Saturday 18 September 2010

Rhia Calvert interviews Dear Superstar's Micky Satiar and Chris Hodgson

Rhia Calvert (17) is a young lady from Holbrook with an extremely bright future ahead of her. She is about to go into her second year at Derby College, where she is studying Media. Rhia has a huge passion for music and spends a lot of her spare time at gigs. She loves photography and writing and hopes to become a professional photographer. Rhia contacted All Things Local as she wants to gain experience in the media and see some of her work in print. We are only too happy to oblige and we wish Rhia all the very best for the future.

Rhia will be interviewing bands and reporting back in forthcoming issues of All Things Local. If you’re a local band and would welcome some exposure within this magazine then email karyn@allthingslocal.co.uk

Five minutes with … Dear Superstar

They're loud, they're wild and they rock. Dear Superstar are ready to tear up the scene and cause a big rock 'n' roll riot. I caught up with front man Micky Satiar and bassist Chris Hodgson backstage at Nottingham's Rock City on the opening night of their UK headline tour.

Dear Superstar front man Micky Satiar
To anyone who hasn't heard Dear Superstar before, how would you describe your sound?
Micky: We just play music as loud as we can and make as much noise as we can; it's just rock 'n' roll. Simple as that really.

Who are your biggest musical influences?
Micky: Kiss, Motley Crue. Everything from the whole 80's sunset strip vibe through to modern bands such as Avenged Sevenfold and bands that we've toured with such as Papa Roach. To be honest anyone who's played rock 'n' roll has inspired us, obviously we listen to a lot of music and we always learn something from that - be it the worst or the greatest song in the world.

Chris: Any music with a bit of soul really.

How would you describe 2010 so far?
Micky: Wicked really, we've been spending a lot of time in the studio. We started off the year touring with Heaven's Basement which was amazing and it's getting to the point now where we released our second album two years ago so we need to get the third one written and recorded, so we've been drilling away at that; writing song after song, throwing it in the bin then re-writing it and just demo-ing as much as we can. And that's brought us up to now really where we're back on the road.

What was touring with Heaven's Basement like?
Micky: Amazing, we've toured together a lot like back with Buckcherry and we've done shows together previously so we've always had that friendship. We're like brothers really, it's got to the point now where you don't know where Dear Superstar starts and Heaven's Basement ends.
Chris: It's two bands that have completely integrated, by the end of the last tour with them it wasn't like two different bands.
Micky: It's so easy to go out on tour with bands that have egos or think they're above others but Heaven's Basement just aren't like that, we've got such similar personalities. Plus they like to drink, that's good for us because we need drinking partners!

Are you excited about this upcoming tour?
Micky: Yeah, massively. For us we haven't done a headline tour properly for two years, we've just supported bigger bands which is great and it's been an amazing ride, but it's something really endearing, exciting and worrying as well when you're going out on a headline tour especially playing venues like this which is so iconic, it's like - are people going to turn up? It's such a high expectation but zero knowledge about what's around the corner.
Chris: It's exciting really, when you play with a bigger band you know they're going to pull a big crowd, but when you're on your own tour it's exciting to see how many people turn up just to see you.

What are the best and worst parts of being on tour?
Micky: There is no worst part, we've worked so hard to get where we are and to then moan about being on the road just seems stupid to me.
Chris: I think once you get your head around the idea of touring it's just about freedom. I don't see any bad points to it at all, it maybe takes a while to get used to things like living out of a suitcase but it's freedom. You don't have to worry about anything.
Micky: On a completely random note, clean socks are the best thing about being on tour, there's just nothing like it.
Chris: So I guess the worst part would be having no clean socks.

What's been the best moment of being in Dear Superstar so far?
Micky: It's a hard one to answer because every time we achieve something great and think it's the best moment of our lives, something else even more epic happens. I guess playing at Download Festival, we'd always been going there to watch other bands and to be able to go there and grace the stage was just a massive personal achievement for all of us.

You've played a lot of festivals and toured with a lot of bands, have you ever felt totally star struck?
Micky: When we were at Download Festival we met Joe Elliot from Def Leppard and they were the band that first got me into rock 'n' roll, so when sharing a beer with them in the back of my head I was like 'oh my god this is the best thing in the world' but I was trying to act really cool. We've also partied with Tommy Lee from Motley Crue a couple of times and you kinda think 'no way, that's Tommy Lee!'

You've recorded two studio albums, would you say your second album 'Heartless' was more personal to you?
Micky: Yeah because to be honest we don't see our first album as an album really because Chris wasn't in the band and we just begged, stole and borrowed a thousand pounds to record an album, and a thousand pounds doesn't go far when you're recording. But with 'Heartless' we had time to go into a studio and write our songs and make it the best we could at that point in our lives. But we recorded 'Heartless' two years ago and in some ways we've grown out of it and we've experienced so much since so we're really eager to go and record our third album.

How would you describe the recording process?
Chris: Amazing!
Micky: Yeah, we partied every night but on the business side of things, I guess there was quite a bit of pressure on us. There were some lows points and it can be frustrating, I did over two hundred takes of vocals which was stressful, but overall it was an amazing experience for us.

Do you think recording brings you closer as a band?
Chris: For us it does, I think some bands maybe get annoyed when they're in each other's company but we all just have a good time together. If one of us has got any problems we all just pick each other up and everybody just looks after each other and that makes you closer.
Micky: Recording and touring really does separate the men from the boys. Since we started all those years ago we've seen so many bands come and go because they can't hack life on the road or being in the studio or being away from home. But we don't want to go home, this is what we genuinely live for. We're not rich and we drive around in a rubbish van but it's not about that, it’s about doing what your heart tells you.

What do you have lined up for the rest of the year?
Micky: We finish this UK tour then we go to Belgium, through to Switzerland to play Sonisphere Festival with Metallica. Then we've got European shows lined up and then we tour with Papa Roach to play military bases in Germany and Italy; playing to US troops who are serving out there so that will be an amazing experience. Then I guess in autumn we'll be recording the album and maybe we'll get time to tour again in between that.

Rhia

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