Stars Announce “Best Of” Collection

New York, NY (September 20, 2019) – STARS have spent their 20+ year career being a musical confidant to the inner-most secrets of their fans lives. They tell the tales we keep in the darkest, and most hopeful parts of our souls. They have persevered as a band, friends, musical and social curators; always putting art first, as well as the pursuit of transparency and truth. Stars have stayed true over the release of eight albums, countless tours, and every imaginable obstacle.

Today they announce the release of a career ‘best of’ retrospective called, LaGuardia. A double vinyl, 20 song love letter to their consistency, their ongoing ability to find new inspiration and new messages to deliver in this vast and ever changing musical space – to keep up the fight.

LaGuardia pulls from every official release (barring Nightsongs). It creates a buoyant and brave manifesto of music that those with brave hearts can hold tight to, from the opening track, “Elevator Love Letter” from 2003’s Heart, to “Ageless Beauty” from 2004’s Set Yourself On Fire, and “Take Me To The Riot” from 2007’s In Our Bedroom After The War… and so many more elemental songs that imprint the indie rock fabric of this essential band on the hearts of all of its listeners.

LaGuardia will be released on December 6 via the band’s label home for many years, Arts & Crafts

As Torquil Campbell beautifully recalls, the genesis of Stars wasn’t ever a sure thing: “New York City in the summer of the year 2000. Amy (Millan) and Evan (Cranley) had only recently decided to join ‘the band’ although using that term to describe us at that point is slightly embarrassing because, honestly, are you really a band if no one listens to you and you have no gigs? But anyway, there were only 4 of us then. Me, Sully (Chris Seligman), Amy and Evan. We hadn’t become what we are now: a 6-member family, a real band with real drums and real guitars and real problems.”

“So we were eating brunch in Les Deux Gamins in the West Village next to Rupert Everett and his pug dog when Evan suddenly stood up and left the table. What was going on? Was he ok? Amy chased him outside and we saw them talking for a while. Evan looked freaked. Sully and I were puzzled and worried. Eventually they both came in, and Evan confessed to us that he had the first panic attack of his life and was about to get in a cab to the airport and leave this crazy mistake behind before it ruined his life. He had a ticket home, and he was headed to LaGuardia. But something prevented him from doing it. Was it Amy’s persuasiveness? Was it a sudden sense that it was going to be ok? Was it the songs? Was it love? Thinking back on it, in my opinion what kept Evan from heading to LaGuardia that day was love. Love for music, love for the unknown, love for adventure… and love fur us. So he stayed, and we carried on.”

And Stars’ albums have always served as thermochromic barometers of their makers’ emotional well-being, be it the romantic upheaval of Heart and Set Yourself On Fire, the newsticker-triggered discontent of In Our Bedroom After the War, the downcast elegies of 2010’s The Five Ghosts (a requiem for singer Torquil Campbell’s father, who passed away during the album’s creation), or the rejuvenation of 2012’s The North (recorded while inter-band couple Amy Millan and Evan Cranley were in the throes of new parenthood). Stars continued with their 2014 dance-club inspired offering, No One Is Lost, pristinely produced by Grammy-award winner, Peter Katis, and their most recent album, 2017’s There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light.”

Around 2002, Patty McGee joined, and we were five,” continues Torq. “This marked the definitive moment when we became a proper rock band. After all, if your ‘drummer’ is a beat box that you have nicknamed Stevie,and it constantly breaks down half way through songs, are you really a proper rock band? Pat’s presence not only made our sound bigger and tougher, it gave us permission to not apologize anymore. We were a real band finally, not a bedroom band. We were ready.”

“The we cycled through a number of great guitar players, all of whom we loved, none of whom stuck. And then we met Chris McCarron. We call him dad, or sometimes NarNar. We don’t know why. But what we were all certain of when he appeared in the life of this band was that we were finally complete. The guitar, you could argue, is the wellspring of any good band, and for once, Stars had gotten lucky. Chris brought virtuosity, and love, and a sense of humour so dry it made us thirsty. Suddenly we had a studio which he built) and showy amps (which he built) and top notch catchphrases (most of which he came up with). We had a calm, sardonic, Atlantic breeze blowing through our lives. And we were finally – and for real this time, we swear… Stars.”
Currently, Stars are on tour across Europe playing their celebrated album Set Yourself On Fire in its entirety for a succession of dates as the critically praised record marks its 15th anniversary of release. In November Stars will present an intriguing and vastly different stage offering with Stars: Together in Toronto, November 26-December 8 at the Streetcar Crowsnet Theatre. Described as part rock-doc, part tragicomic fantasia, and all Stars concert, they are promising one of the strangest concert experiences in the history of mankind, careening between tragedy and farce, illusion and reality, old tunes and new ones. Select tickets are available here.