Starsailor on their way to Cambridge
Next year, indie rockers Starsailor will celebrate their 25th anniversary with two special shows at Liverpool’s Tung Auditorium on 15 February – but before then, the popular quartet are heading to Cambridge.
The band’s autumn UK tour kicked off in Worthing last Friday (15 November) and they play the Cambridge Junction this Wednesday (20 November) – so there’s still time to get your tickets!
Formed in the North West of England around the turn of the century, the group boasts its original line-up: James Walsh (vocals/guitar), James ‘Stel’ Stelfox (bass), Ben Byrne (drums) and Barry Westhead (keyboards).
Wigan-born James Walsh, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in Raynes Park, near Wimbledon, says he and the others haven’t had much time to rehearse of late.
“Our rehearsals have been the soundchecks at the gigs that we’ve been doing in Greece, Turkey and Italy,” he explains.
“Because we’ve already done a little run of dates around the new album earlier in the year, we’re kind of road-ready – we’d already got our heads around playing those songs live.
“And then the older songs, it’s like riding a bike: you just sort of get back on. You’re a bit wobbly at first and then it all comes together…
“So it’s just been making sure the songs are tight in soundcheck, and I think the gigs we’ve just done across Europe have gone really well and got us in good shape for this run of UK dates that we’ve got coming up.”
The new album is titled Where the Wild Things Grow and it came out in March. James says the band will probably do “four or five” songs off it at the Cambridge show.
“It’s always a difficult balance,” he admits, “because we want to promote the new album, and we’re proud of the songs on it, but I appreciate that people are primarily coming to hear the older songs and hopefully pick up on a few of the newer ones along the way.
“I’ve been to gigs myself as a punter over the years and it can be a bit of an endurance when a band steps on stage and says ‘Right, we’re going to play the new album in its entirety’ – unless it’s completely hit the ground running and already become a massive record…
“The other way of going about it isn’t good either; you don’t want to just play one new song and be a kind of nostalgia act.
“So it’s just getting the balance right. I think four or five will be sufficient to give people a taste of it.”
Starsailor’s biggest hits include Alcoholic, Good Souls, Silence Is Easy, and Four to the Floor.
“Good Souls is always a good one,” replies James, 44, when asked which are his favourites to do live, “because it always sounds slightly different each night, because it’s that bit heavier…
“And Fever is a good one as well because it’s got a soulful sound to it, I think.
“That’s one of the songs that I feel still sounds quite contemporary, because I can hear [Irish singer-songwriter] Hozier’s kind of sound in that track. I think that one’s stood the test of time.”
Since the release of the new album, Starsailor have played a sold-out UK headline tour, a selection of major festivals including the Busan Rock Festival in South Korea, and performed as Blondie’s guests at The Piece Hall in Halifax.
As well as Greece, Turkey and Italy, the band also recently played Belgium and the Netherlands.
Do the band members socialise with each other when they’re not performing or recording together?
“Yeah, we do occasionally,” says James. “We’ve all got families now so we don’t get a huge amount of time to hang out together outside the band, because we’re obviously committed to spending that time when we’re not on the road with our families.
“We get days off when we’re touring and we always get together and go for a drink, or even some more cultured things, like going to the art gallery or the museums…
“We’re all keen football supporters as well so I’ll occasionally see Ben at Liverpool, but Stel supports Manchester United so we see a bit less of him…”
Regarding their celebratory gigs next year at the Tung Auditorium in Liverpool, Starsailor will play a matinee and an evening show at the state-of-the-art concert hall and will be accompanied by a string ensemble, conducted by Joe Duddell, who has worked with the likes of New Order, Elbow, and Richard Hawley.
“Earlier in the year we did a gig for the Trussell Trust, with James, and Joe Duddell, a string arranger, had set up a whole orchestra to accompany all the bands and performers that were playing,” recalls James, who notes that “increasing numbers of young people” have been coming to their gigs over the last few years.
“And we had such a good experience doing that, we got in touch with Joe about doing this gig in Liverpool. We felt that an orchestra would be a little bit out of our reach, so we talked about doing something slightly more low-key but still something special and a little bit different.
“Because I appreciate that a lot of people want to come and see the band and hear the songs completely in their original form and go down that sort of nostalgia road...
“But equally, I think there is an audience who are interested in listening to something a bit more special and different.”
Where the Wild Things Grow reached number two on the official Independent Albums Chart and was hailed by Jane Savidge, author of Lunch with the Wild Frontiers: A History of Britpop and Excess in 13 and a 1/2 Chapters, as “an album that has no right to be as good as it is”.
Come along and hear for yourself when Starsailor appear, without a string ensemble, at the Cambridge Junction (J1) on Wednesday (20 November).
Tickets, priced £30, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on the band, go to starsailor.band.
