I was privileged to have the opportunity to interview Ryan Bjornstad and Josh Hodges of Starfucker back in November, in the back room at the Vera Project prior to the Seattle show on their first ever nationwide tour. They had just swung through New York and CMJ and were about to hit the rest of the west coast after a week’s break in Portland.

Ultimately the interview proved to be the best that I’ve been involved with, revealing and in-depth, with both members being frank and honest about their previous band experiences, popularity and thoughts on the Portland music scene. As such I’ve included nearly the entirety of the 35 minutes of the interview in this post essentially unedited. It’s very conversational with alot of back and forth between the two, which makes for a long read, but I promise it’s worth it.

Ultimately Starfucker is a band that is always looking to have fun, and wants everyone else to have a little fun too, period. That a larger audience than their friends has grown for their music still seems almost unreal to them. That people are taking notice of a couple of guys who turned too much fun with looping pedals and fooling around the local DIY and house scene into another organically rising star out of the Portland scene still seems almost too much to believe.

Starfucker is playing the Vera Project this Friday, along with Guidance Counselor and Navigator vs. Navigator. The show is $9 ($8 with club card).

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Josh - SOTS: Tell me a little bit about Japan. How was it being the Portland ambassador to Japan?

Josh (SF): I don’t know man. I felt like someone fucked up and we Just got flown to Japan for free. And it was fun. And that was really it. It didn’t seem like what whatever someone was trying to do happened. Some how we got involved in a scam that worked out in our favor.

Ryan (SF): It did kinda seem like that because it was so disorganized. We never really knew what was going on half the time, unless we asked what was going on. I think it wasn’t necessarily their intention for that to happen.

Josh (SF): It was fun though. I think I’d like to live there.

Ryan (SF): I would have gone there no matter what, if it was paid or not. What happened with the show and all that stuff didn’t really make to much of a difference, it was the experience of the culture that was really nice.

SOTS: I saw your pictures. You guys were having fun with the signage… the english translations.

Ryan (SF): It was really weird. I don’t know if you saw that one picture that has Portland in the background. That was totally random. Jeff from Travel Portland, who was our cultural guide there, he was totally awesome, a really rad guy. He randomly asked his friend who was at this bar that we were at there if he knew anything about it, and it was actually his friend that had put it up.

Josh (SF): It said something weird too. Some girl on our myspace translated it as like “The Land of Commercial Success.”

Ryan (SF): The idea is i guess is that Portland is renowned for it’s for it’s urban growth boundaries, and these people in Japan are using it as an example for them. They really love Portland apparently.

SOTS: So CMJ. Did you guys get out of it what you thought to get out of it?

Josh (SF): We didn’t know what we were supposed to get out of it I don’t think. It was kind of all setup. We didn’t do anything to get those shows. We have a booking agent and he said “Oh yeah, you should play CMJ, I’ll make sure you can.” He hooked all these shows up.

It was fun though. We had three shows in one day. We were supposed to have four shows but one got canceled. It wasn’t as bad as i thought. Playing three shows. Driving around the city in our van that barely holds everything. It was fun. I think we all just love music. It’s just nice to be there.

CMJ was OK. I didn’t really watch many bands, except for Jay Reatard which is out in Brooklyn. So It was a little less hectic. It was fucking amazing. I just can’t even remember anything else. It was too mad. Craziness. Over by the Cake Shop and everything.

Ryan (SF): Plus, I think we viewed it as a nice break for us from being on the road. A lot of us viewed it as more like a vacation. Really hang out and get our bearings. So the madness of CMJ was at least for me, a little overwhelming at times. To be there when we’re not playing. But I definitely appreciate that…

I was talking to Josh earlier about this. But I really like the idea of this pilgrimage, all these bands from all across the United States, all going to this one place for these shows. For this one week of madness, or whatever, and then they all tour back out. And I imagine all the places around the country that don’t get to see a lot of good music, get to see a lot during that time. I like that idea.

SOTS: It seems that some bands go to South by Southwest with the idea that they’ll get noticed or notoriety or whatever. And that it’s one step. Somehow sort of randomly you guys sort of did. Just reading blogs as I read blogs… BrooklynVegan… Pitchfork did your video the other day. So it’s kind of organic. I thought that was really cool.

Ryan (SF): I feel like that’s how a lot of things have been going for us, alot of it happens really organically. Although there is some expectation with CMJ for a lot of bands, for us, we wanted to have fun and just play shows. To go there expecting notoriety or something is just setting yourself up for disappointment. There is just so much there. There is so much music, that it’s impossible to get “noticed,” unless your just having fun and doing what you normally do.

Josh (SF): I didn’t even know who BrooklynVegan was until we were out there. I don’t read blogs. Especially about music.

SOTS: It’s sort of the ground level where a lot of the smaller local bands get noticed at a larger level. It makes things much more international. Anybody has access. On that note… Did you find that when you’ve been traveling around that people knew who Starfucker was? Or people were fans?

Ryan (SF): More than I thought. But I kind of had low expectations.

SOTS: Because you guys have been doing this project for how long?

Josh (SF): About a year. (This interview was in was November 2008).

SOTS: I remember Ryan the last time he was in Seattle, he handed me the EP, randomly. I was like, “Oh this is so good!” When he was up here for a Junkface show I think.

Josh (SF): It kinda was what I expected actually. Probably most of tour was going to be empty rooms booked with bands that don’t fit us on off nights with no promotion, and we won’t get paid and it will be a pain in the ass. It was actually better than I thought. Instead 75% of shows ending up being like that, it was more like 25% of shows were like that. We had some horrible shows, like Baltimore. But it was definitely weird to be in places where people were super excited to see us. “How the fuck do you know who we are? We’ve never even been out here.” It’s crazy. I mean its the internet. Which is fantastic.

We talked to a girl on a subway platform for a minute, because she had a Portland bag, and she was like “What are you out here?” and we were like “We came out to play CMJ.” She was like “What band are you?”, and we were like “Starfucker.” aAnd she was like “Oh, I’ve heard of you guys!” How the fuck have you heard of us?! Pretty weird…

We’ve had a lot of really fun shows [this tour]. The last few shows have been really good. Sioux Falls was ridiculous. It was totally packed, people went crazy. Last night was really awesome too. Halloween in Missoula. It was just like a big dance party.

SOTS: Did you guys dress up?

Josh (SF): I had a cheerleaders unitard on. It was a little bit gross so I left my pants on. Shawn had unicorn things. And a dress.

Ryan (SF): I forgot we were going to be on tour on Halloween, i didn’t think about it when we left, so I dressed as myself, which can be scary anyways.

SOTS: Do you guys play a lot of all-ages places?

Josh (SF): We try to. It’s usually more fun, when it’s all ages because kids just have more of a passion still. We didn’t really control it. It was booked for us. Avery is really cool, young booking agent. He’s like our friend too. He’s awesome. So, we just kinda ended up where we ended up.

Ryan (SF): I think in Portland we have a little more control over that. Because we know of the places, that you can play all-ages shows. But for our booking agent, he has to book venues that are good. Unfortunately, usually those are 21 and over.

Josh (SF): We had a really good all-ages show in Salt Lake City. Kids were flipping out. It wasn’t even packed, but kids were there dancing the whole time.

Ryan (SF): That was another case too, where this one guys came up to me and said “Yeah, I just discovered you online a week ago, and saw that you were playing here.” And then he had given the CD to all his friends and then they came and were freaking out.

Josh (SF): That’s so awesome.

Ryan (SF): Yeah that’s really cool.

Josh (SF): We didn’t even get paid for that show or anything. But it was so much fun, which is so much better. And that’s really what it’s about. When you have a connection. And that was a low stage, so it feels more like a house party.

SOTS: Do find that you really like the house party setup? That’s what you guys have been playing mostly down in Portland.

Josh (SF): Yeah. That’s what I like. We went to this one venue in Columbus, called Scullys, with a huge stage 20 feet off the ground. And it was like a 1000 person venue or something, and were like “Whoa! This is going to be weird.” And there’s like nobody coming in. So we were like “Can we play on the floor?” and the sound guy had a big problem with it. “How am I gonna mic your drum if your playing on the floor?!” We’re like “Just don’t do anything, because we have like everything ourselves. We’ll just play on the floor like a house party.” And he was like “We’ll I can’t fuckin’ stop you I guess.”

And then we did it and it was totally fun. And I’m glad we did. Because even though we were on the floor people were still standing back. It was still better than playing on the stage, where you are in a whole different universe, and people are just looking at you. You know what I mean. It’s just not the type of music we are. It’s more about the energy with the crowd. We dress stupid and dance around. We just want other people to have fun.

SOTS: The double-show CD release really well I heard.?

Ryan (SF): Yeah it was really fun. Especially that Doug Fir let us do two shows in one day, for one thing was really awesome. That was the first all ages show and it was really cool. A lot of kids don’t ever get to see good venues, where the sound is good. And there was a lot of kids there having a lot of fun. And that’s what I wanted more than anything was to have the all-ages show really good.

Josh (SF): Yeah Doug Fir has really great sound.

I don’t know though… One of my favorite shows we played was that Generator show on Belmont, the Lost Gospel thing, in this abandoned parking lot on Belmont. That was fun as hell. They kinda surrounded us. My mom and dad showed up. And there was this girl hanging out a window right there in an apartment and they were like “who’s playing?” and she was like “Starfucker” and my mom was like “Oh, really?” and she got all excited. I was so fun. Right the time that someone was going to call the cops we were done. And it was perfect.

Ryan (SF): And the girl in the apartment left her window open, and we threw these beach noodle things through it. Yeah, those show those shows are so much fun and so much better than playing at a big place for a lot of money. Yeah, we want to sustain ourselves like everyone else. Yeah we don’t want to work shitty jobs any more. We’re all poor. But it all gets boring if people aren’t really having fun. I rather play for free to a crowd of people who are really getting into it, than get paid $10,000 to play to a bunch of grumpy men.

Josh (SF): Um, I would probably do it. For $10,000.

Ryan (SF): Maybe that’s an exaggeration.

SOTS: Times are tough… So did you get any shit from any of your Portland musicians about the MTV thing, or did they appreciate that you were sort of good ambassadors of Portland.

Ryan (SF): I didn’t hear any shit from anyone. The only shit I heard was from people who wrote comments to it on the website, who were like “Whatever! Portland thinks its so good… and fresh and blah blah blah.” Whatever I think it’s good to have pride of in your own city you know, but they wanted to do a thing on Portland, so they did a thing on Portland.

Josh (SF): I don’t want anyone else to move to Portland, personally. When we’re on the road and people say “Oh, I hear Portland is so great!” I’m like “No. It’s so degraded.”

Ryan (SF): He always talks it down, and I always talk it up.

Josh (SF): Cause I don’t want anyone else to move there, even though they’re probably cool. There’s enough cool people.

Ryan (SF): You just gave up your secret, man.

Josh (SF): I know. Portland sucks! It’s too small. You know everyone. If you sleep with somebody, you’ve slept with everyone else.

Ryan (SF): That’s true actually.

Josh (SF): There’s just one degree of separation. It’s so lame.

Ryan (SF): It can be a little harrowing, step out of front door and seeing twenty people you know sometimes.

Josh (SF): Everywhere you go man.

Ryan (SF): You can never be anonymous. Josh and I were both raised there so it’s easy to be critical.

SOTS: So do you think the perspective that Portland the new Austin or Seattle might not be completely accurate?

Josh (SF): I just hope it’s not, honestly. Cause what makes it great, is that it’s really easy to live there. It’s cheap and kinda small and manageable. But also has a good music scene. But, that will change. Then we’ll have to move to San Diego, probably with all these condo’s everywhere. They can’t build condo’s fast enough there, man.

SOTS: It’s the same way here.

Ryan (SF): Every city has its fifteen minutes of fame. At some point Detroit is going to be the new “something.” Anywhere that is cheap, where artists can live there it’s going to be the new “whatever.” It’s never going to be a sustainable lasting thing as long as there’s population growth.

I don’t think you can say that Portland is the new Seattle because Portland has always been better than Seattle. Even since the fifties. And especially now that you don’t have a basketball team.

Josh (SF): Oh shit!

SOTS: You took our best rookie. I went to High School with Brandon Roy actually. He’s a great basketball player.

Josh (SF): He’s incredible actually. He’s like a drunken fighter, like on Nintendo games. He doesn’t seem like he can move that fast. He lulls people and then he just busts out with something like “Really?” You know. He’s not flashy.

SOTS: He’s methodical. And always paying attention.

Josh (SF): Yeah. I feel bad for Seattle losing the Sonics.

SOTS: As a lifetime Seattlite I wasn’t sad to see them go.

Ryan (SF): Really?!

SOTS: They’ve just been mismanaged. The whole thing has been handled poorly. And they never threw down the money for a really good star or a really good coach. And not that George Karl wasn’t a good coach. And not that Nate McMillan wasn’t a good coach. The spark never materialized. So they’ve just been draggin’ ass for ten years.

So you guys are heading down to California for a little while. Have you guys done any touring other than this tour?

Josh (SF): Just up and down. As far up as Bellingham a couple times, and as far south as San Fransisco once. This is our first time with like “shows” or whatever. Some of them we still book that way though. We’ll play at the Eagle again, in San Fransisco. It’s like this Bear bar. It’s really fun. That’s where we played last time. It was really fun. Lot’s of penis. I’m excited to go to L.A.

SOTS: Going back to how the Portland scene is kinda small. I know how you’ve sort of played with a few bands. And how Ryan from Blind Pilot has played around a little bit. You guys played with them at CMJ once I think.

Ryan (SF): Yeah, they played right before us. It was really cool.

SOTS: It’s nice to see those guys are kinda getting a little talk too. Since it’s a small place, is there sort of a community feeling about it? In like supporting each other?

Josh (SF): Definitely. I think that’s the best thing it has going for it.

I mean there is a camaraderie for sure, among bands. People come out to shows just to have bodies there. I feel like, yeah, I love that. I lived in New York for a little while. We played music there. It was obviously really different. It was way more competitive, and there was just a whole lot of shit there. In Portland, I think a lot of the bands are actually good, too. Good enough so where it is fun to go out if you’re at all interested in seeing live music. It’s like a high percentage, per capita Portland has the highest percentage of quality bands. Rather than when I was in New York, almost none of the bands I went to see were good, unless I knew they were good. It was also just a pain in the ass to go out. In Portland it’s really easy to go out. There’s a lot of cheap indoor free shows.

Yeah I love the camaraderie. That’s the best thing it has going for it. I’m sure it exists in other places. But it’s also I haven’t seen it as much anywhere else. It is kind of impressive there’s that much camaraderie there. Everyone knows each other. Has their friends bands play with them and all that stuff.

Ryan (SF): That’s the other thing, is that if something happens there is always have the pick of the draw, if you need fill-ins. Ryan Dobrowski for example, you brought him up. We know him form Sexton Blake. We became friends. And then Junkface needed a drummer for touring whenever Cloud couldn’t do it. So then he played with Junkface. You can just switch around, and if someone can’t play you can ask a friend in another band.

Josh (SF): With girlfriends too, you can just switch ‘em around.

Ryan (SF): It doesn’t even matter… (Laughs.) The community part is really, really nice. I feel like I’ve been to more shows than I’ve even wanted to be at, just to like support people that have supported us. And I don’t feel bad about it, or that I’m compromising by saying that Ive not always wanted to go.

Josh (SF): I feel the same way. It’s not like people aren’t good, and it’s not still good and we don’t have fun. We just like dance music that’s fun. Like Guidance Counselor. Recess Time. Double Dutch. There’s a bunch. Those are bands that are just fun.

Ryan (SF): There’s a new band out called Recess Time that is one of my favorite new bands. Oh, you said that.

I think Portland has always wanted to have a good time, too though. House parties are a big part of it. I think for a while there was a kinda rock, punk rock kinda thing going on in house parties were people just wanted to have fun and freak out. And then it moved into a dance music kinda thing. And it’s nice because there is this all this cross-pollination. Whereas I think in a lot of places the music is kind of segregated. The fan base sticks to what they like. Other places rockers are rockers and punks are punks and electro-pop kids are electro-pop kids. You don’t really go to a show where there is like a rock band. We played with Fist Fite, which in other cities wouldn’t be a common bill, you know. Another nice thing about it.

SOTS: Did you ever imagine your bedroom project, that you’d be going on tour with Starfucker.

Josh (SF): Not really, not at all. I started out as being sick of…. because Sexton Blake, our old stuff, is kind of more project of this guy Anthony who released the album, it’s his label. It’s kind of more his project than mine in a way. For me I just recorded the music in New York. And I probably never would have released it. But then he was like you should probably put this out. And I’m like “OK. Yeah,” kind of like a puppy. And then I was just really focused on being in the music scene and industry. Just thinking about all this shit. And shows were not fun. It was kind of boring depressing music to play live. I like that kind of music a lot, but live I don’t like to play it, or even sometimes to watch it unless is really special to me.

Why it’s named “starfucker” partly, is that. Ryan and I used to live together, and fuck around in the basement and make loops, and do rude noise stuff. That’s more kind of keeping me interested, it’s more fun. “Fuck thinking about any aspect of the music but the music.” That was how it started I think.

It got a way better reception than Sexton Blake partly because of that. Because it was just for fun. People could see that it was actually fun for me. Sexton Blake was painful for me to play live.

Starfucker, at least 75% of the time, now, maybe, it’s still fun. Before, when i first started doing it, every show was fun. On this tour it’s been different, there’ve been some shows where it’s just been “get through it!” So…

I just never thought I would have a vinyl record.

SOTS: So is that your measure of success?

Ryan (SF): He could die happy.

Josh (SF): Totally. And it’s cool, it’s white, which he totally surprised me with. Badman, he’s awesome. Dylan. I was like, “Ooh white vinyl, that would be really good,” and he’s like “We can’t afford it man. We can either have this art or the colored vinyl.” And I was like “The art is awesome so I wanna keep that.” And then he was like “the vinyl is in” and opened it up and it was white vinyl and I was like “What the fuck!” So…

Ryan (SF): The difference between Josh in Sexton Blake and Josh in Starfucker is really stark. People didn’t think he was capable of smiling in Sexton Blake. Starfucker is nice, looking back at him while were playing, he smiles and dances and gets into it, it really makes everyone else happy.

Josh (SF): It’s good for me man. Because, fuck what is it, 2008? And when you only have four more years left. And then the Mayan calendar is up. And then it’s over. Might as well. I’m serious! Who knows…?

Ryan (SF): The comet comes back and blows everything up. Tonight we’re going to party like it’s 2011, December 31st, at…

Josh (SF): I don’t know, I don’t think it runs out on January 1st though. I think it’s like halfway through the year…

Ryan (SF): Yeah because the calendar runs differently, it’s like thirteen month cycles of 26 days…

Josh (SF): In any case, whenever we die, we’re all mortal. It is a good thing to enjoy the current moment. That is just what seemed idiotic about Sexton Blake. Is doing something you hate, in the hope that sometime in the future it will make something good, so that you can enjoy your life. So idiotic.

SOTS: Do think in general the business is too serious?

Josh (SF): It can be. If your enjoying what your doing at the moment then that is fine. I think that is the point. That you have to like whatever it is that you are doing, now, rather than…

I think your whole life can be one string of waiting for the next thing, where you’ll wait to finish college… and then “Oh, I’m done with college and I still have this feeling of dissatisfaction. Oh I can’t wait to get married. Oh I’m married, I’m not happy. I can’t wait to get the right career.” They just die, and never figure it out. So I really think it’s about enjoying whatever your doing. Still doing things for the future! It seems, especially if you don’t enjoy it, it just seems silly dumb and a waste of time. That’s how Sexton Blake felt. (He laughs).

Ryan (SF): To me planning for the future, is like when I’m old I want to look back at all of my experiences as being happy. And when I’m old they’ll still be happy. I don’t think there is any possible way of being happy [otherwise]… you know. Especially with something like with music.

If your just doing something to get somewhere, you might as well go to school to get a degree in accounting or something, so you know your going to get a job. I think it is totally ridiculous to make music to be popular. I just think that is sad, honestly. There are a lot of talented people that are compromising any type heart and soul they could possibly have in music, so they could get popular. I just don’t think that’s good for anybody.

Josh (SF): It’s not anybody’s fault. We’ve just been tricked into thinking these things are sources of happiness, like fame or money or whatever. But it’s not actually true. People don’t know that, so they chase it with whatever they have. We all have that in some way.

Ryan (SF): We’re taught that there are certain things that can make you happy. You have to abide by those specific rules that can make you happy. Instead of just seeing ourselves as Lewis Black says “Snowflakes. Fucking Snowflakes!”

Josh (SF): I love listening to that in the van more than music.
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In the spirit of the community we spoke about during the interview, Starfucker will play their first show in Seattle as a four-piece at the Vera Project on Friday. The new member on their rolls is none other than Ian Anderson of the aforementioned tourmatesGuidance Counselor. Convenient don’t you think?