Photo credit: Autumn de Wilde
Today, Starcrawler debuts their video for ‘Hollywood Ending’ directed by Gilbert Trejo.
The visual is a love letter to their hometown and marks what will surely be another epic year for them filled with more new music and touring, carrying their envelope-pushing vision into the mainstream.
Director Gilbert Trejo says of the video: “Arrow and I almost started sowing the seeds for this video when we first met…one of the first things we bonded over was our shared love for old Hollywood… not “old Hollywood” like Golden age 1940’s Cary Grant and movie stars Hollywood, but old Hollywood like, our parents’ generations and Weetzie Bat’s version… washed out hotels, and restaurants like TOI on sunset. We bonded over freeways and 1920’s apartments covered in Christmas lights. The Hollywood we both got dragged around felt magical at a young age. Freaks like my aunt Vicky, and Arrow’s uncle Jimmy (who stars as the spirit of Hollywood in the video)… John Doe and Exene’s Hollywood meets Tommy Lee and Bobby Brown’s. When we got the go-ahead to make the Hollywood Ending video, we knew exactly what type of imagery we wanted to convey. We got to bring our own favourite disappearing neighbourhood back to life.”
There’s a lot to say about what makes a “Hollywood Ending.” Lead singer Arrow de Wilde says “This song to me shows a loss of innocence and the dramatic yet sometimes bitter “Hollywood ending” to a first love. Everyone has to go through different Hollywood endings in their own lives, whether they’re good or bad. Sometimes it’s the Wizard Of Oz and you wake up from a crazy nightmare dream and you’re fine, or sometimes it’s Carnival of Souls where you’ve been dead all along.”
Starcrawler’s self-titled LP was released one year ago in January by Rough Trade Records to rave reviews. Since then, they’ve toured non-stop all over the world, including triumphant sets at Primavera, Rock Am Ring, Download Festival, Voodoo Festival, Fuji Rock, Reading, Leeds and more. In March, they won the 2018 SXSW Grulke prize for best US act after blowing minds at each of their nine shows. They were VEVO DSCVR artists with a video testimonial from Shirley Manson who said: “I feel like Starcrawler, and in particular Arrow, are really challenging the norms in which women are seen in music.” The amount of support they have received from their fellow artists has been overwhelming. They opened shows for the Foo Fighters at Olympic Park in London, and toured with The Distillers and MC50 (the super-group led by MC5 founding guitarist Wayne Kramer) where Arrow sang ‘High School’ with them and, in November, opened for Morrissey in San Diego.
Their new track ‘Hollywood Ending’ was produced by Ryan Adams and mixed by Nick Launay. It illustrates how much the band has grown in the last year, transitioning from the scuzzy garage rock of their first record into a truly unique vision of rock & roll music as envisioned by a new generation of youth. The song debuted on Spotify’s New Music Friday and spent several weeks at #1 on speciality radio. It hints at so much more to come in 2019.
“The album is like being slapped by rock’n’roll again. You’ll be like, ‘What the fuck was that?’ – i-D
“Starcrawler embraces a scuzzy glam sound that evokes the teensploitation films of the 1970s and that decade’s street-level Hollywood depravity” – VULTURE
“The songs are tough and tuneful, with echoes of Black Sabbath, Kiss, Alice Cooper and T.Rex, soaked in loads of reverb and bad attitude.” – REVOLVER
“Super refreshing to see this mix of 70’s theatricality and Stooges electricity” – GERARD WAY
“[their debut] demonstrates the potency of Starcrawler’s au courant mash-up of Raw Power-era stooges, Sunset Strip glam-metal and Nirvana at their hookiest.” – UNCUT
Starcrawler is “the future of the RocknRoll legacy of bands like KISS, X, Sonic Youth & the Stooges. RAW X 1000. Total rockstars. No bullshit, just raw fuckin’ power” – RYAN ADAMS
“Tales of de Wilde’s onstage antics could fill a dissertation, as this performance poises equatable only to the likes of Iggy and the Stooges onstage debauchery, the PJ Harvey Trio’s lightning god rock, and the sexually charged cabaret no wave of Lydia Lunch.”– GIGWISE
“Arrow de Wilde is what would have happened if Ozzy Osbourne and Patti Smith had got together in 1975 and had a kid’ – CLASSIC ROCK
