In her own words, Austen Starr is a hybrid monstrosity. She encompasses the persona of MTV’s Daria Morgendorffer, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and the rockstar ghost Ember McLain from Danny Phantom. She is a predictable enigma; self-aware, but powerless against her self-destructive tendencies. Even through all of that, she delivered as strong a debut album as can be.
“Each song came from personal places,” shares Starr. “Each has its own meaning that attaches to something personal to me. It’s more like a series of short stories than a novel with cohesive chapters. I try to write songs such that they each contain a full story; I suppose some threads connect between them, but the album itself isn’t meant to be a linear narrative. The songs mostly wrote themselves by virtue of being about situations I had to process.”
I Am the Enemy has been out for a couple of months now, and it has received comparisons to Avril Lavigne, Halestorm, The Warning, Paramore, and Evanescence; not a bad group to be a part of. While it took a while to get where they were going, Starr believes the momentum gained the most traction when she handed everything over to bassist and co-producer Chris Collier. As it got closer and closer to being finished, she says she became more anxious, but also more excited.
“It was a long process,” Starr admits. “I am the one who took forever to get anything done, because I was reluctant to sing and I get embarrassed in front of myself, even singing alone in an empty house. I also refused to give up on making the album; I’m trying to reconcile the part of me that doesn’t believe this could ever happen with the reality that it is happening.”
While the process may have been long, Starr had a lot of memories being made along the way. She believes “the best two weeks of her life” were the video shoots; six days in two weeks. From the energy to the reliability, and the fact that she was putting out music videos on an actual label, left her speechless.
“I was just playing dress-up and pretending to sing, exactly what I did when I was a tiny child with my Spice Girls microphone. Maybe that’s why the video shoots were my favorite moments; they were the grown-up version of that. It was fun and carefree, but with the help of a bunch of pros in the business.”
Powerhouse players came into the fold on this record in Collier, Joel Hoekstra, Steve Ferlazzo, and Chloe Lowery. It was a dream come true and bizarre on a number of levels to work with such legends in the scene. She wasn’t necessarily starstruck, but a little intimidated at first with the level of skill everyone brought to the table. Each and every person had something to offer, though, and Starr is quite content with how it all came out.
“Through the release of this album specifically, I learned that I still hold back on the emotional front to try and retain a level of ‘comfort’ for listeners. I’m most proud of the fact that despite my best attempts to self-sabotage, I actually got the album completed and released.”
Sure, Starr is a singer, but she views herself much more than that, also as a lyricist and performer; the whole package. With all the hoopla over creating a debut album, Starr handled it perfectly, between the final mixes, photoshoots for the cover shots, and even working on the graphic design with her mother. The next steps are finding a live band and opening up some shows, but she also has enough lyrics for her next album. Life can really come at you fast when you’re doing something you love.
“This is actually happening! It is happening at a significantly different point in my life than I originally envisioned. However, that just goes to show that things can happen when you least expect them to, even when you think you’ve missed your opportunity.”
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