Starbrite, See Tonight

Among passing trends, the Starlite Desperation can’t shake their sound.
by Kate Petre

Ah artists! So often seen as society’s harbingers of cultural change and glorious heralds of ideas to come. They intuit the wax and wane of the times and harness that feeling into a medium, to present something that the rest of society was just beginning to think about. Unfortunately, some artists can also fly under the radar for so long that by the time they surface, their essence has been tapped and something once sacred and unique has turned trendy.

Such is the case with the Monterey-grown (now L.A.-based) band the Starlite Desperation. Campy name aside, the decade-old grungy garage band—slotted for a show this Sunday at the Echo—have conglomerated the rock ’n’ roll tricks of the modern era to produce a grimy, post-modern jambalaya that has become a definitive sound on the contemporary palette. Think anything with equal parts pop-rock structure and goth-punk growl. Or plain old piss ’n’ vinegar.

The band is composed of Dante Adrian as main warbler/strummer, Jeff Ehrenberg as the man banging the sticks, and the token girl bassist cum hometown friend, Hethur Suval, whose recent appointment to the position has brought the band’s business “back in the family again,” according to Adrian.

After all, there ain’t nothing like a girl from around the way.

“We’re just constantly trying to expand on an overwhelming impulse that we’ve had since the beginning.” Adrian explains of the group’s initial inspiration. “We weren’t really involved in a scene when we started…so we created our own world based on what we could find and what we could fantasize about.”

These active imaginations spawned a group that, despite much warping and moving about, has managed to maintain its original ethos—one on par with the post-grunge anti-conformist rock sound of the late ’90s and beyond. And as today’s rock aesthetic veers toward the over-produced pop sounds of the Killers or Panic! at the Disco, the Starlite Desperation maintains a stronghold on their rough origins.

Adrian sings with an aggressive tenor that often breaks into a dramatic rebel yell as the pounding drums and swiftly melodic bass lines carry most of the tune. This well-worn sound makes the band’s jams easy to pump your fist to, and fiercely fun to watch, but somehow smarter than most anthemic rock. It’s the perfect cure for the modern ennui heard in the likes of the Raconteurs or heady Zeppelin screechers Wolf Mother.

The rhythmic lyrics describe the usual metaphoric scenes from childhood or imagination. “I never write lyrics in one sitting,” says Adrian. “It’s a process of something being revealed to me. Some lines are presented to me as gifts, in less than a single moment, while others take a lot of digging.” Much like his poetic and equally mystical namesake, Dante Adrian uses his words as instruments of sound and feeling—a sort of musical glossolalia (the mystical linguistic cure from the biblical Tower of Babel).

The band cites influences like Brit-standard Joy Division, psychedelic proto-punks like the 13th Floor Elevators, and über punks the Fall and the Misfits, but there’s also an overwhelming resurrection of Morrisonian proportions—the Moz, sans deep voice and organ heaviness. Starlite Desperation also shoots us full of dramatic vocals, spooky sound effects and sexy come-hither tone, though with a high-pitched yowl harkening back to the head-metal of the early ’90s.

It was during this decade, at the time of the band’s inception, that the original members attempted to unearth in rock a then-unorthodox sound. In listening to minimalist groups such as the Cramps, Pussy Galore and early White Stripes, the bass-less trio formed with Adrian, Ehrenberg and a third friend, Dana Lacono, on second guitar. “We wanted to see what we could do without [a bass],” explains Adrian. “And because nobody in the band wanted to play bass.” Sometimes inspiration comes from lack of resources. The experiment ended sometime in 1998 when Lacono dropped out and another willing friend agreed to play bass.

Now, several bass players later, the band mainly concentrates on producing the music they feel they should. “We’ve been making the same kind of music, whatever you want to call it, for 10 years now. We aren’t trying to put our two cents in on a passing trend,” Adrian explains, in response to being pegged as a glam/garage-type group. They place themselves out of the view of the style-setting kaleidoscope that twirls around Los Angeles, Nashville, and even places like Detroit, where the band spent a brief time in 1999. Instead of trying something new, they stay the course and cannot be deterred.

While the band’s 2000 sophomore record, Go Kill Mice, bursts with streams of consciousness, their newest album, Take It Personally—which drops this year from Capitol Records—strays from this style. The more sober sound of this new album might be a result of the relationship with the big boys at Capitol, but since finishing Take It Personally, they have become free agents and have another full-length record sitting in the attic, waiting for the right label to come and dig it out.

“We’ve tried to stop playing this music more than once. But we can’t. Whatever is inside of you has to come out, or you get cancer.” LAA

The Starlight Desperation plays Sept. 3 at the Echo .