Starlight Theatre have earned a strong following in their home state of Queensland, and now they’re ready to show the rest of the country what they can do. I recently caught up with the band’s bass guitarist Josh Belz to chat about the band’s debut EP, True Love Stories Never Have Happy Endings, life on the road, and the power of the internet.
You’re currently touring all around the country. What’s the crowd response been like?
It’s been great. It’s always nice to go into the other states and play for our fans that aren’t in Brisbane. It’s always a blast catching up with friends and to have the chance to communicate our music to a different group of people. We play in Queensland and Northern New South Wales a far bit, so to go to places like Melbourne, Sydney and Newcastle it is always a nice change.
What do you love about performing live?
The spontaneity of it. You can plan a set and think you have everything organised, but when you’re playing live anything can happen. I love the vibe you get off the crowd and the realness of a live show. You’re really putting everything out there and saying “This is us, take it or leave it!”
I read that you would love your concerts to be an experience as opposed to just another rock show. How do you try to make that happen?
We try to create a real atmosphere with our songs and our sounds. We have really worked hard over the last few months trying to create something unique. Hopefully so when the crowd walks away, they’re saying ‘Wow, that was different’. We really want the night to be more than ‘we’re the band’, ‘you’re the crowd’.
Have you got any tour stories you can share with me?
Ha ha, so many. However an easy one is our drummer, Paul, has this thing that when we are on tour, he loves to sample Roadhouse Hot Boxes. Some of the crumbed sausages and hash browns look like they have been living in the box for days. Not recommended, but every tour he loves it. Weird right? But what can you do?
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Brisbane band Starlight Theatre caught my eye when I interviewed bassist Josh Belz way back in 2009, but they never quite managed to catch a break here. So they expanded their horizons last year and managed to kick some serious goals abroad. After spending seven of the last 12 months in London they’ve just inked a UK management deal. They’ve also managed to gain a bit of radio play across the United States, and if the footage I was watching on their website is any indication, they’ve got a lot of passionate fans.
14 October 2011 – The Uni Bar, Lismore (18+)