The Starling Effect has unveiled their highly anticipated digital single, “A Strange Habit of Disappearing” b/w “Blueskiesgrey.” The Vancouver-based band is poised to make waves in the music scene once again.
But that’s not all! Prepare to mark your calendars for April 19th as the Starling Effect takes the stage at the Princeton Pub in Vancouver for what promises to be an unforgettable performance. With their infectious energy and captivating melodies, this is a show you won’t want to miss.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
We are the Starling Effect, a four-piece rock band from Vancouver. Our members are John Lucas — that’s me — on lead vocals and guitar, Greg Williams on keyboards and guitar, Alex Reed on bass, and Michael Nathanson on drums.
I sometimes like to joke that we play indie and alt-rock like the ’90s never ended, but there’s a bit more to us than that. If you can tell anything about a band by the artists they choose to cover on-stage or in the studio, then we might be the sum of the following parts: R.E.M., My Bloody Valentine, the Cure, the Church, and possibly a few others that I’m forgetting.
So, there are definitely healthy doses of shoegaze and post-punk in our sound. Possibly some psychedelia. Oddly enough, though, when we have asked our fans to tell us who they think we sound like, several people have said Rush, which does happen to be one of Michael’s all-time favourite bands, so I suppose there’s some prog in the mix, as well.
Tell us a bit about your recent release.
We had some pretty good momentum going in our first few years as a band, in spite of a couple of lineup changes. We were playing a decent number of local shows and writing a lot of songs. In 2019, we released our self-titled debut EP, which got us a bit of nice press. We followed that up with a cover of one of my favourite R.E.M. songs, “Old Man Kensey”, which we recorded for a tribute compilation and then posted online ourselves as a single.
That was in February of 2020. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what happened the following month. As it did with a lot of artists, COVID ground things to a halt for us for quite a while. We didn’t set foot on a stage for about two years, and the progress of our songwriting slowed down to a crawl.
We had a lot of pent-up creative energy, so when we finally did get around to recording again, we had some pretty definite ideas about what we wanted to achieve. We were going for a sound that could be described as lush and even dreamy, but we didn’t want to sacrifice the drive and immediacy that I feel we deliver in our live performances.
The new release is a single which, despite the fact that it’s a digital-only release, I think of as having an A-side and a B-side. The A-side is “A Strange Habit of Disappearing”, which is a pretty straight-up rock tune with what I think are some pretty strong hooks. The lyrics were inspired by a quirky habit I had as a kid; I would hide in the house somewhere and see how long it took for anyone to notice. It was like playing hide-and-seek, but without telling the seekers that they were playing. I’m sure this says something about the type of kid I was and the sort of adult I grew up to be, but that’s for someone else to figure out!
The B-side of the single is “Blueskiesgrey”. The best word I can use to describe it is “stately”, which is due in large part to Greg’s keyboard work, which layers a piano sound over ambient synth pads. Although my initial lyrical inspiration was to write a meditation on the world of online influencers, it ended up being more about the parts of our lives we willingly reveal to others and the parts that we keep hidden.
It just occurred to me that I write about hiding a lot. Again, I’m sure that says something about me, but I’m not sure what, exactly.
How do you typically go about the songwriting process? Do you have a specific method or creative routine that you follow?
It varies from song to song. Instrumentally, almost all of our songs have had their genesis with us jamming in the rehearsal space, usually on a riff or chord progression that arises spontaneously and that we all latch onto.
Sometimes I will sit at home by myself with an acoustic guitar and work on some aspect of a song, like a loose structure or the lyrics. But it’s not a Starling Effect song until everyone has contributed their own parts and we have bashed out an arrangement in the jam space. It’s very much a group effort.
Looking ahead, what are your plans for supporting this new release? Are there any upcoming tours, music videos, or additional content that fans can look forward to in connection with this project?
In the immediate future, we will be marking the release of the new songs with a show at the Princeton Pub in Vancouver on April 19. That will be with our friends in Hotel Empress and Pontiac.
And, yes, there is definitely additional content on the way. When we were at Little Red Sounds recording “Strange Habit” and “Blueskiesgrey”, we also laid down the bed tracks for two other songs. We are pretty excited to go back and finish those so everyone can hear them, because they each showcase aspects of our sound that expand upon the first two songs in interesting ways. We don’t have any dates confirmed, but my hope is that we will finish those up by the fall and release them before the end of the year.
Looking back on your musical career, is there a particular moment or accomplishment that you consider a turning point or a highlight?
For me, personally — not necessarily in the context of the Starling Effect — there have been a number of highlights, from landing in the national college-radio charts with several albums I made with my past bands (and released on our own label) to playing live on CBC television and being interviewed on Much Music back in the day.
As for the Starling Effect, I was pretty happy when the aforementioned R.E.M. tribute album we contributed to got a shout-out from the official R.E.M. Twitter account. As a life-long R.E.M. fan dating back to my early teens, that was a very validating moment for me.
Last but not least, it’s time to pay it forward, what upcoming band or artist would you recommend your fans check out?
I might be biased (okay, I’m definitely biased), but I’m going to go with Pontiac, the new project from David Cotton, who some readers might know from his long-running band Seven Nines and Tens. I have known Dave for several years, and in fact we have shared the stage and studio on several occasions as members of the extended Ludvico Treatment family.
With Seven Nines and Tens, Dave wove in threads of postrock, black metal, and shoegaze. Pontiac is arguably less experimental and leans more heavily toward the classic-rock end of things, but as heard on its debut EP, Hard Knox, this is music that is neither overly retrograde nor predictable.
Connect with The Starling Effect:
Bandcamp
Facebook
Twitter/ X