Dave Starr

EVANESCENCE was London's idea to put into the mix. I have to admit that I don't know much about them, having heard only one or two songs. The singer Amy Lee has a great voice, I do know that. I have read a few negative remarks in reviews regarding the suggested EVANESCENCE comparison, but I am not worried about it. People will draw their own conclusions.

I wanted to establish myself as a song writer and guitar player, carve my own path as they say. I just did not want to play bass in VR for the rest of my life, there is so much more to me then that. And that's not a knock on VR at all, I am very proud of all the work I did in the band. We made some great albums, did some incredible tours, etc. It was 10 years of my life, and that is very special to me.

Some of these song ideas I had kicking around for years, but never did anything with them. London and I started talking about this in 2002 or 2003. That's when I first showed her some of my song ideas and we made some demos. It was not until I quit drinking in 2005 that I got real serious about playing guitar and doing this album.

She worked as a recording engineer on that CHASTAIN CD. She recorded all the bass tracks for me. London and I have actually known each other for about 22 years. We met through a mutual friend back in the day when I was in VR, around the Digital Dictator era. London has many qualities. She is an amazing singer, great lyric writer and she liked my song ideas! It's a bit hard to explain how this all came about. I had no idea what I was doing when we started this whole thing out, but whatever we did...it sure worked!

In the beginning, my idea was to write songs, play all the bass and rhythm guitars and get help from others for the lead guitar work. I talked to Geoff Thorpe, Mark McGee, Brad Gillis and a few others about helping me. They all said sure, no problem. It was not my intention to do all the guitars myself, but that's what I ended up doing. Once I quit drinking, I really seriously got into guitar playing and as time went by...I just got better and better to the point where I said to myself that I can do it all without any outside help. I think it's better this way. I played every note of guitar and bass on the CD, so it will sink or swim with my decision. I think I did a pretty damn good job, especially when you consider that I have been a serious guitar player for only 4 years! I had to get real good, real fast...and I did it somehow!

Thanks for the compliments! Everyone who knows me, thinks of me as the bass player from VR...but I hope to change that perception, and in a big way. So far, all the reviews I have read have been very positive. I never took any lessons over the last 4 years, I just sat in my home studio and practiced my ass off for hours every night.

IMO, there are only two kinds of music...Good and Bad. London and I wrote this album for ourselves, never targeting any type of listener or market. I suppose for some people it might not be heavy enough...and others might think it is too heavy. I just don't get caught up in that stuff. Anyone who likes great music, WILDESTARR should appeal to them.

This is really a question for London to answer. I did not do much lyric writing on this album. London did about 99% of it. I might help out with a word here or there, or make a suggestion to her, but that's about it. London writes great lyrics, so there is no real need for me to mess with her ideas, I might screw things up! The only song I sat down to write any lyrics for was In The World; it was an idea that came to me in a dream one night. I showed it to London and let her take if from there. I only had a few lines, she did most of the work. Like I said, I am not really much of a singer or lyric writer. My job in this band is to write music, and play the guitars and bass!

Thanks again. Much of the credit goes to London and our drummer Jim Hawthorne. Jim also co-produced and helped us mix the CD at his studio. London recorded all the vocals, bass, keyboards, and rhythm guitars at our own studio. We brought all those tracks to Jim, and he uploaded them at his studio. He did the drums there and I did the guitar solos there as well. London and Jim get all the recording credit, I came in and helped with the final mixing. I have made many great albums and worked with some very talented people over the years, and I think that was a big help.

I used 2 Les Pauls on the album for all the guitar tracks, a 1977 Gibson LP Custom and a 1977 Greco/Ibanez Jeff Beck Model LP. I wanted to be very old school with the guitars, since I am very traditional. I did not want to use any guitars with whammy bars. All of the vibrato/tremolo sounds are done with my left hand! And, I did not use a harmonizer on the solos. I played every note of all the guitars myself! Both guitars have EMG active pickups. I did not use any guitar or bass amps, everything was done going direct. For bass, I used a custom made 8-string. Its the same bass I used on the VR WarBall CD, and the latest CHASTAIN CD as well.

We did look around, but decided to release it on our own label instead. This way we control everything that goes on we know where all the money is!

Once again, I will pass this question to London. She did all the amazing artwork for the CD booklet. She did a great job! She also directed our first video for the title track Arrival, and designed our band website as well. She is multitalented... to say the least!

I would like to tour with WILDESTARR, but it depends on many things. Money for one. I have received a few tentative offers for playing festivals in Europe next year, but nothing is certain. WILDESTARR is a duo with just London and I, we will need to hire musicians to tour with us. Right now we are just concentrating on promoting the new album and looking for management and distribution. Lots going on at the moment.

In some ways I do feel like a kid again. It is very exciting right now to say the least. It is also a tremendous amount of work. I never went through anything like this with VR. Back then, I was the bass player and never worried or cared about anything else. That was my role in the band and I had record companies and management doing all the business for me. Now we are doing all this ourselves. And I have gone from being the bass player in VR to playing all the guitars and bass in WILDESTARR, writing songs, being the main guy, making lots of musical as well as business decisions. Many of these things are new to me, and challenging....but I love it.

Probably my sanity! It's a crazy life, but I have stuck it out for close to 30 years now. I never gave up or gave in. Most of my musician friends back then got frustrated and gave up playing after a short time, but I just kept going...and I'm still here!

Thanks Greg! We really appreciate your support. As we speak, new songs are being written for the next WILDESTARR album!

London Wilde

Thank you for the nice compliment! I have seen Leather in Chastain's video For Those Who Dare and she's a fantastic singer, but my vocal influences have always been men. Dio, Halford, Geoffe Tate and Carl Albert are my main vocal heroes. As a child I wanted to be an artist, a dancer or a violinist. My early love for music was evident in the fact that I drug my toy record player around with me everywhere I went in place of a teddy bear or blanket! But I never thought about singing seriously until I was a teen and heard Dio sing for the first time. At that moment I knew all I wanted to be was a singer, and I wanted to sound just like him, although at the time I didn't know how. I am not one of those people blessed with natural finesse, it took me many many years of hard work and practice. I am still practicing to be a better singer, the journey never ends.

I have always wondered why Dave agreed to let me be his vocalist, since at the time he didn't even know I sang! Maybe he was drunk, or maybe he thought I was cute...all I know is Dave was the first person who trusted me enough to really show what I could do in the context of a full album, and it motivated me to not disappoint. In the beginning, he gave me scratch guitar tracks of a song, and I wrote the lyrics and melodies over it, and gave it back to him. That song was The Chain which is Track 10 on the album. I think I surprised us both! My voice and Dave's guitar have that elusive chemistry together, and so WILDESTARR was officially born.

Dave writes the music, and I write the lyrics, vocal melodies and keyboard parts. We work on the arrangement together, and feed off each others ideas. Dave has the last say on his guitar/bass, the drums and keyboard parts, and I have the last say in my vocal parts, but we take each others input seriously. If Dave tells me something doesn't sound right in the vocals or keyboards, chances are he's right! Most of the time Dave has more than one variation for the guitar parts, and he will usually ask me which way I like best, and most of the time he will go with my suggestions. He trusts my opinion, and I trust his. We work together to make the overall song the best it can be.

Yes, I think the darkness, the sad beauty and dignity would most likely not exist on this record with a typical male vocal. I wanted to bring that femininity to the record, but still be powerful and in your face just like the guys. I am not good at trying to describe music in just a few words, it's like trying to describe a color to a blind person! I also grow weary of that trend, where thinking of clever catch phrases is a bands only hope to get attention. I can only describe what I think of this album in plain words. It's the familiar meets the unfamiliar. It's high octane 4 octave vocals you expect from the best male Power Metal bands, only sung by a female. It's intense, layered, 2 part harmony guitars, with interesting song structure, and memorable melodic lead solos. It has dark and Gothic undertones. It has awesome lyrics and song themes, and by the time you are done listening to it, you feel like you have been on some sort of journey, taken out of yourself for a little while. Like all good Metal music should, it makes you feel, it makes you think, and be somehow empowered in a new way through it all.

As a songwriting team, our music has gotten a bit more progressive over time. But our roots are in traditional American metal, and that will always be a part of our music.

Yes, I write the lyrics, and choose the subject matter for the songs. For me as a singer, I need total conviction and belief in what I am saying, so I like to say my own words. Dave had a few lyric ideas for In This World, which I built around. If I am stuck, sometimes I will ask Dave what he thinks, but mostly Dave just trusts my lyric writing. He is mostly listening for the melody and song structure. Actually, when the album came out with the lyrics printed in the booklet, Dave actually read them all the way through for the first time ha ha! He admitted he didn't always understand what I was saying on some of the lines, but after reading them, he thought they were really good.

Rose In The Dark, the opening track of the album, is about the German anti-war group of students called the White Rose Society, who after getting caught distributing anti war leaflets, were beheaded for treason by Hitler's third reich. The song story is told through brave young Sophie Scholls perspective, who's last words were your heads will fall as well. The track begins with the sound of the guitine lifting, and the voice of Sophie's convicted brother Hans shouting the famous line Long Live Freedom! in German, seconds before the guitine falls. As the song kicks in, you can hear the Guitine crank raising again for the next victim. The song ends with operatic singing of the lines from their last manifesto, considered to be the mantra of the society...We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!

Arrival is a sinister sci-fi fantasy, inspired by a strange occurrence I experienced upon waking one early morning. I could find no explanation for what had happened, and after some curious researching, I discovered there is a weapon in existence that can be deployed from the air called a tetanizer, that will send a beam to render those on the ground stunned and helpless. I thought that sounded very ominous, and had me thinking of what could happen if this weapon was in the wrong hands. My imagination took off with the implications, with a futuristic message of paranoia.

Touching God is a story about two war lords with a long history of bloodshed over the same land, who find themselves in the awkward position of being trapped side by side, and wounded in the frozen terrain. Each man facing death, wishes for last minute forgiveness, and they swear to end the conflict once their men discover and rescue them. I won't give away how it ends.

Rise is about second chances, about rising from the ashes, gathering your personal power and taking control of your life to reap all the rewards you deserve.

Down of the Sun was inspired by a friend I had who staged her own suicide for her family to find, by wearing a beautiful white dress, lighting candles, and placing herself upon her bed after taking pills. I wanted to send out a positive anti-suicide message especially for the young, that the sorrow is temporary. We all feel the pain of the struggle, at times I have also felt like giving up, but there was always something inside that cries to fight, and keep going. It's about having faith that things will eventually turn around. In my song, as in real life, she ends up living...

In This World is a comment about social class...the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. How we are taught to fear those who are different.

Generation Next Is a message of hope to the youth, that they have the power to change the future, and right the wrongs of today, and make a new tomorrow.

Nevermore is the only ballad on the record, and is very personal to me. This song was emotionally difficult for me to work on, it deals with the pain and loss of someone you love and miss so much, that your only wish is to cross over to the other side just to be with them. It also deals with the anger, self hatred and blame, for their demise. Remembering someone is the only way to keep them alive in this world, so it was important for me to put this on the record.

Voice In the Silence Is a tribute to the late great Carl Albert, original VICIOUS RUMORS Vocalist.

The Chain is about the cycle of violence, and continuous turnover in the balance of power that has been our history as long as humans have been on this earth.

Thanks! Yes, that was a conscious decision. I really like dynamic range in my music, I notice many current releases are so compressed that you cannot listen to it at high volume without tiring your ears. We wanted a more organic feel as well. To me you erase the personality when you over perfect things. As far as achieving our sound goals, I think Rose In The Dark achieved the sound I was shooting for best, it sounds so full warm and rich...but I am such a perfectionist, that it is hard to hear my own music without a mental list of all the minor flaws I would like to go back and fix!

The rhythm guitars, bass, vocals and keyboards were recorded at my studio on a Roland VS2480, and in Pro-Tools. I used a sansamp on the guitars, DI with Compression plugin for bass. Soundelux U99 microphone and DBX 586 mic pre. Then the raw tracks were brought over to Jim's studio and imported to Digital Performer for editing/effects/mixing and mastering. The drums and leads were also recorded at Jim's Studio. We used Line 6 gear for the lead guitars. Jim and I spent the lion's share of the time mixing, and Dave had final say over the mix.

Thank You, I am glad you like the graphics! I have a background in art, so I took over the duties of creating the logo for the band and the album artwork. I would show Dave several ideas, and he would pick his favorite ones, and I just worked on it until we both liked it. The album cover background is actually a screen shot from our video in post production now for our single Arrival. Most of the photos inside, and the back cover are also screen shots from the video. That made the most sense to me, to keep a common thread throughout the art. Each individual song in the booklet has additional art that expresses the themes for each song. I would say my art is influenced mostly by surrealism, fantasy/sci fi genres of film, and super hero comic books. I think you could probably say that about my music as well!

The Metal world today is very interesting, with so many variations and sub-genres kicking around to explore. I do like several genres of Metal, particularly power/symphonic and Black Metal. I like AFTER FOREVER, NIGHTWISH, TRISTANIA, DRAGONLORD, DIMMU BORGIR, to name a few. And yes, I do like EVANESCENSE, to the apparent dismay of some! Can't understand that, EVANESCENSE has one foot in the Metal doorway, and the music is so powerful and dark, and the vocals amazing. Maybe some are not familiar with their non-hits, less commercial material. I like good music that is powerful with great singing, and atmosphere, so my tastes do cross genres for sure. What I wanted to do with WILDESTARR was introduce the more modern elements with my traditional Metal tastes. Traditional heavy power Metal brought into the modern times, with the dark overtones, modern textures, walls of guitars, with sterling melodies and aggressive and intense Metal vocals. I knew from the start that pleasing my own unique tastes would not necessarily translate into popularity for the masses, but you have to be who you are as a musician, or it just isn't worth doing. I am grateful that Dave let me explore that part of our sound, and that he kept an open mind about it.

We appreciate the opportunity to discuss Arrival, and yes, you will be hearing from WILDESTARR again!