Keyboardist's music comes from the heart

From left are Pat McGee, Chris Seligman, Amy Millan, Evan Cranley and Torquil Camp- bell, members of the indie band Stars. // Photo by Norman Wong

After a decade in the music industry, indie pop act Stars continues to bring personal emotions and experiences into their songs.

During the writing process of their latest release, The Five Ghosts, vocalist Torquil Campbell’s father died, which had a huge impact on the rest of the album, says Chris Seligman, keyboardist and a founding band member.

“Musically, I think stuff somehow subconsciously came from his passing, and lyrically towards Torq expressing some of the feelings he was going through,” Seligman, 37, says.

For example, in The Last Song Ever Written, one of the lines says, “This is the last time that you’re gonna lose someone. After this, it’s you and your friends.”

Each of the band’s five albums has a specific theme, such as their third release, Set Yourself on Fire, which focuses on the sad aspects of love and relationships. On the latest album, many of the songs deal with dark themes, such as death and ghosts.

“[The music] tends to grow organically,” Seligman says. “You have to be conscious of where the music is going and it will lead you places.”

The song He Dreams He’s Awake is based on nightmares Seligman had while staying in an apartment in Vancouver at the start of the writing process.

“I had these really intense dreams where I was awake,” he says. The first time it happened, he says he dreamed he went to the mirror and there was a woman’s face staring at him, whose eyes met his own.

“I’d go into rehearsal and I was just a bit of an emotional wreck because I wasn’t sleeping and I was freaked out,” he says.

Ghosts are depicted on the album cover, a photograph taken by G.S. Smallwood in 1905, says Aaron Seligman, Chris’ younger brother, as well as the president of the Cardboard Box Project, which designed the album cover.

The Victorian-era unknown girl in the photo is holding five roses in the picture, corresponding with the number of band members. Also coincidentally, during a tour for their previous album, In Our Bedroom After the War, the band began decorating their stage with roses.

“There are just these layers to the image that it just almost felt like it was meant to be used in the [way] it was used,” Aaron says.

Their lyric book and seven-inch vinyl box set displays one ghostly photo per song, based on a theme or a line in the song, he says.

Stars formed 10 years ago, when Campbell and Chris Seligman were sharing an apartment in New York City. The two had been childhood friends ever since they met on a playground when Seligman moved from his hometown of Bolton, Ont., to Toronto in Grade 3.

During the band’s early days, Seligman would spend time in their apartment writing fully structured songs, and Campbell would add in a vocal melody and lyrics.

“We knew we had a dream, but we had no idea that 10 years later we’d still be actually doing it,” Seligman says. After their first album, Nightsongs, they added guitarist and bassist Evan Cranley, vocalist Amy Millan and drummer Patty McGee.

In 2000, they relocated to Montreal, where they are currently based. That’s where the majority of the writing and living happens, Seligman says.

He says his Jewish upbringing manifests itself mostly in his personality traits, for example, describing himself as being a bit neurotic in a Woody Allen fashion. He also credits his Russian and Polish backgrounds as possible sources for his interest in some of the darker sides of music.

Seligman began as a French horn player, performing mostly orchestral music. He studied classical French horn at Boston University, and through that program, began to learn piano theory.

Slowly, he drifted into the pop scene, longing to find his own voice and learn the technique behind pop and rock music.

“It was something that started slow and I’ve been working on until now,” he says, adding that he still finds himself completely fascinated by pop music styles.

And the learning doesn’t stop there. He continues to study new techniques for recording and producing, as well as writing material on his own – although he has no plans to release it for a while, and isn’t hoping to make money from it.

“It’s purely for the sake of me exploring music and for the love of music, which is why I started,” he says. “I just think it’s something that keeps me really healthy in music, to just do it for the pure love of it and to explore it and to find new things in it.”

His musical expertise comes through in his performances, all of which he says is performed live without a prerecorded backtrack.

His setup involves a foot pedal for the sometimes looped “weird ethereal backdrops.” When he performs, he’s says he’s usually multitasking, playing the melodies in one hand while holding down a chord, and triggering sounds with his feet.

Although some bands choose techniques that have keyboard sounds running from a computer, this band aims for as raw a sound as possible, keeping all of the music live.

After five albums, he says people tend to view the band differently, often comparing the old with the new.

A common trend in the indie culture is for fans to view artistic changes in the music as a band losing their meaning and integrity.

But Seligman’s attitude shows that the band has simply evolved naturally, and the songs mean as much to him as they did the day they started.

“I have a strong connection to all of them because they’re almost like living organisms that you put out into the world,” he says.

And at the end of the day, he’s just thankful to be able to continue his career as a musician.

The band will embark on a North American tour in the fall. Visit www.youarestars.com for complete dates and ticket information.

Originally published in The Canadian Jewish News.