Roll of the Dice is a short interview format with a variable amount of questions. A pair of dice is rolled and the total, between 2 and 12, is the amount of questions we can ask. All questions are given to the interviewee(s) at once, and no follow-ups are allowed. The interview may be lightly edited for content and clarity.
Midwest-emo trio Stars Hollow announced their new upcoming EP, In The Flowerbed will be coming on 5 April from Acrobat Unstable Records. To celebrate the album announcement, the three piece premiered the new song “Acne Scars” below. TGEFM was lucky enough to sit down with the band recently for a Roll of the Dice interview to discuss the new music, how country music helped create this record and what’s in store for the future.
Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Congrats on the upcoming release of “In The Flowerbed.” What can you tell us about Stars Hollow and your sound for readers just discovering the band?
Thank you! Super grateful for the opportunity to talk about the EP.
We’re a midwest emo band with bits of pop punk and posthardcore influence. We also have a lot of hyper pop/breakcore influence that we try to work into our sound in small ways.
What album or band or significant singles made you go “Yeah, this is what I want to do” Not just an influence but who or what was the catalyst?
Oof, that’s a hard one. If we go way back, I remember seeing the music video for “Note to Self” by From First to Last on Fuse. That was one of the first times it clicked for me that music was something I wanted to do. I became a huge From First to Last fan after that, and the song still holds up so well to this day. I’ve always thought it’d be cool if music I’m part of writing has a similar effect on people.
If we’re talking more recently, I think The Hotelier‘s Home, Like Noplace Is There hit me harder than any album I’ve ever heard when it was released. I watched YouTube videos of their live sets from around that time pretty often. Just packing out a small venue where everyone knows the words to such genuine songs. The dream.
What have been some of the most memorable moments or experiences with the band so far? What’s been the most unexpected? The weirdest?
I think one of the most memorable moments was playing at a pizza shop in Portland on tour with Origami Angel in 2019. Someone living nearby was threatening to burn the place down if we didn’t stop playing. We played one more song, and everyone went so hard for us. Pictures from that set are still some of my favorites.
I’d say the most unexpected would be the fact that we still exist after member changes. Our first drummer left the band early on, our first bass player left after we released our song “Tadpole.” Iowa doesn’t exactly have a plethora of musicians who are into the type of music we play. I’ve been fortunate to have Em and Andrew in the band since then. Also, shouts out Louie, our fourth live member.
The weirdest is probably the time we were starting a tour with the band Charmer. We played at a house in Wisconsin, and one of the guys living there had a Confederate flag. Someone stole it, and the guy was threatening to kill people if they didn’t tell him where his flag was. This was happening while a two-piece deathcore band, consisting of only drums and bass, was playing their set.
We’ve all got a few, what is your biggest regret? A gig you turned down, advice you didn’t take, what one thing do you wish you handled differently as a musician?
I think I regret not speaking up more about creative ideas in the studio. I tend to feel like we need to be done as fast as possible to avoid being a nuisance. I listen back on certain releases of ours and still hear the ideas I had in my head that I never advocated for. This especially applies to I Want to Live My Life. We had just gotten back from Japan, COVID was in full swing, and I think I had kind of lost a lot of hope and drive. I wanted to hit it hard and tour as much as we could on that record. Once that was taken away, I think I fell deeper into that “just get it done” mindset. I still love that record and am extremely proud of it, but I’ll always feel like it could have been so much more.
Let’s talk a little bit about how this EP came into existence. What was going on at the time that helped kickstart the songwriting process? How did the process on this track differ from 2021’s “I Want To Live My Life”?
I honestly didn’t plan to write any other Stars Hollow songs. I was so disenchanted with music for a while, and I had started grad school. It just didn’t feel right anymore. I had two songs written that I wrote right after IWTLML, so we were just sitting on those. One day our drummer called me up and asked me to come listen to this country band he had joined. They needed another guitar player. I was super impressed with it, so I joined the band, and I think playing in a band where I wasn’t writing the songs helped to repair my relationship with music. I had kind of forgotten that it could be fun. So I just started writing gradually. “Acne Scars” was originally going to be for another band I was starting with friends, but we were all really busy, so I reworked it into a Stars Hollow song. The first song and last song were both riff ideas I was messing with for months, so I decided one day to just sit down and finish them.
We wrote the songs a little differently this time in some senses. For example, we wrote the drums in the studio as we were tracking them. It gave us the freedom to kind of discuss parts while being able to hear things more clearly than if we were in a room playing the songs. We recorded at Carousel Studios in Des Moines this time around, and living close to the studio was also a huge help when doing vocals. I was able to spread things out over a couple of days so that my voice could recover.
Huge shouts out to Alex Arthur for the country band awakening and for recording In the Flower Bed.
One of our obligatory questions in these interviews also tends to be the one I have found most important on a personal level. Who are some bands on your radar that TGEFM readers may not know about, but you think they should?
The scene in Wisconsin is great right now, and I’ve come to admire a lot of those bands. Excuse Me, Who Are You?, Tiny Voices, Endswell, and Bug Moment are really good bands that have helped to develop an amazing music scene there. Thumbs Up Records also just has an all-around banger lineup of bands.
Obligatory Stress Fractures mention because I love Marty and they write banger riffs.
I also think everyone should listen to FlowerBoyDeMii.
Now that the world has its hands on the single, what’s next for Stars Hollow?
Shows! We haven’t played much over the last couple of years, but we have a ton of fests lined up for the year. I’m also going to keep writing music at a pace that’s dictated by my level of inspiration, and I hope that will lead to new music sooner rather than later.
What do you wish I asked about or that you had more of an opportunity to speak about during this interview?
Nothing I can think of! Thank you!
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
