INTERVIEW | Christian Gisborne and Velvet Starlings keeping music alive in quarantine

If you haven’t listened to any of Velvet Starling’s music yet, I don’t know why you hang around on this blog.

It’s no secret that I am obsessed with this band’s discography. And after way too many months of planning, I finally got the chance to sit down with Christian Gisborne of the Starlings to have a chat about lineup changes, forgotten songs, and quarantine livestreams during lockdown.

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[Madeline]: So, anyone who already knows who I am should who you are, but just in case, do you want to introduce yourself real quick?

[Christian]: Yeah, so I’m Christian, and we are the Velvet Starlings. The rest of Velvet Starlings could not be here right now, but they will be next time for sure! Velvet Starlings, we’re like – I love the 60s…I don’t know, I like the 90s, I like the 2000s, I like music from every genre. But Velvet Starlings, yeah we’re a rock ‘n roll band from Los Angeles. Very happy to be here rocking out with Madeline, Play Loud – as always – gotta play loud.

Even with the quarantine, you’re still playing with the split screen videos on YouTube and also on Float Down Stream. How’s that been working out lately?

Well, Foster and Hudson (who are bass and drums) – gonna be going over to their house in a couple of days and we’re gonna shoot some stuff. So no split screen there, but . . . as more time goes by I think I’m gonna do an acoustic record with video to go with it, that could be cool. . . . I mean, I like the split screen videos, they’re pretty fun, they just take forever to do, oh my gosh. The last one I did though, I played it like all one take – like 30 minutes the whole way through, and on drums I tried to play it without a clicker or anything and it ends up sounding kinda cool. It sounds really live, and it’s really bad sometimes when things are off time. (laughs)

So about Foster and Hudson, where’d you find them anyway?

Ooh, Foster and Hudson, oh man. We met at a Cage the Elephant show like a day after I came back from England, and my dad was wearing the mod target and Foster came up and was like, “Yo, dude! You guys like The Who?!” And I was like, “Yeah, of course!” And he says, “Dude, I have the same shirt at home!” And it’s so funny. We were just waiting in line, and then we saw them for a second and then Cage started. And they knew all the words to the entire new record! And I was like, “These guys know what’s up.” So you know, gotta get their Instagram and eventually saw them at Starcrawler, and I went to see Olivia Jean with Foster – that was like the last show before quarantine that I went to in March. Yeah, just been hanging out with them at shows and stuff, and then finally – when you find people whose favorite bands are Cage and White Stripes and The Who, it’s like, “H*ll yeah, we gotta be rocking with these two!” And bass and drums are rhythm section, and they’re brothers, so they’re like completely locked in with each other, so it works out.

So you have a son and dad dynamic going on, but you also have a brother and brother dynamic with the other side of the band. (laughs)

Yep! Exactly.

You did just finish recording your third album like a few days ago, and the second EP, Love Everything, Love Everyone… – that was recorded with just you on every instrument, right?

Except drums.

Okay, except drums, but yeah. Was the third album recorded with Foster and Hudson or is this just you again?

It’s a bit of half-… So, Hudson plays on two songs. I play on seven, and he plays on two (on bass). And then Foster plays all the drums on the entire record, and everything else is me, though. So it’s kind of like the exact same thing as the last one, except for Hudson is playing on “The Reckoning,” and Hudson’s playing on “Amazon Prime.”

So you do play all of the instruments – that’s already been established. And you do play guitar, everyone knows that, but you also play keyboard which you have played on Float Down Stream for The Doors, and also when you played “Break on Through” live at multiple shows.

Oh, man! So I started playing keyboard – I mean I started playing keyboard, that was the first instrument I ever played when I was…I think I was like five and my dad had this little mini Korg thing and I would mess around with it. The first song I learned was the solo to The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” and I never learned anything else. I went like three years and I could just play that, it was pretty lame.

You were one of those musicians, Christian.

Yeah, right? And then I got into guitar, and then I went back to keys because I got really into The Doors – Ray Manzarek. And then – I played the stuff on the record and everything, but live you gotta have a keyboard player. The keyboard player at the time, you know with the road it’s hard, same thing with the drummer. You know, going to different cities, and waking up super early, and doing radio interviews, and then going to play a show and then going to bed super late, and then getting in the car and being in the car for ten hours at a time – it’s just hard, and so they had to go. First, the keyboard player left, so I was like, oh man! We gotta have the keys riffs. So I would just sustain the key – the root note – and then play guitar over it, and then if it was a really important riff, I would play it and then just let the guitar feedback happen over it. It sorta just started working out. . . .

So you haven’t had a keyboard since . . . . Are you ever going to get another keyboard player, like is that on the list? ‘Cause “Rabbit and a Gun” and “Sold Down the River” are just not the same without the keyboard.

Exactly. So that’s the plan eventually. I have Foster on drums and Hudson on bass, we got them rocking. But eventually we want a fourth member who can not only sing, but when I’m playing keys, they’re on guitar, and then when there’s places to play keys, I walk up to it and then just switch it up. So when I’m playing one thing, they’re playing the other. That’s the goal. . . .

The “Karmic Lemonade” single came out, and everyone’s been writing articles about that and talking about Karmic Lemonade, but you also released “Emerald Isle” as the second track on that single online, and I don’t think it’s being talked about enough. Why exactly did you choose “Emerald Isle” as that second track?

Well, I don’t know. “Emerald Isle” – once you put out a record, and then a year goes by and you put out a single off the record you wanna… Basically, there’s not much more life, not much more that’s gonna be talked about on that record that we’re gonna be pushing. Obviously – hopefully – someone else one day goes on and gets something out of the record, but we’re not gonna be talking about that record anymore ’cause we’re onto the next record.

I’m still talking about the record, I don’t about you.

Yeah! (laughs) But the main thing for me – I wanna choose a song that would work with it that fits the aesthetic. Like I wouldn’t choose “No Soul to Save” to go with it, as it’s a whole different tone. Just the ideas of the song, they kind of clash. But something like “Emerald Isle” – beachy, California. Basically ’cause I never really talked about that song when it first came out, and I thought the water on the cover of the single would go nice. Maybe one day: 7″ “Karmic Lemonade” and “Emerald Isle.” One day.

I was curious – I don’t know if you’ve seen my video, but I alluded a lot of your lyrics [of Emerald Isle] to Greek mythology like Athena with the jewel rising up from the sea – goddess of love – and then the boat to the Underworld: “I thought I missed the boat” and “dancing with her ghost.”

(laughs)

How did you go from a drunk karaoke bar to a girl rising up from the sea and you falling in love?

Well, you gotta go to Catalina island. You gotta go see all the stuff – you gotta go to the El Galleon. It’s a real place, and it’s pretty awesome. You know, it’s obviously a fictional song, but some of it – it’s inspired on true events.

Did you actually meet a girl who came up from the sea and then you danced with her ghost?

No, no. That – yeah, that part didn’t exactly…

(laughs)

Yeah, there were no ghosts. But I don’t know, when we were there I stayed at a hotel with my brother and my dad and there was a hotel we stayed in the first night. And I forgot what – she was a famous actress who died there and apparently her ghost lives there in the hotel. And you know, when you have an experience and things happen, and then you’re writing a song about it – it could just be the littlest detail you remember, and you end up putting it just so you can look back ten years later and be like, “Ha! I remember that. I remember that hotel.”

You once mentioned that songs that are gonna be on the new record like “Bullfight,” “Amazon Prime” and “Cannonball” – you put them in the set when you were playing live so that you could have faster songs in your sets?

Yes. That’s true.

But lately when you go on livestreams, you’ve been playing things like “No Hard Feelings,” “I’ll Be There,” “Before My Time is Done,” and you’re specifically looking for songs that you never get to play live. Do you feel like the quarantine audience is more open to a variety rather than just hooks?

Ho ho ho!

Or is it just a chance that – “Oh yeah, not a lot of people are watching, so I can play what I want?”

Well, (laughs) that’s actually an awesome question. I don’t know, ’cause I feel like at a live thing or when you’re playing with the band, it’s gonna be harder to have an opportunity to play a song like “No Hard Feelings” compared to…you know, ’cause once we’re doing our record, once we’re pushing this record – we gotta play songs from this record. So we’re gonna be doing “Bullfight” and “Amazon Prime” at every show. And also part of it is, you know, the audience listening (the quarantine audience) – they’re gonna be listening to the songs like you said, a variety of stuff. Like acoustic things, you’re gonna play a completely different set of songs acoustically than you are live on stage. When you’re playing live on stage, you’ve gotta have “Amazon Prime” and all those louder ones ’cause people wanna move around. But if you’re playing a SoFar Sounds show, you’re gonna play something where there’s lyrics and telling a story or whatever it is. So would I do Emerald Isle if I’m playing at a big festival? No.

Why not?!

But would we do “Amazon Prime” at SoFar Sounds? Probably not! ‘Cause that could be a bit too jumpy and crazy.

So to this quarantine audience, is there anything we can look forward to immediately once you’re able to play live again?

Ho ho ho! Well, they won’t be a quarantine audience anymore! So, (laughs). Once live shows come back and everything, it’s gonna be amazing. It’s gonna be a real fun time to do music. Mark Geiger, he and Morris talking about how it’s gonna be a golden age…’cause everyone’s gone a year now without rocking out in person. And I know I’m gonna be going to every single show I can. I’m gonna waste all my money on concert tickets. (laughs)

I’ve still never been to a live concert that wasn’t Velvet Starlings and I want to go. (laughs)

Whoa! Man, you’ve got to go see Cage, or Jack White, or someone.

I do. But your new…your first album actually is coming out – it’s not an EP. The last two were EPs…

Yeah, it’s an album. Yep. Honestly, that’s the thing that’s also the thing that’s confusing. Foxygen’s record, that one is only eight songs and one of them’s like 50 seconds long. That’s basically a seven-song EP, but it’s considered an LP! Whereas ours, if we would’ve just had one more song, it could’ve been a record. . . . Do you like “Pacific Standard Time?”

I do like “Pacific Standard Time.”

Ok, cool.

What was the motivation behind that song, by the way?

(laughs) That’s funny! . . . You know, I was talking with my dad and we were just thinking, “Pacific Standard Time” – like you hear it so much and it makes you think of, you know, Pacific Ocean and things that happen on Pacific Standard Time. And then also, PST sounds like LSD, DNT, PCP – it sounds like I’m on Pacific Standard Time or like I’m on something like drugs. Like, “Duuude, I’m on PST!”

(laughs) If life ain’t getting you high…

. . . I don’t know, it’s kinda funny. To me, at least. “Pacific Standard Time” – I don’t know, it makes you think of California. Especially when you hear the song, “Pacific Standard Time.” That song is gonna be really beachy. And also, you know, growing up in California and watching way too much Spongebob Squarepants. Spongebob is a California kid’s show.

I hate Spongebob so much. (laughs)

Ah, ’cause you haven’t seen it. It’s the only reason.