Stereo Embers The Podcast 0204: Torquil Campbell (Stars, Memphis)

“The Night Economy”

Over the course of their brilliant career, which got started around 1999, Stars have put out nine winning and magical albums including Set Yourself on Fire and the Polaris-Prize nominated efforts In Our Bedroom After The War and The Five Ghosts. Their last full-length effort was 2017’s There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light, and I know that was four years ago, but don’t worry—new music is coming. Stars play a ravishing blend of jangly chamber pop, breezy new wave and melancholic indie rock. They fall somewhere between Prefab Sprout and Broken Social Scene and their songs are thoughtful, quirky, moving, inspiring and wrenching in all the right ways. They can evoke the bittersweet memories of the past and they can conjure the hope and optimism of the future. They’ve played Coachella and the WAYHOME festival in Toronto and their music has appeared in “Gossip Girl,” “One Tree Hill,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “Skins” and “Warehouse 13.” The British-born Torquil Campbell is a musician, an actor on stage and film, a playwright and the host of a weekly podcast called The Soft Bulletin. Aside from his work in Stars, Campbell also put out albums with Memphis and he has a a solo project under the name Dead Child Star. In this conversation, which happens to take place on Campbell’s birthday, a lot of ground is covered: the resuscitation of the night economy, staying afloat financially as an artist during COVID, a mutual love of The Chills and why buying an album is still one of the best deals around.