Stars Struck

There’s always something hugely attractive about bands who march happily out of step with everybody else. Take Stars, for instance. At a time when everybody wants to make lo-fi garage classics, they come up with Heart – an album of beautiful melodies and infectious, memorable songs. So not 2003.

“I guess it’s the punk thing to do right now”, explains their vocalist, the splendidly named Tarquill Campbell. “It just seems like the world needs it. We don’t really have much more to offer, I don’t know if we could sound like the Stooges even if we wanted to. It’s just what we ended up doing, we wanted to make a record that people could listen to when they were having their heart broken, shit like that. Or doing the dishes”.
The band had also taken the decision to make the somewhat unlikely move from New York to Montreal.
“New York is a big roaring animal and Montreal gave us the peace and quiet to make this sort of record,” says Campbell. “Also in terms of the space of being away from the scene. We were flat mates with Nick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs so we were in the heart of that shit, which I love, it’s all good stuff, but we just had so little to do with it. It didn’t feel like a place that was feeding what we’re trying to accomplish. So we decided to just fuck off. Montreal is so beautiful and forgotten about and I kind of think that’s what our music’s about as well. Loving The Smiths is not against the law in Canada, yet.”
I start to put it to Tarquill that they are a very Anglophile kind of band, when he interrupts.
“I’m an Anglo. I was born in Sheffield and lived there till I was eight.”
Now it all starts to make sense, for the Stars’ gorgeous melodies are infused with the kind of classical pop beauty that sprang from the likes of Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, ABC, New Order and the rest.
The ’80s were the last time when people were making records that had songs on that were meant to have hooks and were beautiful. You could listen to them anywhere and do anything to them. That’s such a huge part of what pop music should do for people. We don’t want to make records for trendy fuckers in Converse shoes; we want to make records for regular people.”

Heart is out now on Setanta