Stereo Embers The Podcast 0260: Steve French (Starclub)

“Hard To Get (ish)” This is the continued post-mortem of a band that I’ve explored over the course of several episodes of the show. Now, bands break up all the time—big deal. But a band that signed the most lucrative contract for a debut album in the history of Island Records and called it a day after only one record? Not so common. The album in question is Starclub’s 1993 self-titled album. When it hit shelves here in the US, it was all I listened to. Hard to Get, which you just heard, remains my favorite song of the 90s and back then I didn’t get how it wasn’t the #1 song in America. I still don’t. But the bigger question about Starclub is what the hell happened? These were childhood friends who shared a dream and a love of the Beatles and a clear vision for what they wanted for their band. How did they only put out one record? Well, I’ve been obsessing about this for years and the singer Owen Vyse is a close pal of mine and we’ve talked about it, we even did an episode where the band's bassist Julian Taylor appeared with Owen and I was pretty satisfied with the sonic autopsy, because it did provide an explanation about how things went down. But then the guitarist Steve French reached out and asked if he could have his say about the whole thing. And I said absolutely and you’re about to hear that chat. But does this finally put a pin in things or make them more complex? You tell me. What I’ll tell you is the mystery continues. Or does it? Maybe it all makes sense now. Let’s find out by continuing to piece together the story of Starclub. Stereo Embers The Podcast Twitter: @emberseditor Instagram: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com