Meet Sofia Martins, lead singer of the enigmatic London band - Starsha Lee

    picture by Sofia Martins

What a pleasure it was to interview Sofia Martins from "your everyday high pitch iconoclast" - Starsha Lee. I saw them for the first time at Camden Rocks Festival a few years ago and I never forgot the performance they gave. Fronted by Sofia the band also consists of Crispin Gray on guitar which gives you a perfect mixture of sonic danger and arty performance and you will realize pretty quickly that there are no other bands like them.

Sofia is not afraid to experiment and she delivers some of the highest vocals you'll hear as well as some unique moves that draw you into their trance.

They have just released their first album in March this year so make sure you check them out, they have created their own style and sound merging Sofia's art into their music and live shows.

A must see !  

1 - You have just released your first album in March 2018. Could you tell me a bit more about what inspired the songs on Post-God Metaphysics ?

Well, Post-god Metaphysics is only a sketch, an introduction to Starsha Lee. I'm still searching for what Starsha Lee should sound like and at the moment I'm not sure  about our repertoire/style/etc. In some ways I think it's a total lack of style.  Also it's a mainly home made album, the majority of the tracks were sung in my bathroom with a blanket over me to try to muffle the sound because of neighbors... Of course I'm talking about the sound aspect of it, speaking about the meaning of it is a different context. 
Lyric and image wise it's not an introduction at all because all those lyrics are fragments of poems of mine written in Portuguese. I tore them apart in order to come out with blunt conlusions. The artwork is also part of my photography work - a self portrait.
Post-god Metaphysics is a union of various pieces that talk about the substitution of  sacredness into a subjective notion of sacredness, or a recovery. I'm not talking about religion, a god can be anything as long as it's your private shrine and it displays a cosmogony for you. This is why Post-god Metaphysics is written without a capital G. It's an album that talks about the voids and the graces of substituting minor-gods or beliefs. Meanwhile we're now at a recording studio for the first time recording an EP.

2 - There is something very mysterious about Starsha Lee in the way you promote yourself online . You don’t use personal posts like most bands do to document their musician life and that really makes you unique. Is it a conscious decision or are you just not into the whole social media mania ?

The internet is something that I struggle with very much. Mixing art and the  mundane is not a good idea in my opinion, it's like presenting a thesis and it's antithesis at the same time - ending up in a dangerous contradiction. Being an artist on the internet is a contradictio in adjecto. In other words metaphysics and breakfast pancakes do not seem to match very well to me... But even worse is that the internet is quite clearly damaging our capacity for respecting and socializing with others.  It presents itself as a place for meeting "new friends" and at first seems very innocent - by putting everybody in the world in contact with everybody else in the world - but the majority of this worldwide contact is creating hatred all over the place.  Just check any, and I mean any, YouTube content and you see endless amounts of rude comments and even death threats displayed!  People commit suicide over cyber-bullying - and this is not a myth but a reality!  This society is normalizing offensive behavior and I certainly do not want to be part of it. 
Also I'm never vocal if I dislike something on the internet because it so easily turns into a lack of basic manners and education, and that lack of boundaries only increases hate.  I even see musicians writing posts on facebook etc to say how terrible they think other musicians are - for everyone on the planet to read.  I really think this is disgraceful, low manners at best, and I will certainly not give my "like" to this kind of attitude.

Nevertheless, I can also see good things..... I do.

I'm very happy to see how animal rights have developed because of the internet. There's petitions everywhere, organised vegan meetings, marches etc, so there's good things that I can't deny. 
But there's an awful side of it that seems to be bigger.  And whilst I understand those who say the internet depends on how you use it, I still don't think you can control how you use it anymore...  it's a poisoned apple. 

                                                     Picture by Sofia Martins

3 - If you were to cover a song which one would you choose and why ?

I remember a song I  briefly learnt when I was in music school that remained in my mind as something I would love to change, to do a modern update of. The song is Scarlatti's "O Cessate di Piagarmi", and it's an adorable early opera that I would like one day to include in Starsha Lee's repertoire somehow. It has a tragic lyric but the tempo and phrasing are absolutely beautiful. Renata Tebaldi was glorious singing it.

4 - I love the energy that Sofia has on stage. You almost seem to be somewhere else , could you tell us more about your experience while you’re on stage and what state of mind you go through while performing ?

Stage for me is the place for metamorphosis, it's there where everything happens. It's a moment of unfolding yourself and, in that way, is quite private. It doesn't seem to be private of course, but it is, even knowing you're 'privately' together with people.

This is not easy to explain because we're talking about revealing an identity on stage.  Identity is a very complex concept because it's definition escapes from our very hands of understanding.  I don't think it's as straight forward as psychology or any other science tries to explain.  All sciences are made of updated facts and therefore the validity of those facts never lasts for long - they're paradigms.  As for the self, we have to go deeper and deeper into sensations and explore everything that seems to have our signature on it.  The self can be many selves - and I know a few actors that told me this is a reality and I believe them.  Butoh dance in Japan, for example, is a completely anti-straight-forward identity concept that displays the individual as multiple identities on stage.  You can grasp those multiple entities where you think your identity exists, it's free choice.  I grasp mine in memory, childhood memory, or a corpse memory.  Like the ancient theatre, or any tribe ritual, that used masks as accessories to go beyond reality or beyond the body (which means to grasp a character or a meaning), sometimes on stage I feel the need to bring items to help me to reach this "beyond".  Therefore the stage items are symbolic objects that help you in this process.  I normally use a few items on stage to get me to that other level of things.  I sew little family items on my stage clothes like bits of corpses to ask the memory to place me there, to help me remember why I'm there.  Because it's easy to forget and be distracted. Words are also great tools for this ritual but, because of the presence of the audience, that can be collapsed and sometimes destroyed. Unfortunately any work of art, or attempt of work of art, has always a reception and that reception is always a judgement that I don't want to be aware of.  Judgement are collateral happenings that have nothing to do with what I'm trying to do on stage.  Either a receptive reception or a repulsive reception, both are something I have to be disconnected from, the audience has to disappear in order for me to pass a message.  It's an alone/together principle, which in a way is no different from what we experience from socialization.  We're always inside of ourselves and what others are is an illusion - we never really know what they are.  It's very peculiar isn't it? I remember years ago saying to a musician friend of mine that I would like to perform at home without anybody watching and he was very surprised. I think Duchamp would like that, it's an anti-art principle!

I attempt to erase any contact with anything that distracts me so I wear sunglasses on stage to block out the distractions.  I don't wear them because I think they look great on me - it's just that's it's the only thing I could come up with to achieve the desired effect.

All of this is a spiritual training.

    Picture by Sofia Martins

5 - How do you write your lyrics ?

 My lyrics are a result of years of studying philosophy and writing poetry. I normally tear my poems into various parts and purposely work to sum up a conclusion from each one - and then the lyrics start to show up slowly. I probably have a different way of writing from an English speaking person because I'm Portuguese, so the process is transferring words of the maternal language into a different one. It's not easy because I love words and sometimes it's hard to replace them with different phonetics. I think lyrics have to be effective somehow.  My lyrical style (if I have one) is pretty much influenced by Nietzsche's aphorisms and Haiku poetry. That doesn't mean I'm always successful, but that's what I try to do. 

6 - Have you ever met any of your heroes and which ones would you like to meet that you haven’t met ?

 Yes, my father. He was a great jazz drummer and a brilliant photographer.  He's also an animal rights defender and has an extraordinary sense of fashion.  He's one of the few that spreads musicality even in his walking - an example to follow!

 7 - If you weren’t a musician what would you be ?

I'm not a musician. I collaborate with musicians, that's all.

 8 - Do you have any plans to tour Europe or anywhere else outside the U.K. ?

 Not at the moment, no.

 9 - Is there any bands that aren’t known in the mainstream that you have come across ?

Not off the top of my head right now.

10 - Where would you like to be at this time next year ?

Finally having the time to think of what I would like to do for my PHD and, also finally, finishing my new analog photography series - which I hope to exhibit.

Picture by Sofia Martins

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Check out the latest interview with Luke Griffiths and if you're in a band and want to be considered for an interview please email me : wendymcguiree@gmail.com

Meet Luke Griffiths, lead singer of the coolest band in town : FALSE HEADS

I had the pleasure to interview Luke Griffiths from one of the most promising band in the U.K. "FALSE HEADS".

I first saw the band live in Nambucca last March and I thought "those guys are exactly what's needed in today's music world and they are what everybody has been waiting for". Iggy Pop thinks so too and so does Danny Fields, former manager of the Ramones.

Their ascension now seems unstoppable as they have already played some memorable shows including at The Roundhouse in Camden. They also did some impressive live sessions for BBC Introducing and Radio X. They supported The Libertines and they were signed to 25 Hour Convenience Store which is owned by Libertines drummer Gary Powell. 

Everything is falling into place for them and it's only right. Their sound is like an electric riot and it will provide enough adrenaline to make you want to go to all their gigs and they also have something to say, so make sure you check them out as they are likely to become your new favorite band !

1 - You released your first EP in 2017 Gutter Press which is excellent. Could you tell me a bit more about what inspired the songs on this EP and do you have any plan for an album ?

Thank you very much! A lot of the songs are about personal things like depression, hatred, anger toward people we grew up with but a lot of it is this horrible social media age that we are all a part of. I'm a part of it too so I'm a hypocrite but politics and interaction in general has become horrific. This horrible demagoguery from both the left and right (and I say this as someone who is a true leftist) of black and white absolutism in a world that is extremely grey - both morally and politically. This horrible banning, censorship culture, both mainstream left and right politics want censorship and authoritarianism. It's fucking terrifying to me. There's no discourse, there's no discussion, it's an Orwellian nightmare, there's an actual rising of serious far right wingers and the left are attacking celebrities for wearing braids? I think there's only a few left like Maajid Nawaz who say anything that makes any sense in today's political world. And I think we miss people like Christopher Hitchens, free-thinkers who did not affiliate themselves with any political party and stood for what HE believed in, not for what someone else did. I didn't agree with everything the man said or believed in but I don't think I respect anyone more because he didn't give a fuck and stood for freedom of speech wherever he could. Individualism is dead. And we're all in the Gutter Press. I guess all those ideas and frustrated culminated in the idea of we're all apart of this horrible system now. I kinda wish I would havek kept it for the album title though. 

We do have plans for both. We're writing a lot of songs at the minute. There will be an EP before the album however.       

2 - I saw you live for the very first time at Nambucca in March this year and needless to say I was blown away. Luke, you seem to be a born performer and you reminded me of Craig Nicholls, Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain all in one in term of stage presence . Could you tell me a bit more about your background in term of performer, is it something that you always were attracted to as a kid or did you develop your stage presence later on ?

Again, thank you very much. Iggy Pop and Kurt Cobain especially were two big influences on my stage performance, and the perfomances grew wilder and wilder as we became a better band, I lost myself in the music more but also a big influence on it was Johnny Knoxville, even though that guy is famous for being a stupid cunt, he was cool as fuck and me and my friends did a lot a of those stunts as a kid so I sort of melded that into it as well. 

3 - I think it’s fair to say you are a buzz band and everyone who hasn’t seen you is excited to do so. Things seem to have gone so well so quickly for you which must be amazing . What I like about you guys is your down to earth attitude, no diva nonsense . Is it something that is important to you and do you think you’ll always stay true to the punk rock spirit ?

Ah well, it seems like but we've plugging away for about 3 years now and yeah we can feel that word of mouth buzz, which let me tell you (and Danny Fields told me this so you know it's true) no other press compares to word of mouth buzz and it doesn't, and finally it's happening. Well, we take our music very seriously but we don't take ourselves too seriously, we relentlessly rip the shit out of each other and have a very solid group of friends who keep us down to earth (but also very supportive) so I think that's done us a world of good. Yes, I think we will stay true to that, I mean listen, there's been lots of talk lately about punk bands and bands using their songs in adverts and brands etc but I think if you don't compromise your music and your attitude then all that shit is irrelevant. I mean there are degrees obviously, you won't be hearing Twentynothing in a Trump campaign but you get my point hahaha and I think it was some from Fat White Famiy who said 'the minute people stopped buying records was the minute people stopped having the right to complain about bands using their songs in adverts' and I agree wholeheartedly with that. But I don't think we will ever lose what is core to the band, no. 

4 - There are quite a few things coming up for you guys this year. Could you tell me what you are the most looking forward to and why ?

Supporting Queens of the Stone Age at Inmusic at Croatia on the mainstage. Just because he is an absolute legend. It feels like a bit like it's destined to be after we supported Josh Homme at a Peaceful Noise and I just think it will be spectacular. And our tour, because tour is just where we feel we should be at all times. 

5 - Your story is really fascinating, you were spotted by Danny Fields who was the Ramones manager. Are there any plans to go to America at some point ?

100 percent and we do have some serious support from over there. Sirius XM and KCRW, the legendary Rodney Bingenheimer and a lot of American fans and one of our managers if American too so there's been some talks and yeah, I think it will definitely happen at some point. 

6 - How did you guys meet and could you tell me a bit more about the writing process of your songs ?

We all went to the same school, Jake and Barney were in a band. I went off to uni to try and make a band but it didn't happen so I came back and called up Barney drunk needing a drummer and we had a jam and it clicked straight away and it went from there. I'll write the lyrics which take anywhere from 3 minutes to a year haha and I'll normally write the base of the song and then we will all put our different ideas into it and put it through the False Heads blender until we are all happy. Barney has wrote the base of a few songs too. But we're very much a 'band' as much as I write the majority of what we build things around, it wouldn't be anything without the other two. 

7 - What advice would you give to all the new bands out there ?

Be prepared to be told your shit, and if you can't be rejected and told your shit, you will not get anywhere. You have to be able to face rejection and pick yourself up because trust me it is fucking hard. 

8 - What would you be if you weren’t in a band ?

I honestly don't know. I loved acting at school. Maybe an actor. I love films and TV nearly as much as music so yeah, maybe that. 

9 - Are there any bands who aren’t known in the mainstream that you have come across and really liked ? 

Calva Louise, Blinders, Strange Bones, Gang, I thought the Surrenders were banging too. Concrete Caverns. 

10 - Have you ever met any of your heroes and which ones would you like to meet that you haven’t before ?

Josh Homme, Danny Fields and the Libertines are the ones I've met. 

Ones I want to meet? Maajid Nawaz, Thom Yorke and the rest are dead so that ain't happening unfortunately. 

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- 2 more interviews to come soon - check out the latest one with Nina Courson on my blog and don't hesitate to contact me if you want me to consider your band for an interview : wendymcguiree@gmail.com

Meet Nina Courson - singer of the iconic London band Healthy Junkies

I have the pleasure to do my first interview for this blog with Nina Courson from Healthy Junkies. I almost reviewed their first album on Artrocker in 2011 but someone else ended up doing it which was highly disappointing at the time.
They attracted my attention pretty much straight away and I remember seeing them at The Purple Turtle ( now Crowndale ) supporting the mighty Walter Lure and their set was mind blowing. They had something new and refreshing, an in your face type of attitude with an angry stage presence. They also had songs that would stay in your head and that's not something you experience that often when you go out to see unknown bands.
Healthy Junkies have now two more albums under their belt and they have developed a unique patchwork of sound and performance on stage, played all over the UK and also in France, Germany, Holland and Belgium.
Their following is growing consistently and so have they. A must see !

- 3 more interviews to come soon - don't hesitate to contact me if you want me to consider your band for an interview : wendymcguiree@gmail.com

1 - Box of Chaos is the last album you released in 2015. Are you releasing a new one soon and do you have a release date ?

Yes we are. It seems weird when you say we released our last one in 2015, it just doesn't feel like three years, I guess so much has happened in those three years that time has flied.
We do not have a release date yet but we're hoping to before the end of the year at least, we have really taken our time on this album including in the mixing process, so it's taken a bit longer than planned. But it's all coming together nicely. In the meantime we are releasing a single and a video at our Punk n Roll Rendez Vous Festival on 30th of June. The song we've chosen is not on our new album. We won one day for free in this recording studio in Essex a few months ago so we decided to record that track "No Control" which is a new one, that's why it hasn't been included on our album.

2 - What should we expect in term of directions in the sound of the new album ?

We never really sit down and make massive plans about how we're going to sound. And I think that kind of shows in our songs. We've just tried to capture what we've been doing live and  try to translate the chemistry between us all as a band. It's hard to describe, listen to the album and tell me what you think.

3 - I really liked your cover of  La vie en rose in the first album. Was it an obvious choice to cover Edith Piaf being french and is there any new cover on the horizon  ? 

I guess so, that song has been part of my life since I was so little. My granddad had a music box with La Vie en rose and I used that same music box for the intro of the song on the recording. I like to choose songs that mean something to me and at the same time I wouldn't want to choose something too obvious. I wouldn't want to do Smell like teen spirit let's say or any of my favorite bands even though we play Tourettes sometimes but it's more of a shambolic jam that becomes something completely different after 1 min. I like obscure choices of covers so you can make it your own and experiment on it, it's interesting that way. Boots are made for walking are probably one of the least obscure one we've chosen but we've trashed it up a bit. If you cover something in the same vein as your band you don't need to trash up anything so what's the point,  I guess it's more challenging and original to go for something different. We did find another song to cover, you wouldn't even know the band if I told you the name, and that's what's interesting... Kurt Cobain was actually a master in choosing covers from bands that no one has heard before, he kind of indirectly "taught" me that.

4 - I have noticed you are now on Cargo Records. Can you tell us a bit more about it ?

Cargo Records approached us before in 2013 when we released our second album "The Lost Refuge" and they were interested in working with us then. But at the time we were with the Manchester label STP Records and we also released Box of Chaos with them. As our time ended with STP we joined Cargo Records and they are going to release our new album as well as our next single.

            Pic by Stephen Collinge

5 - There seems to be more and more bands with girl singers in the scene you mix with. Would you say that you could have influenced some of them, which I think you have and what advice would you give to some of those new bands ?

I think everyone influences each other and gets inspiration from other performances. It's something that has always happened, even the greatest and the biggest were influenced by somebody else. I don't know if I have influenced anyone but I like to think I've inspired some young girls out there at some of my gigs or with my music and have hopefully helped free some of their inhibitions by not being afraid of being themselves... I think it's important to be inspired by others but it's also equally important to find your own way otherwise it's not inspiration any more it's pure plagiarism. People with their own ideas are always moving on anyway from one idea to the next and that's how you progress I guess.
My advice for any band would be to work at it by playing as many gigs as you can to start with so you can really get into your art but not take yourself too seriously because you could fall off at any time.

6 - I have always liked the anti manufactured approach of your band and you always seem to do everything yourself. Is it something that is important to you ?

Like I said earlier we never make any plans about our music so what comes out of it is everything but manufactured. I'm a non compromise type of person when it comes to my music, I wouldn't want to get signed if that meant writing songs to please crowds and we also want to be able to organize our own gig schedule.
And yeah we do everything ourselves pretty much. When we go on tour in Europe we book our own gigs, we know a few promoters and that's enough, we obviously research it a bit but we haven't felt the need to have a booking agent. You can do the work yourself and have better results. We also like to work as a team with some of the people who come to our gigs and sometimes help. We're kind of all in the same boat and it's a nice party atmosphere at the same time. At the end of the day as a musician you're nothing without the people.

7 - How do you write your lyrics ?

When I was a teenager I always used to write pages and pages of lyrics, now it doesn't happen like that. I like to write about some of the stuff I have lived through, my experience in London since I moved here, the things you see when you travel, it's all about life experience and having something to say. There are no set rules though. You could just write about a feeling. It's all about the moment in which you find yourself when you write and anything could come out of it. My memories are endless and my life experience pretty fucked up so I guess it's all good writing material.

                   Pic by Stephen Collinge

8 - What would you be if you weren't a musician ?

I'm not a musician I'm a performer. And I'd probably be acting or writing. Two other passions of mine. None of them are realistic, but that's me all over.

9 - What's the first two albums you ever bought ?

Live through this by Hole and Urban Hymns by The Verve. Totally different bands. I obviously played my Hole album a lot more than the other one. Obsessively in fact, I used to listen to it on repeat with headphones on as I was in bed at night and fall asleep before I suddenly get woken up in a panic by Courtney's screams, pretty mental.

10 - Have you ever met some of your heroes and if not which one would you like to meet ?

I met Courtney Love twice already so it's not bad going. The first time she was signing her book Dirty Blonde and I actually skipped my work to go to that, I didn't get fired which was a real shame since I hated the job. The second time was at a gig she did in London a few years back, I knew one of her roadies so I got to see her backstage and you could feel her presence from miles away. I also met Krist Novoselic when I was in Seattle and what a cool guy he was. I gave him one of my band CDs and he said he loved the name, it was a magic moment. We also met Rodney Bingenheimer while in L.A. and that was cool too, he's like the American John Peel.
But I guess meeting Dave Grohl would be pretty amazing, Kurt Cobain of course, Arthur Rimbaud who was in fact the first punk rocker and also L7, and Josh Homme, don't start me on this or I'll never finish.

Pic by Stephen Collinge