre when I was around 14 or so. It was such a good show, all I remember was thinking how good of a showman Willie is and how much the entire Greek smelled like weed. It was a true showing of everyone being in that audience having the time of there life.

If you could be on the line up with any two bands in history?
Recently I went back to listen to a few of my fav bands from high school, I feel like playing with Sonic Youth and then A Tribe Called Quest, as different as those choices seem. I think in a cool juxtaposed way that would be a good line up.

Which subcultures have influenced you?
I was influenced a lot as a teenager by Norwegian Black Metal, then Slowly I became enamoured with American Hardcore. When I was 16-18 I was fixed on only listening to '90s hip hop and garage rock classics of the ’60s and ’90s. Slightly conflicting music cultures but I feel like they were mainly one and the same.

If you could spend an hour with anyone from history?
I mean there’s a lot of people outside of music that I’d want to meet, that I think would be fantastic conversationalists. It’s hard but I feel like I’d have to choose. Fela Kuti who was a Nigerian musician who fought for the rights of Africans through his music. A close choice for me would also be Thich Nhat Hanh.

Of all the venues you’ve played, which is your favourite?
There’s a venue in Los Angeles called the lodge in Highland Park. It’s not the best sounding or the best looking in any capacity but Starcrawler played a show there on March 31st 2018 that was crazy. We packed this 500 person venue after this long tour we were happy to be off of. The energy of the room and how excited the audience was to see us play and how happy we were to be there was pretty eye-opening. It was a moment where you look around and see how far you’ve come from just playing music in your bedroom. That night will stick with me for my life.

Your greatest unsung hero or heroine in music?
This one is tough, it’s hard to judge someone’s success to the masses. I believe a band like Hawkwind kind of gets unnoticed, everyone just thinks it’s the band Lemmy was in pre-Motörhead. Which is true but they were a true art band for that era. Maybe Sun Ra would be another choice, it’s cool to see artists twisting the arm of their generation for artistic expression.

Starcrawler's self-titled debut album catapulted them onto the world scene in early 2018 with their modern interpretation of West Coast alternative rock.

They recently announce their sophomore album 'Devour You', a record that dynamically captures the essence and aggression of their gloriously unhinged live shows. Set for release 11th October 2019 you can pre-order it at starcrawler.ffm.to/devouryou.