BEAU CASSIDY, frontman with Sydney outfit STARKY, shakes off those Elvis Costello comparisons once and for all on the band’s striking, self-titled, second album. BRETT COLLINGWOOD listens in.

Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre, the 2003 debut from Sydney quartet Starky, drew wide acclaim for its spunky Clash-meets-Costello-meets-‘60s-beat-group amalgam, but there was little hint that the group would, just three short years later, release an album so brimful of confidence, subtle, varied textures and assured songwriting as to render that promising first effort all but redundant. But Starky have done just that with their fittingly self-titled second album. Produced by British knob-twiddler Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild, Ash), the record combines Starky’s muscular rock punch with moody keys.

Adding keyboards may not seem like such a radical step, but one listen to the album proves that this is a very different Starky to the one that made Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre – the keyboard shadings lend a particularly dark undercurrent to frontman Beau Cassidy’s songs, which themselves come in far more variegated hues than those found on the debut. Aside from the last remaining vestiges of Cassidy’s Costello-esque, catch-in-the-throat vocal style still creeping in here and there, and his sure-handed way with a melody, there’s little else to tell you that the band made who made the first album also made the second.

And, in a way, they didn’t. Half the Mirror-era line-up had left before the recording of Starky, with only Cassidy, bassist Nick Neal, and new drummer Saul Foster present on the recording. “It was quite liberating,” Cassidy says of the three-piece set-up. “I know that I can be a bit of a control freak sometimes so it let me tighten my grip on the band!” Cassidy laughs as he says this, it should be pointed out. “Don’t let the other guys know!”

“I really knew how I wanted this record to sound,” he continues. “Me and the guys talked about it beforehand as well, so we went into the recording knowing what we really wanted. So I don’t think we lost out by losing a member anyway.”

At producer Eringa’s suggestion, the band decamped to Wales to record the album, setting up in an 18th-century Georgian mansion called Blaenpant. Rather Spinal Tap…

“Yeah totally,” Beau chuckles. “The place was incredible though, it wasn’t even made out of bricks, it was made out of stones stuck together and there were about 100 rooms, and servants’ quarters and all that. We had no television or phone or radio or any way of connecting to the outside world. There was a little town about a couple of kilometres away we could get groceries from and whatever but apart from that we were kind of just stuck there for three weeks in the middle of the countryside. Which was really cool; we didn’t have to think about anything apart from making the record.”

Did cabin fever set in at any stage?

“No, never, it was the greatest experience I have ever had,” Beau enthuses. “It was amazing, there were all kinds of animals on the farm and you could go out and play with the dog or you could go and throw a frisbee to a pig if you get bored.”

As for the more adventurous but cohesive sound of the record, Beau maintains the band was simply sick of “guitars, guitars guitars.”

“We just wanted to make something really big sonically. Our first record was so simple, it was just two guitars, drums, bass and vocals pretty much live and this time we wanted to explore what we could do with the songs. We are still a pop band at heart and always will be but we wanted to expand things a little bit, and from the records that we had known Dave had worked on we knew that he was somebody who could help do that kind of thing.

“We recorded our first record on such a small budget – we recorded the whole thing in a week and so there wasn’t much time for fussing around or doing much with it really. This time around we have a little bit more time; it was two years since our last record so I guess we have matured a bit and wanted to try something different.”

The new album is sure to throw some of the band’s detractors that have hitherto seen Starky as a competent but unremarkable retro-rock outfit whose influences were all too obvious.

“I think with our first album it was pretty obvious that we had our influences on our sleeve,” Beau admits, “and you can really hear where things are coming from and what we were listening to. This time when we were writing we were trying hard to not listen to anything at all, and let ideas come out of our own heads; rather than trying to rip off other bands and stuff like that. The Elvis Costello comparison didn’t really bother me – I can’t help the way my voice sounds and there are worse people to be compared to.

“But it is so important for us to keep changing and not wanting to do the same things over and over again. I am sure that people who liked the first one will like this one as well, it is still pretty melodic and that is what we are always going to be about.”

Even so, Beau can already feel the band’s sound changing again: “After we recorded this record we went back into the studio in Sydney and re-recorded the new single Hey Bang Bang and a couple of other songs as well. I think that the tracks are taking on a bit more of an ambient feel with a lot more space to it, and we are trying to get that lushness to it with just the four of us and really open it up – it was kind of a simplified way of how we made the record. So maybe we will strip things back again next time.”

Since the album’s completion, the band’s line-up has solidified with the addition of Johnny Wilson on guitar. The group have thus been faced with the prospect of recreating a keyboard-dominated album using only guitars, but Cassidy maintains they’re up to the challenge. “It means a lot of work with pedals and all of that, but it is pretty cool and exciting. We have some keys on a track [live] but the majority of the stuff is manipulated guitars. Johnny is a guitar effects nut, he has got this thing called the “Stairmaster” which is about two tiers worth of effects pedals and somehow he manages to replicate the album – but I am not exactly sure how!”


Starky play the Valley Fiesta on September 15. In the meantime you can prepare for the lads’ imminent arrival by learning every note of their new self-titled album, which is out now through Universal.
 

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