November Artist of the Month: STELLA (vs CHIHUAHUA MAN)
by Jenny Elig - 11/28/1999
At STELLA's first show, a man came into O'hooleys with a Chihuahua strapped to his chest. (Strapped as in put in a baby bag...not like a suicide bomb.) Apparently he wasn't lulled by the music of STELLA, but inspired by it. After trying to dance with someone else's girlfriend, He got into a fight, with the Chihuahua still strapped to his chest.
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A band of weaker constitution would have taken the tussle as a bad omen and called it quits. But STELLA, comprised of singer and guitarist Laura Nadeau, guitarist John "Catfish" Juliano, bassist Dave Baer and drummer Mark Hellenberg, aren't a weak band.
STELLA occupies a niche in the Athens Music scene--or maybe it's the anti-niche. They cater to the over forty townies; the college students who love to dance; the younger folks who like to stand around and groove in a low-key fashion; the Elvis fans; the Chihuahua carrying men; and, of course, the lovers of good music.
"There are a lot of people who have chosen to live here that aren't in the college community that need a band to go and see." explains Hellenberg. "There are several of those bands in Athens and we are one of them."
The history of STELLA is, at this point, relatively short. The band formed when Nadeau called Baer and asked him to play bass for a band.
"I had not been playing music for a while. I went back to school and started this band. I was ready to do something fun with my music," Nadeau says. "I had been playing in Austin for a while and just moved back here."
"We started playing and it worked and we were giddy," Baer adds.
Giddy is perhaps the best way to describe STELLA's band members. Here are four full fledged adults, doing something they love and getting appreciated for it. As Baer explains, it's the first band he's been in where people other than the band like the music.
After the band grew, Hellenberg and Catfish joined. Hellenberg is also a member of the Wingnuts, and Catfish is a member of at least three other bands. "Catfish is an enigma," says Baer. "He's a genius. He plays a different instrument in every one of his bands.
Ask anyone about STELLA. If they've seen them, the answer is that STELLA is great. If they haven't they've heard something good about the band.
The secret must be in their approach. STELLA plays lots of covers, including Elvis songs, Beatles songs Jefferson Airplane songs.
"We cover the people we listen to at home," Hellenberg says. But they skew it a little...like playing "White Rabbit," with a blue grass polka beat while Laura sings it straight. "We're not just a dance band," says Hellenberg. "We do things you'd probably be better off (just) listening to, but people, especially older people, are used to dancing."
Audience response is the key to STELLA. They like to play all night, mesmerizing audiences with their laid back style. "We're getting to the point where we don't have set lists anymore, and we can be pretty responsive to what the crowd wants," Baer says.
Live: Stella @ Casa Cantina on 08/20/2005 [ watch video ]
"We don't really want to share the stage with other bands. We respect those bands, but we want to be able to play the whole night and not worry about set changes," Hellenberg says.
For a good reason. The band sounds like their in a trance, channeling this music that's warmly somber, smoothly tangy and rawly polished. Nadeau's voice is rich with nostalgia and conveys a sense of Foley permanence. She's another one of STELLA's successful aspects.
"I'd known her, I'd seen her, I'd worshiped her for years," Baer says. "You need a garage band behind you, kicking your ass on occasion, to get that little sleepy thing out of you eyes," Baer tells Nadeau.
Nadeau is the unofficial leader of STELLA, something the rest of the band is comfortable with. Most of the original songs the band plays are hers, filtered through her soul by mysterious the forces that attack at 2:30 in the morning. Nadeau is inspired by pain and agony, but mostly dreams. It's appropriate, then, that the band's name also came from a dream Laura had about giving birth to a little alien baby that yelled, "Stella...Stella." "I'd never seen A Streetcar Named Desire," Nadeau says. "I felt like STELLA would be a cool name. The only thing I hate about it is that people think I am Stella.
"Happiness does not really inspire me. A lot of times it's a dream." Songs are never processed. "If it doesn't come to me in the first half hour of trying to write it, it doesn't evolve. If it ends up going where it needs to go, it's right then," Nadeau says.
Nadeau best sums up the experience of the band for the whole group. Nadeau says she always wanted to be backed by instruments from the first time the Wingnuts let her sing with them. "To sing on top of all of these instruments was totally exhilarating."
Exhilarating not just for Nadeau, but for the rest of the Stella. And, of course, for the audience members lucky enough to go and see them. Even the ones who bring Chihuahuas.
