Been Stellar Tickets

New York City will always be the kind of place that will influence a band due to its storied history of guitar music. That's precisely the looming presence the city's latest indie upstarts Been Stellar felt after forming on the Lower East Side, having individually migrated to The Big Apple to study at NYU in 2017.

But the refreshing five-piece have since shed the shackles of former scenes and are ushering in a new era of re-energised indie rock that still carries the aroma of New York's sweaty city streets and frayed glamour.

With origins sprayed across North America and beyond (metro-Detroit, the Los Angeles coast, and Brazil by the way of Sydney, Australia), Been Stellar's singer Sam Slocum and guitarist Skyler St. Marx had been making music since their high school days back in Michigan. Lucking out and living together in college dorms, they both met guitarist Nando Dale and roommate Nico Brunstein who joined on bass, and after serendipitously recruiting drummer Laila Wayans at a local DIY show the lineup was complete. Then swiftly the band realised how stifled the city's scene was by its former glories.

Rather than risk leaning into New York's romanticised rock history - one that's been overshadowed for two decades by The Strokes and fellow Meet Me In The Bathroom-era artists - Been Stellar have since been on a journey to create something genuine that steers clear of the clichés.

Their shoegaze-tinged sound certainly draws from the angular art-punk of their heroes Sonic Youth and the city's elder statesmen such as Interpol and Television, but Been Stellar have made youthful exuberance their calling card.

Their 2020 debut single 'Fear Of Heights' pulsates with the wide-eyed gaze of discovering the iconic city's secrets, frequenting dingy dive bars, and scrambling from one corner of New York to another on the subway. Similarly, 'The Poets' picks at the threads of CBGBs' tapestry with its riotous chorus and scratchy chords.

With 'Kids 1995' – directly influenced by Larry Clark's controversial cult classic film – Been Stellar steadily reached the realisation that maybe New York really wasn't really very glamorous at all, and their newfound opinion of the city began to shape their songwriting. 

'My Honesty', the last single from their self-titled EP, indicated that they weren't quite as plucky as they once were, having experienced the fallout of the pandemic where it hit hardest, the stabbing guitar riffs and detached vocals delivering a moment of cathartic realism that painted New York as much as a curse as a blessing.

The band followed the EP with their 2024 debut full-length, Scream From New York, NY, delving further into their difficult relationship with their adopted home. Produced by Dan Carey (Wet Leg, Shame), the record was set for a June 2024 release with UK dates scheduled for November of that year.