Q & A: Star De Azlan Mixes It Up
After seeing her perform at the Stagecoach Music Festival, I was lucky enough to interview up-and-coming country singer Star De Azlan and chat with her about her upcoming record, her influences, and her plans as an artist.
Our readers were big fans of your first single “She’s Pretty,” can you give us any information on when the album is coming out?
We’re aiming for the end of this year or the beginning of next year. We have another single coming out, so we’re going to see how that does and base it around that.”
Is the second song on your myspace, “Like a Rose,” going to be your next single?
Not necessarily, we don’t know yet
Your live set is pretty diverse, featuring traditional country, Mexican music, and contemporary “rockin” country, do you know what the vibe of the album is going to be yet? Is it going to pretty much reflect the live set?
It’ll have some of the rocking contemporary stuff, pretty much like you said, it’ll be a mix of everything. We’re going to have a Spanish language song or two on there too.
Obviously you’re not the first artist to bridge the gap between Mexican and Country music, how do you think the two kinds of music are related?
I think that country music is very rootsy and almost kind of soulful and it tells a story. Spanish music, if you’re familiar with it much, does the same thing, it’s very rootsy and it tells a story.
Do you anticipate bringing more fans of Mexican music to country music, more fans of country music to Mexican music, or both?
It’s tough to say right now, but we’re hoping to do both. We’d like to expand the audience and the amount of listeners for both kinds of music
Who are some Mexican artists that you’d recommend for our readers to check out?
I would say, my favorite is Juan Gabriel because he’s an awesome songwriter. He has like 4000 songs that he’s written. You can’t go to a concert and hear his whole song list because he has so many. I’d start with him.
What’s one more thing that you’d like our readers to know about you and what you’re doing?
I would just want them to know that we’re out here and we really hope to touch everybody with our music and that they really appreciate the country sound and that they grow to love us as much as we love them.
There you have it folks. You can read my review of Star’s performance at Stagecoach over in the Stagecoach Festival Day One recap, and check out The 9513’s review of the single “She’s Pretty,” where you can also listen to the track.
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2 Comments
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May 10, 2008 at 12:37 pm Permalink
Ben, Thanks for conductinmg that interview with Star for us fans here at The 9513. When I saw her at the Rose Bowl I had her autograph my DJ version “She’s Pretty” CD single and her manager was passing them out to the few fans present who asked, and I got an autographed 8 x 10 glossy as well. I asked her similar questions to yours and got similar answers.
I asked Star why they chose such a traditional sounding song for her debut radio single when she did contemporary sounding songs that would fit current playlists more readily. Star replied that the traditional country sound is her personal favorite style and that they were hoping radio might respond to how different it was from the pop-rock stuff, sort of a novelty factor. KKGO 105.1 FM here in Los Angeles played “She’s Pretty” a lot, but the poor performance on the country singles charts showed that nationwide few Top 40 country stations ever gave it a spin……
Like Martina McBride Star packs a lot ot vocal punch into a tiny package. I’d guess she’s maybe 5 foot tall and 95 pounds, and she has such a nice smile I’m surprised she doesn’t smile more in her photos. She was friendly and gracious when conversing with me and she left a totally favorable impression.
As much as I like Star and her music the realities of Top 40 mainstream country radio these days make it unlikely she will succeed in a big way. Radio is content with Carrie and Taylor and doesn’t really think they need or want new female artists on the roster apart from maybe media darlings like Julianne Hough and Miley Ray Cyrus. If a special artist like Ashton Shepherd can barely skirt hitting position # 20 on the singles charts, it just doesn’t bode well for Star in spite of her talent….
May 10, 2008 at 7:44 pm Permalink
I pretty much agree with what Rick said, Star has a lot of potential but I don’t know if radio is willing to let another female into the top twenty. Right now it looks like Carrie, Taylor, Miranda and Kellie are the only ones who can even get that high. LeAnn, Martina, Reba, and Trisha are the only ones from the 90’s still making occasional appearances in the top 20. Ashton just made it into the top twenty, while we’ll have to wait to se if Jewel will become a common name. Out of the new females though it only looks like Julianne H. and Heidi N. are going to make it.
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