Austen Starr is a reluctant Bostonian who’s apparently got a penchant for self-induced misery. A natural contrarian, she was raised in a household where being a musician was the last thing she was encouraged to do – So, of course, Austen recorded an album with the help of some heavy-hitters and it’s due for release via Frontiers Music Srl.
Setting the stage for its release is her debut single, ‘I Am The Enemy’, out now a music video, available to view below.
“I’m very excited and very grateful to be working with Frontiers,” Starr said. “Despite me being a brand-new artist, they were highly supportive of my vision and they gave me free reign in terms of artistic expression. It’s really, really cool of a label to do that for a debut. Thank you, Frontiers!”
Regarding the new single, she added: “’I Am The Enemy’ leans slightly into ‘pop,’ but has been a favourite of everyone involved in the project, and the timing seemed right for a summer release to be this upbeat and deceptively saccharine. The video intends to show the dichotomy that exists around my desire to live within this rockstar persona; one side is really tortured about it and the other is excited about it. The version of me that you see on the Viper Room stage is the culmination and resolution of those two parts.
While Starr considers herself to be an “anxious wreck,” she’s channelled her inner turmoil and contradictions into a compelling musical statement . She admits both to hating bad grammar and to using it in one of her own songs because it fits the meter. When she’s not rocking out on stage or recording, Austen is learning guitar, embracing “emo karaoke nights,” and forging ahead with a relentless, albeit trepidatious, determination to carve out her place in the music world.
As for those heavy-hitters on board for the recording, they’re uitaristJoel Hoekstra (Whitesnake, Revolution Saints, Iconic, Cher, Trans-Siberian Orchestra), on bass and drums Chris Collier (Mick Mars, Lita Ford), keyboardist Steve Ferlazzo (Hugo’s Voyage, Avril Lavigne) and background vocalist Chloe Lowery (Trans-Siberian Orchestra).
