Starsailor (band)
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Starsailor | |
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Background information | |
Origin | Warrington, Cheshire, England |
Genres | Alternative rock, post-Britpop |
Years active | 2000–2009, 2014–present |
Labels |
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Members |
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Website | www.starsailor.band |
Starsailor are an English
The band has released five studio albums, and have scored ten
Starsailor announced their reunion on 23 May 2014 and began performing worldwide. Good Souls: The Greatest Hits was released in September 2015, and featured two new songs. A fifth studio album All This Life was released in 2017.
History
Formation, signed by EMI (1999–2000)
Bassist James Stelfox and drummer Ben Byrne had been playing together in Warrington, Cheshire for a number of years. The band members met whilst studying a Music course at Wigan and Leigh College. When their regular singer fell ill, they recruited young Chorley singer and songwriter James Walsh from a school choir.
The band, then named Waterface, had tried a number of guitarists before they asked long-time friend Barry Westhead to join the band in 2000 on keyboards. He had been teaching judo and playing organ for a church near his home town. His arrival has been heralded as the most significant event in the band's formation. Walsh also took up the guitar, following frustration over not finding a musician right for the group. The band started to build up a reputation, and their name changed to Starsailor after the 1970 album Starsailor by Tim Buckley.
A journalist from NME saw a gig in 2000 and gave the band a glowing review. "One live encounter was enough to convince many sceptics that here was a band who were genuinely special, blessed with a singer whose voice thrummed like an emotional telegraph wire, that swerved the pitfalls of indie melancholia and were clearly in love with rock 'n' roll and all its possibilities." Their performance at the Glastonbury Festival added to the band's reputation and led to a bidding war amongst UK record companies.
A relative of one band member worked for EMI, and the label then signed them in 2000. In 2008, in a re-organisation, Starsailor were moved to Virgin Records, a division of EMI.[1]
Love Is Here, critical acclaim (2000–2002)
"Fever", the band's first single, was released in early 2001. The song, and its two B-Sides "Love Is Here" and "Coming Down" were cut from a demo recording session in mid-2000. All three tracks went on to feature on Starsailor's first album Love Is Here, but were re-recorded.
In March 2001 the band sold out its first UK Tour, which consisted of eleven dates in England. Their second single, "Good Souls", was released in April and featured a cover of Van Morrison's "The Way Young Lovers Do" as a B-Side. During this period, the band were recording their debut album in Rockfield Studios, Wales. By this time, the band were already previewing many of the album's tracks in their concerts, most notably "Poor Misguided Fool", "Lullaby" and "Way To Fall", which would appear as the ending theme of the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater in 2004. An acoustic version of "Alcoholic" appeared on a promotional CD for NME magazine earlier in 2001. The original release date for the album was August 2001.
Further live dates came supporting the
Their album Love Is Here reached number 2 in the UK album charts in October 2001, after receiving great critical acclaim. Combining a mix of acoustic guitar and Walsh's vocals, critics said the songs leave the "hairs on the back of your neck standing."[citation needed]
The year ended with the band winning the "Brightest New Hope" award at the NME Awards, and the release of their fourth single, "Lullaby", which reached number thirty-six. Some fans complained about the difficulty in obtaining copies of the single.
Peter Kay joined the band on stage at their 2002 Christmas Concert held in Warrington's Parr Hall.
Silence Is Easy (2002–2005)
For their second album,
The band co-produced seven of the other tracks with Danton Supple and former The Stone Roses and Radiohead producer John Leckie was brought in to oversee the recording of "Shark Food".
The first single was "
The album charted well, but sales were sluggish in comparison to the band's first album. The release dropped out of the Top 40 soon thereafter.
A full UK tour began in autumn 2003 shortly after the release of the album, culminating at London's Brixton Academy. The show featured the only performance before their American tour in 2006 of "Restless Heart", the closing track on the Silence Is Easy album. Mark Collins, from The Charlatans joined Starsailor for all dates between August 2003 to December 2004, playing additional and lead guitar.
On the Outside, return to form (2005–2007)
EMI allowed the band plenty of time to record their follow-up album; having targeted producer Rob Schnapf to produce it, the group relocated to Los Angeles to record. Five possible titles appeared; ("Faith, Hope, Love"/"Here I Go"/"Ashes" or "In the Crossfire"/"I Do Not Know"/"Counterfeit Life"), but the band settled for On the Outside, a statement of their position in the music industry. The sound was different from the previous two releases; it was far heavier than its predecessors. Starsailor had always received praise for their live sound, but the releases seemed "puny" in comparison, admitted Stelfox. The recording was all done to tape, and the band did not use editing software such as Pro Tools to "perfect" the recording. Byrne later remarked that his drum track on "White Light" took a long time to nail; highlighting the band's desire to make the record they were truly happy with.
Starsailor released their third album, On the Outside, in the UK on 17 October 2005 from which the first single from the album, "In the Crossfire" was taken. It was released by Artists Addiction Records in the USA on 22 August. Critics raved about the release, with many citing it as a return to form. Despite this, promotional appearances including a short live set and signing at London's HMV Oxford Street did not aid sales – the album charted at number 13.
Since September 2005, Richard Warren joined the band when playing live, aiding Walsh with additional guitar, vocals and also harmonica parts. Again, the band's UK tour ended at Brixton Academy. Following that, the band toured Europe, playing several dates in France, where "Four to the Floor" was a number one hit in 2004. Following the Paris concert on 3 April, Walsh and Warren were the DJ's at the after-show party.
The album has spawned three singles; "This Time" and "Keep Us Together" followed "In The Crossfire". Despite promoting the single with appearances in London and Leeds, "Keep Us Together" was the first single not to reach the UK Top 40. The promotional video for "This Time" appears to be a cultural reference to the film Run Lola Run, but may not be intentional.
Starsailor played numerous festivals in the Summer of 2006; most notably "Hyde Park Calling" on 1 July 2006, alongside
In the autumn of 2006, Starsailor toured North America, playing both headlining shows and supporting
Starsailor was named the replacement for Amy Winehouse as the support act for The Rolling Stones on the German leg of their tour. They were opening for the rock legends for the first time in Hamburg. Front man James Walsh told BBC 6 Music: "We heard on Sunday evening, our agent gave us a frantic call, and asked what we were doing this week, fortunately we had a week off!"
All the Plans, beginning of hiatus (2007–2009)
In 2007, Starsailor began recording demos for the follow-up to 2005's On the Outside.
Starsailor started to play in various gigs during the months recording their fourth album. James Walsh also played at several events in 2007, like the
Walsh and Stelfox played an unplugged set on 13 April 2007 in Switzerland with Mark Collins of The Charlatans.
Further support in Europe for
On 20 March 2008, front man James posted on the official Starsailor forum announcing the album had been completed.[3]
On 16 October 2008 it was officially confirmed that the new album would be called All the Plans and was to be released in March 2009.[4]
On 3 December, the
The album debuted at Number 26 in the UK Album Charts on 14 March 2009, while "Tell Me It's Not Over" spent one week in the UK Singles Chart, reaching No. 73, and peaking at No. 5 in the Belgian Charts, becoming Starsailor's most successful single in that country.
On 26 April 2009, the band performed at The Tavern pub in Wigan, as part of Channel 4 television's "Grassroot Gigs" series. They had never played a concert in the town before, and have played there only once since then.
Lead singer, James Walsh began to work on a solo project at the end of 2009. On 13 November 2009 it was officially announced by The Lancashire Evening Post that Starsailor was on hold and that James Walsh was concentrating on his solo career.[6]
Reunion, touring and Greatest Hits album (2014–2015)
Starsailor have reformed, playing support slots at Summer in the City festival in 10 and 11 July at Castlefield Bowl, headlined by
Starsailor's first
Starsailor played a second gig in Wigan in 2016, supported by a local band who shared the same management agency.
All This Life (2017–present)
In 2017, the band released "Listen To Your Heart", their first release in almost two years. Their fifth album, All This Life, was released on 1 September 2017 through the band's new record label, Cooking Vinyl. Flick of the Finger gave the album an overwhelmingly positive 5 star review, with the publication praising the song "Sunday Best", saying that 'the album is best summarised by this one melancholic and emotional track.'[10] The album entered the UK album chart at No. 23.
In December 2021, the band were to release an expanded 20th anniversary edition of their album Love Is Here, as well as going out on tour to support it. The release was delayed until January 2022 due to pressing delays of the vinyl edition. Due to a partial cancelation due to COVID-19, the band were eventually able to complete their delayed tour in September 2022, and gave a live debut to a new song recorded earlier in the year entitled Heavyweight.
October 2023 saw the band announce details of their sixth studio album, entitled Where The Wild Things Grow, with a release date of March 2024. A video for the title track was also released at the same time. In November 2023, Starsailor released a 20th anniversary of their album Silence Is Easy alongside a tour to promote the re-issue.
Charity
The band played the London Astoria on 4 and 8 February 2002. The first date was a concert in aid of Warchild, and also included Travis and Ryan Adams on the bill. The 8th saw the debut of "Born Again", which would eventually be released as a single. The concert is notable since the band were joined on stage by two backing singers and a cellist. James Walsh told NME.COM after the show that he thought the gig was "amazing, something really special" while bassist James Stelfox said it was "one of the greatest ever." This flirtation with these additional voices and a cello only lasted a brief period of time.
On 19 September 2008 Starsailor performed in the second edition of the "Stars of Europe" concert at Brussels in support of UNICEF, where they covered U2's single "All I Want Is You"[11]
On 20 May 2009, the band was named Hard Rock's "Philanthropic Artist of the Year" in recognition of the work they'd done in support of the Caron Keating Foundation, the AECC of Barcelona and Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, as well as having contributed an exclusive cover of Graham Nash's "Military Madness" to the World Hunger Year Serve3 charity album.
Band members
Current members
- James Walsh – guitar and lead vocals
- James Stelfox – bass
- Barry Westhead – keyboards
- Ben Byrne – drums
Session and touring members
- Mark Collins – guitar and vocals (2003–2004, 2006, 2014)
- Richard "Echoboy" Warren – guitar, vocals and harmonica (2005–2006)
- Pete Greenwood – guitar (2008–2009)
Discography
Studio albums
- Love Is Here (2001)
- Silence Is Easy (2003)
- On the Outside (2005)
- All the Plans (2009)
- All This Life (2017)
- Where the Wild Things Grow (2024)
References
- ^ "LIVE: V2001 FESTIVAL"[usurped]. Chart Attack, 24 August 2001. Review By Frank Walshe
- ^ "Summary of Starsailor news". Archived from the original on 1 February 2009. Retrieved 19 December 2008.
- ^ "'Starsailor on hold'". Lep.co.uk. Retrieved 6 December 2009.
- ^ "Starsailor Concert Setlists". Setlist.fm. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
- ^ "Starsailor". Songkick.com. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
- ^ "Starsailor Blog: Starsailor release "GOOD SOULS: THE GREATEST HITS" on September 18th on Parlophone". Starsailorvand.blogspot.com. 22 July 2015.
- ^ "Starsailor Make A Triumphant Return With Their Fifth Studio Album – 5* – Flick Of The Finger Magazine". Flick Of The Finger Magazine. 24 August 2017. Retrieved 1 September 2017.
- YouTube
- ^ "Hard Rock Award". Archived from the original on 14 February 2010. Retrieved 26 May 2009.