'Stellar?', I hear you say, 'isn't that some kind of constellation, after all, you did say they were stars.' No...they're musicians, you know, they sing and dance (well, maybe they dance just a little bit....)
'Ahh...they were on telly weren't they? Nice group of young girlies those were.' No, not those pop stars! Sorry kiddies, but this is a real band, you know, one that plays their own instruments, writes their own songs, and get this, weren't manufactured for TV!
Now that's out of the way, here's some background information before I set your homework. (NB. This information will be set out to in easy to follow point form)
Number 1:
Stellar recently reached number 1. This was a feat accomplished with their debut album, Mix, produced by ex Thompson Twins man (and current International Observer and New Zealand resident), Tom Bailey.
Number 2:
Stellar is lead by singer/songwriter, Boh Runga (yes..yes..yes...she does have red hair, and yes...she's the sister of Bic and Pearl Runga.) Now that's been established, we'll move to the next point.
Number 3:
In addition to Boh, the band is also made up of Kurt Shanks (bass), Chris van de Geer (guitar), and Andrew Maclaren (drums).
OK. I will now turn the class over to our special guest, band member Kurt Shanks, who is standing by ready for your questions. However, before he steps up, we must all enter the school time machine and travel back to early August, when the album was released. (This, you will note, is because the context of your assignment band only allows for questions from this time period.)
Class Questions
You must be happy about the reaction to the album so far?
"It's only been out a few days but so far, the reviews and what people have said about it have been really good. We're really happy with that because for the last year that's what we've been concentrating on doing, so that the fact that people like it is a bit of a relief really."
This album seems to have been quite widely anticipated; did you feel under any pressure to live up to anything?
"No, not really. I mean we're just basically making the album for ourselves. We all wanted to be really happy with it, so we haven't really been thinking of a particular audience when we made the record."
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