This week’s featured Meet The Band artist is Boston-based singer Austen Starr, whose debut album is I Am The Enemy. Let’s meet Austen Starr.
Chad Bowar: How did your band come together?
Due to the nature of the project, it’s not really a band at all! Everyone who played on the album has their own things going on, so I’m extremely grateful they took time out of their schedules to play on the debut album of a complete “unknown”! As for how they were chosen, Joel (Hoekstra, Whitesnake/Revolution Saints) and Frontiers did a great job of collecting versatile players to cater to the styles the album required.
Describe the songwriting process for I Am The Enemy.
The writing happened the same way for each song, minus “Medusa” (written years before the album was conceived) and “Read Your Mind” (an idea Joel had floating around). For the rest of the tracks, Joel had requested I send over a playlist of ‘songs I wish I had written’ and, being the brilliant musician he is, he emulated the styles of the songs without aping the original artists or creating a bad caricature of the genres. Once he sent over those guitar scratch tracks, many of which had vocal melodies attached, I wrote the lyrics and filled in other melodies where needed.
While this was happening, the scratch tracks had also been sent to Chris (Collier, Lita Ford) to add bass and drums. I recorded and did initial comps of what would be the final vocals at this point, and sent them to Chris for some mixing before Joel provided the final guitars. When that had been completed, the album was sent off to Steve (Ferlazzo, Avril Lavigne) and Chloe (Lowery, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) to add their parts. None of us were ever in the same room while recording, which is amazing and just goes to show how skilled Joel, Chris, Steve, and Chloe are.
What will be your strongest memory of the recording of the album?
This might be a cheesy answer, but spending that time with my dad, who was my vocal tracking engineer for the album. One particular fleeting moment stands out: the day my dad made a compilation of all the expletives I shouted when I would mess up (“Effigy” was full of them), which brought some levity and avoided what easily could have been a total shutdown on my part.
What was the biggest challenge in its creation?
The vocals. It took me so much longer than was truly necessary to get them all recorded because I just can’t stand my voice. But eventually it was not about my voice and just about getting it done, as not to disappoint anybody who knew about the album (or worked on it, for that matter).
How would you characterize its style/sound?
Varied, but pop-rock in every case. There was a lot of experimentation with how far to lean into pop music while still intending for the overarching genre to be rock. This is in part due to a couple of the lighter pop-punk tracks that were on that initial playlist I sent Joel.
What lyrical topics do you cover?
The lyrics speak to the dialectic of wanting to do something and being too afraid to do it, accepting you have mental struggles and just ‘getting out alive,’ being a people-pleaser, various types of conflicts and failures of relationships, and a traumatic event from childhood which has probably defined the majority of my life. (laughs) Lots of really lighthearted stuff, right?
You filmed several videos for the album. Which was your favorite shoot?
There was something magical about the first “Medusa” shoot day, which was the first shoot with the full video band plus the actor, Yakov Kolontarov, who did the job perfectly. The energy that day was amazing and everyone just had a lot of fun. But honestly, all of the shoots were incredible like that. “Remain Unseen” and “Read Your Mind” were shot on the same day at the same location, just with the set rearranged. That day felt really casual working with Joel, Mike Dupke, and Mike Hill. Joel and Mike Hill even tried to teach me how to play chess (and I won, or maybe they let me win? I’d like to think I won, haha). The first shoot overall was for the insane asylum parts of “I Am The Enemy,” and Nick Giumenti, the director of all four videos, helped me feel comfortable in front of the camera, and in terms of the space, he had a clear vision and made it happen and then some. That poor teddy bear, though….
How did you come to sign with Frontiers?
Frontiers has been trending towards picking up female artists lately, which was super convenient for me. (laughs) Joel met with Frontiers about his own projects one day, and happened to show them my demo version of “Medusa,” which I’d originally asked him to listen to when we were both working at a Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy Camp. Frontiers was basically like, “Cool, what else does she have?” and essentially Joel said, “Hold that thought,” and we made the full album to present to them.
What are your goals and expectations for the album?
I’ve really been trying to avoid expectations, because I have absolutely no idea how it will be received. That said, my goal is for enough people to hear it and like it that when I play live, people will sing back the lyrics!
Do you have plans to play live shows to support the record?
I do intend to play live shows. As of February 2026, I’m in the process of auditioning musicians! If any interested musicians in the Boston area see this…. Message me on Instagram!
How did you get started in music?
Music has always been a huge part of my life. Both of my parents are musicians, I grew up going to all of my dad’s gigs that I could, and I often mention the Spice Girls toy microphone I had when I was tiny. In terms of actual music education, I took violin lessons when I was 9-10, piano lessons when I was 11-14, taught myself how to play basic ukulele at 14, and had scattered years of guitar and voice lessons from age 14 to now. I wrote my first song when I was 11, which was obviously terrible, but I just never stopped writing. That’s definitely my most enduring skill.
Who were your early influences and inspirations?
I’ve mentioned the Spice Girls a lot, but I don’t think I’ve talked much about Avril Lavigne and how much I loved her first album. She was a major influence in my absolute need to be a musician. She just is such a badass, to this day. Of course, I was shortly thereafter highly influenced by the 2000s-style “emo” and pop-punk bands, and a certain singer-songwriter-turned-mega-popstar makes her way in there with the lyricism. Between Fall Out Boy, Panic(!) At The Disco, My Chemical Romance, and Taylor Swift, I learned to cram a lot of words into the melodic lines… I really had to scale back on this album. Writing “All Alone” was a huge challenge.
What was the first rock/metal concert you attended?
I think it may have been the 2007 Honda Civic Tour, or maybe one of the years of Warped Tour? I was pretty late to the party, I didn’t go to classic rock concerts as a kid like a lot of my friends did. I jumped straight into the scene I most identified with as an adolescent and honestly didn’t go to a ton of concerts. I feel like the first metal concert I went to was a Scorpions concert in Vegas in, like, March 2022. This interview is making me realize I really need to start going to more concerts…
What are some of your non-musical interests and hobbies?
I grew up dancing, starting around age 4 and continuing through present day. Tap dance has always been my favorite and my ‘best’ style (but I am still far from ‘great’ at it). I also like to create mixed-media visual art; recently I made a splatter painting with guitar-shaped figures carved from balsa wood, with guitar strings on it. Meanwhile, I am also taking graduate courses through Harvard in psychology and am learning about the physical human brain. I’m super fascinated by the brain and mind, and don’t even get me started talking about them, because I am a certifiable nerd.
What’s one thing you do better than anyone you know?
I use more words than necessary in any attempt to convey a point, because I want accuracy and no misunderstandings.
Anything else you’d like to mention or promote?
Aside from asking you all to listen to my album, I Am The Enemy, definitely check out my labelmate Leah Martin-Brown’s recent release Love And Other Crimes, my labelmate Cassidy Paris’ Bittersweet album, and, of course, my labelmate and collaborator Joel Hoekstra’s From The Fade. He cowrote my entire album and still had enough creativity left to concoct those masterpieces. Thank you for listening!
(interview published February 2026)
Watch Austen Starr – “I Am The Enemy” Video
