One On One…with VIC WAYNE FROM STAR COLLECTOR

with David Kasheta, December 4, 2023

Star Collector is a band from Vancouver, British Columbia, who have travelled on an amazing rock ’n roll odyssey. Least of which is that the band has had no less than 19 bass players! The band has been compared to such high wattage icons such as The Jam, The Who, Sloan, Cheap Trick, and even Echo & The Bunnymen and have enjoyed tremendous airplay spearheaded by the amazing single, “Feel It Comin’ On” (https://starcollectorcanada.bandcamp.com/track/feel-it-comin-on).

Star Collector consists of vocalist/guitarist Vic Wayne, guitarist/vocalist Steve Monteith, bassist Tony Kerr, and drummer/vocalist Adrian Buckley.

Their sixth and most recent album, is Attack, Sustain, Decay…Repeat. I caught up with Vic Wayne to pick up what they’re puttin’ down.

Star Collector (L>R) Tony Kerr (bass), Vic Wayne (vocals/guitar),

Steve Monteith (guitar/vocals) and Adrian Buckley (drums/vocals)

The band has such an amazing career stretching over two decades! How did the band initially form?

I started the band with a childhood friend, Dave, who was in my first real band with me and my brother, Adam, a full-on mod band who emulated The Jam, The Who and the mod revival (bands like Secret Affair, The Purple Hearts, The Lambrettas). We’d gone our separate ways for about a decade, during which time I met Monkey (aka Steve) and we’d had a couple bands over 6 years that did some damn cool stuff [videos, albums, cross-country tours, MuchMusic interviews (the equivalent of MTV here in Canada, etc.)].

When that band broke up, I found myself without a group for the first time since I was 16. I got a call from Dave, totally unexpectedly, that he was considering moving to Vancouver and would I be interested in writing together again? I said sure. Our writing chemistry had been great as kids, why not give it a second go? It came back almost instantly, and we wrote the first SC album and a bunch more. Just as we were finishing the album, with well-known producer, GGGarth Richardson mixing, things didn’t work out with Dave, but I wanted to finish the album, as I had a set of songs I was proud of and a great drummer, Ringo (aka Rene) in place. Steve came into the studio as Dave & I were tracking a few weeks before and loved what we were doing so I asked him to help me finish the last 2 songs. He agreed and boom!... fast forward 26 years, we’re still makin’ noise together. Ringo stayed with us for 21 yrs but had a kid and moved to a more affordable city. Great human, but whatcha gonna do? We added current drummer, AB (aka Adrian) who we’d known for almost 20 yrs in 2018 and Tone (aka Tony) 2 yrs ago. Trust me, this IS in a nutshell… oh, the stories I could tell…

Who were the musical influences and what were those albums that fostered the stitching of your band? 

I’d think this is best answered in my Top Albums list below. Read on, Macduff!

You’ve had an amazing lineup of album producers throughout your career, including yourself. What did you bring to the process that was unique? 

Well, we have been incredibly fortunate to work with many fantastic producers and players on our records. Production-wise, that’d be GGGarth Richardson (Catherine Wheel, Rage Against The Machine, Alice Cooper), Kevin Kane (The Grapes of Wrath, The Northern Pikes), and Evan Foster (Boss Martians, Dirty Sidewalks, The Sonics). I think, having co-produced our records with these uber-talented gents, I learned a lot about hearing the overall picture more than any technical stuff. I still am the only band member without a home recording set up! Haha… but as the main songwriter, I always have a good idea in my noggin’ how I want to hear the final product.

Of course, all the band, my co-writers and our guest musicians all surprise me with things that make you go “YEAHHH!!” but, in general, I think I simply bring a songwriter’s perspective to the producer’s process. In mentioning Cool AF co-writers and guests, I’d be remiss without mentioning Ian Person (The Soundtrack Of Our Lives), Kevin (see above), Paul Myers (writer, musician, podcaster), Derek Macdonald (Bad Beats), Kate O’Brien, Wayne Lundqvist Ford… and that’s JUST on this album! Hard to go wrong with that stable of talent.

I love the latest album, A"ack, Sustain, Decay…Repeat. How did that name come about? 

The name came as a bastardized version of a Paul Weller album cover, “Wake Up The Nation” with close ups of knobs saying, “Attack”, “Sustain”, etc. It caught my eye and I thought how, changing the words around (and adding ‘Repeat’, of course) it could relate to the circular process of making albums and writing song cycles, but also, in a more ethereal sense, how I choose to do things in my life. Attack things with all your vim, vigour, and creativity; try to Sustain that level of passion; ultimately things will Decay to some degree; but that’s when you come full circle and Repeat the process. We only live once n’ all that… there’s a line in “Running Through The Rain” on the new album, “There’s only this one moment, here and now.”, which, although the song is actually pretty serious, about Alzheimer’s disease, fully pertains to grasping life by the cahunas, and that’s where ‘ASDR’ came from.

Listeners have responded overwhelmingly to “Feel It Comin’ On”, a sonically charged rock ’n roll trip that leans to the heavier side for the band. How did this song develop? What does this song mean to you?

That’s very kind of you to say, David. “Feel It Comin’ On” is one of 2 co-writes I did with Ian Person (see above) from Gothenburg, Sweden. We were introduced by a mutual DJ friend and Ian dug our “Rip It Off” song and video from ‘Game Day’, where I’m actually wearing a ‘The Soundtrack Of Our Lives’ t-shirt. I was a fan of the band and had seen them here in Vancouver moons ago. This little mutual admiration society led to him sending me a couple unfinished demos, which I worked on to try to bring Ian’s thing and our thing together.

I’m really pleased with how both it and “Running Through The Rain” turned out, and the band played killer tracks on them too. Our drummer, Adrian, is also our recording engineer so he and I toiled away to get the mixes just so. Ian guests on the solos and Steve made brilliant videos for both of them (among others), which def helped attract listeners/viewers.

Check our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8oPv_VxetDlnKiHGQXymw

Tell me, in a thousand words or less, about the rotating carousel of bass players.

Ok, we have had MANY bass players. 19, in fact, as mentioned above. No shit. Now, to be fair, this includes guys who played on a recording, did a gig or a tour, etc. We’ve had 7 “full-time” guys but still…all true and makes for great press! Haha. Among those was my brother, Adam (aka The Mingler) who came back to fill the bass seat and sing for much of ‘Game Day’ and ‘ASDR’, which was a real treat for me.

We even wrote “Halfway Home” together on the new record. He lives in Portland, Oregon though so, unfortunately, not a realistic long-term solution. We’d kinda known Tone for years too, but Adrian knew him best and thought he’d decided to retire from “active duty,” as it were. I said, “Fuck that!” and sent him a message and Boom! (again), he was, as my sister says, “In there like swimwear” A fantastic musician, it was amazing he hadn’t been one of the previous 18 bassists already..Haha. Anyhow, he’s also a top-notch dude and we’re lucky to have him. There ya go. “19, 19, 19 in 1!” (*hums the Doublemint theme song*).

What’s the band working on now?

Well, it’s been an amazingly fruitful time for the band the last few years. We released ‘Game Day’ in ’21 and it did extremely well for us (not financially, of course, cause what does these days with streaming n’ all?.. but airplay-wise and critically, making a whole schwack of Best Of ’21 lists. Thanks again to all those fine folks who deemed it worthy!). We then released ‘Attack, Sustain, Decay… Repeat’ earlier this year and, again, we’re thrilled with its reception thus far. Both albums got 5-star reviews in ‘Shindig! Magazine’ (London, UK) as well as ‘The Big Takeover’ (Brooklyn, NY), and lots more. Quite a whirlwind, I can tell you.

We’ve released 4 videos (all directed by our guitarist, Steve) for this album so far and just filmed #5 last week so they’ve been a great way to give our records longevity, and they’re great fun to make. We’re also just now starting to work on new stuff for album #7 as we have 14 songs done; a handful of cowrites with Steve, as usual, but also some more cool co-writes and a few of my own nuggets tossed in for good measure. As a songwriter, it’s been fabulous to be able to get that writing itch scratched yet again.

Top 5 albums?

Geez, I’d have trouble picking a top 100 (!) but, gun to my head, I’ll give you 25, in no particular order:

1) Revolver (The Beatles)

2) Sound Affects/All Mod Cons/Setting Sons (The Jam) – yeah, it’s a three-fer cheat…so sue me!

3) Who’s Next/Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy/Quadrophenia (The Who) – yep… cheatin’ again

4) Songs To Learn And Sing (Echo & The Bunnymen) – yeah, yeah, it’s a comp. but damn, son!

5) Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)

6) #1 Record/Radio City (Big Star) – you can see the pattern of cheatin’ here, can’t you?

7) Argybargy (Squeeze)

8) Love Junk (The Pursuit Of Happiness) (Oh, Canada!)

9) Mission: You/Department Store Girl (The Rosenbergs)

10) Mania/Undone (The Lucy Show)

11) Urban Hymns (The Verve)

12) From Love It To Death straight thru to Welcome To My Nightmare (Alice Cooper)

13) Now And Again (The Grapes Of Wrath) (Oh, Canada, pt deux!)

14) Desolation Boulevard (Sweet) – perhaps the only album I have on vinyl, cassette, CD, digital & yes… even 8-Track!

15) Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. (The Monkees) – where we got our moniker!

16) Hot Rocks 1964-1971 (The Rolling Stones) – I know, a comp. again

17) Rocks/Toys In The Attic (Aerosmith)

18) London Calling (The Clash)

19) Get The Knack (The Knack)

20) Mars Needs Guitars) Hoodoo Gurus

21) Behind The Music (The Soundtrack Of Our Lives)

22) Damn The Torpedoes (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)

23) Pretty Together/Navy Blues (Sloan)

24) The first 3 Julian Cope solo albums

25) Aladdin Sane/Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie)

Artists I love but couldn’t decide on 1 (or even 2) albums of theirs: Oasis, Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, The Kinks, Neil Young

Any plans for a tour to the northeastern part of the U.S.?

Unfortunately, not at the mo’.. Would love to get out your way, though, as the North Eastern U.S. seems to have some places we’ve had great support from (ie: Brooklyn, Chicago, and, of course, Boston) based on the keen reception from folks like yourself, The Big Takeover, Power Pop Overdose, to name a few. We’ve also become pals with some fine folks in your fair town like Linda from The Chelsea Curve, Danny Kopko (& his multitude of cool projects), and a good pal, promoter, Chris Porter who runs The Town & City Festival in Lowell (who I’ve known for years). Incidentally, my father grew up in Worcester, Mass. before moving to Canada. *Hums “It’s A Small World” as he wanders off to steal the melody for another Star Collector tune*

Thanks a mill for having me do this, David!