Interviews

A Quick Chat With Stargroves

• 11th Jul 2014

We caught up with Teddy Watson, 23 year old front man of New York indie-pop newcomers Stargroves to talk about their new single ‘Westfjords’ featuring Oscar nominated Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine, Zombieland), find more about what it’s like to be on the radar of influential blogger Perez Hilton and unearth some guilty musical pleasures…

When we first started playing music…
Wow that must be like 3 years ago now. We weren’t called Stargroves, I don’t think we even had a name. We were also a pretty different band, only Bryan and I have been around since then. Charlie joined the band a year later, Brad and Max last year. It was a pretty different sound too, much more rock and roll than we are now.

If we had to choose a new name for the band it would be…
Maybe Player Piano, after the Kurt Vonnegut book. That was on my short list of band names. Also when I was a solo act I sometimes went by Elston Gunn, which was one of Bob Dylan’s old stage names.

We knew we were onto something when…
For me, it’s in the songwriting process. Every once in a while we’ll be testing out a new song and everything will just click. That’s when I feel like we’re really onto something.

Our biggest non-musical influences are…
For me Reykjavík. I wrote our first album there, it’s a great place to be creative.

We’re most proud of…
Our first record. It took a ton of time and effort but we couldn’t be happier with it.

Our ideal support slot would be…
Stars, but I can think of a hundred bands we would love to play live with.

Something we haven’t achieved yet which we’d like to is…
I’d love to go on a big tour. So far we’ve played a ton but it’s been mainly satellite shows. We’ll drive to a city, play a show and drive back to New York the next day. We love playing live and would love to do it on a bigger scale.

Our favourite place to hang out is…
Totto Ramen. Best ramen in the world.

We can’t stop listening to…
Recently: The Innocence Mission, Mates of State, Stars, Múm, Freelance Whales.

We’re not ashamed to admit that…
I’ve been known to blast Blink-182 in the van, and I may or may not know all the words to every song on Enema of the State.

Catch us next…
Our release party! It’s a free show on July 23rd at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC and everyone gets a free copy of the album!

Stargroves debut album is planned for release on 22 July 2014.