Artist Profile: Star Card

Photo by Luke Ivanovich

Star Card, the bedroom-born and NYC bar-blossomed rock band, formed initially from frontperson Calley’s undeniable drive for creative revelation. But as the project has found its footing, and cemented a sound with the release of their debut album Trash World, it has expanded and toiled beyond the confines of Calley’s home recordings– carving out a lane as a deeply singular voice within New York’s bustling DIY scene.

Although Star Card certainly could not have come into existence without the contributions of its current and former members, the story of the band undoubtedly starts with Calley. Calley always loved music throughout their adolescence, even pursuing music journalism in college. But apart from a short experience as a bass player during those years, they always felt as though the music scene were, in some way, inaccessible. 

There was always the continuous obstacle of feeling the need to have someone else alongside them on the journey– someone to take the pursuit as seriously as they did. Finally, in their 20s, Calley decided they were done waiting, picking up bass lessons at a local music shop and finally setting aside their inhibitions.

“I ended up going to music therapy and taking some bass lessons… I decided to take music more seriously and try to do it on my own,” said Calley, “without looking for permission from other people that I was good enough to do it.”

Star Card was, therefore, born in Calley’s bedroom during the Pandemic as they experimented with their newfound artistic confidence, writing songs that ducked conventions and traditional structures while their technical skill increased by the day. By the time they had amassed a small collection of self-recorded tracks, an ideal set of collaborators began to enter their life.

Brendan Landis, the current drummer for Star Card, had met Calley through the NYC scene and had used his years of expertise as an arranger and self-producer to help them turn a few of their tracks into a tape-recorded project. This eventually led to them playing together in Receive, another local NYC band. While rehearsing for that band, Brendan suggested that they practice some of the old Star Card songs that Calley had written.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The two quickly realized that these songs could easily lead into a full-band context, and they set to work compiling new tracks from Calley’s personal creative process that could be arranged and performed live. Often, these tracks originated from skeletons of ideas and lyrics that Calley would bring with them to rehearsal, but they were all defined by a singular set of motifs– one that is, at times hauntingly ironic and, at others, almost clairvoyant, stunning in its ability to hold the listener in its grasp.

“I think they're weird and dark, but not self-consciously goth,” said Brendan of his initial impression of Calley’s tracks, “It's major-key stuff, but conceptually and, in terms of the content of them, it's pretty dark stuff. That's kind of my usual zone that I deal with anyway.”

Trash World, therefore, takes the ideas that were formed in Calley’s self-recordings and expands them into a maximized and fuller context, taking the individual creative bent of each member of the band into account. From the apparent indie fuzz of tracks like “Lena” to the dark, grungier, and noise-filled ripplings of tracks like “What It Feels Like to Be in Your Twenties”, Calley’s voice and sharp, biting lyricism tear across and perfectly complement the technical adeptness of their bandmates.

It is, in short, a highly intentional and striking record– one that, according to Brendan, was a work of deep focus and determination from start to finish.

“We really didn't half-ass the process. We really did our best at each stage. We didn’t put an ambient jam track second to last [laughs], which is something I've been guilty of in the past. We took our time and made sure that the album was really just the best that we could do in that moment. And that's always something to be proud of.”

Of course, Trash World will not be the end for Star Card.

As they continue touring the circuit of local DIY stages in NYC, Calley knows that they must continue to forge the tenuous balance they have struck between a tonal complexity and a sweet simplicity of arrangement. As they start to work on the project’s next record, that is the primary mission in mind.

“I try not to overwrite, try to keep some of the weird stuff in as much as I can. But sometimes it's an exercise, like ‘Is this too strange of a lyric to keep, or how polished do I want this to be?’” said Calley, “That's kind of the crux right now in working on new material. When do you know that something is done, when you can just tinker with it forever?”