Alberta band Starpainter announce new album, share track “Summer in Your Mouth” via Neon Moon Records
Lethbridge, Alberta folk-rock band Starpainter recently shared a new single, “Summer in Your Mouth.” The track is the second single from their forthcoming full-length titled Rattlesnake Dream, to be released on June 2, 2023.
A self-produced and home-recorded track, “Summer in Your Mouth” was mixed by John Anderson (Andy Shauf, Aiden Knight) and mastered by Phillip Shaw Bova (Feist, Father John Misty). A song of longing, reflection, and nostalgia – Starpainter’s Joel Stretch shares the thought behind the song:
“The title of this song references an Al Purdy poem called ‘Transient’ about travelling across Canada by train as an adolescent. The opening lines are about crossing the prairies “so close to the violent sway of the fields it’s like running and running naked with the summer in your mouth.” I borrowed that line as a starting point for this song. ‘Summer in Your Mouth’ ended up taking on themes I didn’t originally set out to write about–it turned into a song about seasonal depression and trying to make it through the long dark cold prairie winter. This song is an ode to summer that I wrote in the dead of winter.”
Listen to “Summer in Your Mouth” below and learn more about Starpainted via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I’m Joel Stretch, singer/songwriter for a folk rock band called Starpainter from Lethbridge, AB. We’re gearing up for the release of a new full-length called Rattlesnake Dream out June 2nd on Neon Moon Records. We’ve got a couple of advance singles out already that you can stream wherever and a vinyl pre sale going on our website. Rattlesnake Dream is our second full-length, following up our debut Bury Me By My Family (2020) and an EP called Blood in the Snow (2021).
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
We self-produced Rattlesnake Dream at my house. It was a long and sometimes difficult process to self-record, but also very rewarding to create something on our own. Our guitar player Joel Gray engineered and did an incredible job. We got to collaborate with some seriously talented folks at the post-production stage who really helped this record sparkle and shine: Jon Anderson (Andy Shauf, Aiden Knight) mixed and Philip Shaw Bova (Feist, Father John Misty) mastered and both took these songs to new heights. While I was writing this album I kept having a dream that I was fighting a rattlesnake. I told the dream to a few people in Lethbridge and anyone I mentioned it to was like “oh yeah, I have that one too” — I thought it was funny and weird that so many of us are apparently out here having this same dream, so I wrote a tune describing the dream and we named the album after it.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
Inspiration can be unpredictable but I’d say it usually comes from being exposed to new things. A lot of the time this happens organically (life is change as they say) but sometimes if I’m in a rut I’ll purposefully seek out new experiences as a source of inspiration. Watching an experimental movie, going to an art gallery, listening to a genre of music I’m unfamiliar with, taking a drive down some roads I’ve never been down, going to a free talk at the university–honestly anything at all that’s outside of my week in/week out routines seems to help. Also: I have no concrete proof that this is true but I feel like I can only write good lyrics when I’m in the habit of reading. So I try to keep some good stuff on the go. A few of my favourite books I’ve read lately are The Truth About Stories by Thomas King and Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje. Musically I have a few evergreen influences that inspire me in sort of an ongoing way (Wilco, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Flying Burrito Brothers) but keeping things fresh and exploring new sounds (even/especially if they’re way outside of our band’s sound) keeps me inspired musically too.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
We have our first-ever Toronto show coming up on June 10th at The Wheatsheaf! It’s a part of Canadian Music Week. We’ve got a bunch of Alberta release shows this June that are going to be a lot of fun too. We’re touring with one of our absolute favourites Amy Nelson for those ones, so that’ll be a hoot for us and the shows should be good ones too. These are the dates:
June 2nd | Calgary, AB | The Pioneer
June 3rd | Lethbridge, AB | The Owl
June 9th | Toronto, ON | The Wheatsheaf Tavern
June 16th | Red Deer, AB | The Velvet Olive
June 17th | Edmonton, AB | The Aviary
June 30th-July 2nd | Cowley, AB | FrogFest
What’s your goal for 2023?
In my personal life I try to stick to the Four Rs: read, run, write, relax. Usually in that order if I have a day off! If I can hit those four most days I feel like I’m doing good. And of course, as a band, we want to play as much as we can and give this new record a good push. We’re really proud of these songs and we want people to hear them so we’re seeking out as many opportunities as we can to travel and play our songs.