Star Industry interview: ‘We had to continue’
Star Industry
(Interview by Seba Dolimont) Star Industry is a New-Wave Gothic Rock band founded in 1996 in the small Belgian town of Maasmechelen. Over the years they have grown into a real cult band in the current gothic rock scene thanks to solid album releases and a quite strong live reputation cos it’s really on stage that the band excels and likes to rock, opting for a real drummer instead of a drum machine for example.
Star Industry’s characteristic sound features catchy melodies and a nice mix of strong guitars and dark synths with powerful dark vocals that brought them recurrent comparisons with Sisters Of Mercy, The Mission or yet Fields Of The Nephilim… Star Industry appear on the “Resurgence” compilation box with a quite surprising piano-based exclusive remix by The Dreamside. We talked with Xavier and Peter about the past, present & future!
This interview is part of an ongoing interview series that we do in collaboration with Spleen+ / Alfa Matrix for the massive 7CD post-punk / coldwave / minimal electro boxset “Resurgence”. You can order this fine set as a 7CD set or as a download via Bandcamp. This release will NOT be available on Spotify or any other service, except for Bandcamp.
S+. Tell us more about the current music-related priorities for Star Industry in 2025?
Xavier: The entire focus for Star Industry in 2024 and 2025 is working on a new album. It’s way too long since the last one. But I think we can point out a few extenuating circumstances. As you can imagine, the band has gone through a difficult period after the sudden loss, an aneurysm, of our bass player, driving force and co-founder Stijn ‘Stign’ Kuijpers. That was extremely unexpected and a huge shock that we had to sink in for a while. After the world stood still for a moment, we decided to continue. Stign wouldn’t want it any other way. The band and the friendship within is too precious to give up. So now we’re absolutely motivated to make a fantastic new album to honor him.
S+. What do terms like “post punk”, “cold wave”, “new wave”… mean for you in your own musical career?
Peter: They mean a lot to us! These are terms that describe a part of the alternative music scene that we as young kids were attracted to and immediately had a magical appeal to us. We fell in love with it and it never let us go. It was natural that when the band was founded we wanted to be part of this beautiful scene. This culture is a way of life to us. And even though our musical view has become broader and broader over the years, we still notice that these genres remain our great love, no matter what.
S+. According to you, which elements made these good old days so special?
Xavier: I think New Wave had that new sound in that moment. The use of electronic sounds, drum computers, synthesizers, energetic upbeat rhythms, dark vocals, delayed chorus guitars, etc. was different from what was already established. New Wave and Post Punk emerged from the punk of the late 70s, which was a reaction against the evolution of 60s and 70s commercial stadium rock and was based on 3 chords, fast tempo, short songs and the DIY movement. New Wave and Post Punk kept the music stripped back, but used more interesting lyrics, timbres, arrangements or song structures. A lot of these early bands weren’t real musicians but often art school students and they were being open for experimentation what often resulted in a dark sound and most of the time very danceable. The attitude to experiment, the unique obscure sounds and certainly also the fashion style made this culture very attractive to us. We were and still are passioned by the mysterious atmosphere this glorious music scene breathes.
S+. And what are for you the main similarities and differences between today’s alternative music scene anno 2025 and what it used to be back then in the late 70’s/early 80’s?
Peter: Oh, we can talk for hours about that! There are a lot of similarities. In my opinion the things Xavier described above didn’t change that much. And luckily we still have a fascinating alternative music scene. There are a lot of new young bands who are exciting. Sometimes they use the old elements and do their own thing with it, what is great. Young kids who discover the music of the 80s and this inspires them to make music themselves. But also a number of established names continue to do well.
But there are also many differences. For example the technology: you can do anything and everything with computers. And that’s no problem if you use it in the right way. But what brings AI technology? I’m a bit afraid that this won’t benefit creativity a lot.
And for sure the internet has completely revolutionized the music scene. With the advance of the internet and streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, music is more accessible than ever before. It’s a good thing that Artists can reach a global audience instantly through online platforms. But on the other hand i have a feeling that these platforms makes the music nowadays more temporary and short-lived. I mean, today you release your new album and within a month it will be old and forgotten due to the constant flow of new albums. The world is spinning faster and faster every day. I remember back in the days, we as wild kids saving some money and were totally excited when we could take the bus to some big cities to buy a few nice records. We lent them to each other and recorded them on cassettes. And listened intensely to them for a whole year, turning them inside out and knowing every lyric. This has changed nowadays i guess.
S+. If you could describe this musical movement with only a few words only, what would you say?
Xavier: New Wave and Post Punk music to me is energetic, mysterious, alternative, art, danceable, with catchy hooks. One of the most influential movements in the history of music.
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