STARSET // The Stars Their Destination

There’s an implicit duality to being a musician that rarely gets mentioned.

Whether it’s holding down that shitty, night-shift factory job, or copping those casual ‘hipster’ gibes while working as an office-hour barista, it’s certainly not all trashing hotel rooms and big mansions for your average struggling musician. However, for Dustin Bates, lead vocalist, guitarist and conceptual mastermind behind U.S. cinematic hard-rockers Starset, a fascination for science and space at an early age lead to a much cooler day-job: astronomy.

“I read a bunch of biographies when I was a kid. I was always going to the library, where scientists, adventurers and philosophers and things like that, sort of became similar to me as with super heroes in comic books,” says Bates over the phone, on a rare break from the band’s hectic summer touring schedule. “I was a bit of a loner kid, and it cultivated itself as I read. I guess I realised I wanted to be into engineering in high school. I did the undergrad; I got a Master’s degree. All the while, I was also very much into rock music and music in general.” After receiving his Master’s in electrical engineering from Ohio University, Bates leveraged his passion for science into performing research for the US Air Force and a much-coveted teaching position at the International Space University near Strasbourg, France. Yet it seemed that music was always his first love. “I got a record deal, and at that point, I stopped the science for a while. A year in, that record deal went away. So, Starset was sort of a blending of two things, which was fun.”

“We’re trying to give people an escape from their own lives and bring them into our world.”
[DUSTIN]

The blend Bates mentions is the science-fiction-heavy concept at the core of Starset’s music, which melds the realms of rock, pop and electronic music with narrative elements straight out of a high-concept Hollywood blockbuster. A cursory glance at the band’s website reveals that Starset functions as a ‘Public Outreach Program’ for a pseudo-organization known as ‘The Starset Society,’ whose background includes shady government conspiracies, references to famed inventor, physicist and futurist Nikola Tesla, and strange messages of extra-terrestrial origin. “The major influence is the overarching influence of The Starset Society. The core mission, the tenet of The Starset Society is to look at technology and science, and how it’s affecting our lives now and in the near future,” explains Bates, “In ways positive and negative, whether it be philosophical, political, or economic.” It’s hard to tell from his tone exactly what’s truth and what’s fiction to Bates, but it certainly makes for one hell of a compelling story. “Starset use music, narratives and sci-fi elements to essentially amplify a lot of those core beliefs of The Starset Society, [which] trickles down into this Starset world.”

For Bates and his fellow Starset crew-members – bassist, keyboardist and backing vocalist Ron DeChant, lead guitarist and backing vocalist Brock Richards, alongside drummer and percussionist Adam Gilbert – translating such a rich and dense backstory on to the stage is more than just a spontaneous rock show. “Sonically, we have this four-piece rock band, but we also have a live cellist and a live violinist,” says Bates. “Visually, the band’s wearing space suits that have miniaturised cryo-clusters and automated lights that go along with the music, which are programmed to be entirely synchronous. The drummer plays in a thing we call ‘the Cube,’ with projection mapping on it.” 

With entire outfits, synchronised lights and lavish set pieces, a Starset ‘demonstration’ appears to involve all the intricacies and preparation reserved for a theatre ensemble, a sentiment which Bates more than agrees with. “I very, very much consider this more like a live theatrical display. I approach it that way in terms of production and execution. I told the guys, at the end of a play on Broadway, the people that are bowing have just often delivered something so near perfection, and the execution of something that was so well planned out—[that’s] what we strive for.” With so much happening on stage, it’s no wonder that crowds leave a Starset show transfixed, slightly unsure as to exactly what type of demonstration they’ve just witnessed. “You don’t get that standard reaction during songs, that sort of rock’n’roll craziness out of the crowd,” admits Bates. “What often happens is people are put into a trance. It’s more like a stare; I think that’s the ultimate compliment.”

Bates’ academic background has inevitably paid off with Starset many times over. It’s created an artistic platform bringing the same level of wonder and fascination he felt with science and astronomy as a boy to an entirely new audience through an entirely different medium. “Rather than a ‘show,’ we call it a ‘demonstration’ because we’re trying to be more than just a rock show,” says Bates with raw determination, “We’re trying to give people an escape from their own lives and bring them into our world.”

WATCH > 

Starset’s second full-length album, Vessels, is available now via Razor & Tie / Cooking Vinyl Australia. Starset will bring their cinematic ‘demonstration’ Down Under this August on the following dates:

WEDNESDAY 9TH AUGUST – The Triffid, Brisbane, Lic/AA

THURSDAY 10TH AUGUST – The Factory Theatre, Sydney, Lic/AA

FRIDAY 11TH AUGUST – The Basement, Canberra, 18+

SATURDAY 12TH AUGUST – Max Watt’s, Melbourne, 18+

SUNDAY 13TH AUGUST – Fowlers Live, Adelaide, Lic/AA