SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
There is a lot of serious and, at times, pretty scary news out there in the world right now. And in moments like this, it is good to turn to our favorite music to calm our nerves. But one rock band, Starflyer 59, from Riverside, California, has taken things one step further. They reimagined three decades' worth of their own songs as lullabies.
(SOUNDBITE OF STARFLYER 59'S "MAJOR AWARDS (DORMIR VERSION)")
DETROW: I feel ready to enjoy the warm embrace of sleep already, but I will wake myself up, continue recording this segment and talk about these lullabies and the cult band behind them with NPR music producer Lars Gotrich. Hey, Lars.
LARS GOTRICH, BYLINE: Hey, Scott. I am ready to enter the dream state with one of my favorite bands of all time.
DETROW: Let's do it. Starflyer 59 has been around for more than 30 years. I imagine this is a new name for a lot of listeners. Give us a sense of who they are.
GOTRICH: Starflyer 59 has basically been one person for the last three decades, Jason Martin. And he is the son of a trucker. When he was a teenager in southern California, he fell in love with The Cure and with The Smiths. And initially, when he started Starflyer, the idea was to kind of marry dreamy melodies with heavy guitar riffs, like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple and stuff like that. And a great example of the kind of music that they were making at that time in 1994, 1995, is a song called "Hazel Would."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAZEL WOULD")
STARFLYER 59: (Singing) Honestly, I'd rather sleep, but you're holding me.
DETROW: So we got that.
GOTRICH: Yeah.
DETROW: And then there's the version on the new album, "Dejame Dormir," which means let me sleep.
(SOUNDBITE OF STARFLYER 59'S "HAZELWOULD (DORMIR VERSION)")
DETROW: So to put it mildly, that is wildly different.
(LAUGHTER)
DETROW: What inspired them to take songs like that and go sleepy time with them?
GOTRICH: I've interviewed Jason Martin a handful of times over the years, and he once told me, I like listening to something that I don't do and then incorporating that a little bit into what I do. So when he was making those early shoegaze records, he would throw on a surf rock lick or a doo-wop melody, and that kind of makes everything a little bit off but very distinct. It's one of the main reasons I've loved his music for so long. So when Starflyer 59, already one of the dreamiest bands to take rock 'n' roll sideways, announced that they would make this album of lullabies, I was ready. So I want to share another song. This one's called "All My Friends Who Play Guitar."
(SOUNDBITE OF STARFLYER 59'S "ALL MY FRIENDS WHO PLAY GUITAR (DORMIR VERSION)")
DETROW: That's really relaxing.
GOTRICH: Yeah. So that is his signature guitar tone. He loves surf rock music. He always has. So you hear a little bit of that, but you're also getting flute and a little bit of harp. And, you know, I'm just kind of floating out in the waves, and I don't know. I kind of need that gentleness right now.
DETROW: That makes sense. You know, when I had kids, I was turned on to this whole genre of music out there of taking pop hits - everything from Beyonce to Black Sabbath - and lullaby-izing (ph) them...
GOTRICH: Yes.
DETROW: ...You know? And I feel like a lot of new parents, like, get into that. What makes this album different from the stuff that's out there already?
GOTRICH: So one, those lullby versions, the ones that you're talking about, weren't made by the original artist. They're usually made by studio musicians. Two, they were made for parents of newborns and infants in sort of a cheeky way.
DETROW: Yeah.
GOTRICH: Like, it was like, you're getting away with playing Snoop Dogg for a 8-week-old, you know, basically.
DETROW: Yeah.
GOTRICH: But three, Jason Martin has kind of been in a reflective mood lately. He put out this great record last year that was one of my favorites of 2024 called "Lust For Gold." And so he was kind of looking back on his shoegaze years, and he decided to make a record in that realm but also took it as an opportunity to kind of wax nostalgic on old friends. So it's a little bit of a bummer. So he's been thinking about all of that. And so it made sense to me that he took all these songs from across - from his catalog and decided to make these kind of even dreamier versions. In fact, one of those songs from "Lust For Gold" that I love is called "YZ80."
(SOUNDBITE OF STARFLYER 59'S "YZ80 (DORMIR VERSION)")
GOTRICH: And it's about an old motorcycle, and it's about old friends. And if you read the lyrics, they're sad.
DETROW: Yeah.
GOTRICH: Like, that's kind of, like - that's kind of the mode there. But this version, you don't need to know that it's sad. You just need to know that you can drift off to blissful sleep, you know? It's for everybody.
DETROW: You know, the next time I'm overly tense, which happens quite a lot...
GOTRICH: Yeah (laughter).
DETROW: ...I will put this new album on in the background, see how it goes. That is NPR music producer Lars Gotrich talking about the new album from Starflyer 59 called "Dejame Dormir," or let me sleep. Thanks a lot, Lars.
GOTRICH: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF STARFLYER 59'S "YZ80 (DORMIR VERSION)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
