With the release of their debut album 'Scream From New York, NY', BEEN STELLAR discuss how they carved out their sound, the highs and lows of living in New York, and the cliquiness of the city's music scene. Check out our latest Hype playlist cover feature.

Words: Rebecca Kesteven.
Photos: Jennifer McCord.

"I've just checked the weather… and it's gonna be raining as soon as we land," laughs Nico Brunstein, bass player of Been Stellar. Zoom calling all the way from New York, the band are only a few days away from crossing the pond to embark on a short UK tour - and in classic British fashion, a discussion about the weather gets the conversational ball rolling. 

The band's debut album, 'Scream From New York, NY',  is imminent. Sonically swerving from the shoegazey sounds of their earlier stuff, the album captures the industrial, unrelenting sounds of New York City. It's a mish-mash of influences from Sonic Youth to Radiohead, with the overarching theme being what happens when language fails. "In a place like New York, you hear screams all the time," vocalist Sam Slocum explains. "Noises that in a 'normal place' you'd be alarmed by. But in New York, it's so prevalent and it's so chaotic that it's just kind of normal. Sometimes, you're walking down the street or laying in bed at night, and you hear a scream - whether that be a good scream, a bad scream, or what have you." This kind of subdued animosity, the eeriness of New York streets, was a huge inspiration. "It's like words failing, and then resorting to something more carnal, to let an expression out." 

"It feels like a million years ago that we were actually recording it," says guitarist Skyler St. Marx. "I feel like, in a lot of ways, I'm a different person to the person recording that album." For Been Stellar, 'Scream From New York, NY' was an overhaul in collaboration and mutual trust - the basis of which being the members' almost 10-year strong friendships. "The way we work together has a lot to do with our relationships as friends, being so comfortable with each other… It wasn't without its hiccups; there were totally moments where we were pulling our hair out, but we just kept our heads down and tried to mull over every detail. Sometimes, to a fault, we have a tendency to overthink stuff - but that can be a good thing, too." Knowing what the title of the album would be early in the process of writing, the band honed their focus on a couple of key themes and wrote around them. "It's not a concept record, really, but we knew we wanted to create a cohesive body of work," Slocum explains. 

The album was produced by Speedy Wunderground's Dan Carey, who the band say provided a peaceful - if not slightly chaotic - atmosphere in the studio. "He's one of my favourite people ever," says St. Marx. "He puts a lot of passion and focus into everything he does."