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Metal Mixology for January 15th 2025

Jason Hesley


This edition is written by Marcus Fraser - Lead Vocals/songwriter of Starcrazy!




Marcus has shared a theme Spotify Playlist. Below you can read a litle Marcus has written about each track.



Anthem - Rush:

Last year, the band was in Melbourne for a show and we dropped into our mate, Alex’s place where were would be staying the night. This bloke lives with three huskies, two cats and a few humans. The place is a madhouse and we were getting squiffy. We were jamming in his music room and soaking in the majesty of RUSH, discussing their music and listening to the Fly By Night album. (Surely all decent rock bands nerd out on RUSH?) Having two drummers in the band (myself and Jack), we were trying to outdo each other by performing the song, Anthem on an electric drum kit (which was NOT easy). The song is literally an anthem and the perfect opener to the album, it still blows my mind to this day. I don’t think we actually sound much like RUSH, but subconsciously, this song and album definitely influenced the creation of our record.

Oh, and Jack won the drum battle as always.


DON’T PLAY - Turnstile:

Our guitarist, Odin hipped me to this band just as their album, GLOW ON was blowing up. I think I listened to this album everyday for a month. The song, DON’T PLAY really grabbed me. I don’t think I’d ever heard a samba beat in a metal song before, it’s seriously cool stuff. You can hear their influence on our song, ‘Going Underground’ on our new album.


Epic - Faith No More:

I mean, c’mon… what a song ! This one influenced our album directly with a production choice at the end of our song, Ballad Of Philip J Fry, where the band fades out but the horn parts remain until the end of the track, just like that awesome piano part at the end of Epic. I’m more of a Chuck Mosley fan myself but The Real Thing is obviously a monster album.


Mean Street - Van Halen:

One night, our guitarist, Odin was noodling around at rehearsal. He was trying to nail the little harmonic noises from that intro of Mean Street by Van Halen and in the process, accidentally started his own rhythmic loop which we developed into the opening track on our album, The Fire. I’m sure it’s easy to tell the Van Halen influence throughout our album, they’re one of our all time favs.


Bonin’ In The Boneyard - Fishbone:

We’ve always had an affinity with this song, mainly because one of us lost our virginity in a graveyard. Fishbone are one of our biggest influences, Norwoods bass playing on this song has influenced millions, including Flea AND our very own JB, particularly when writing our song, ‘I Ain’t That Crazy’, track 6 on our brand new debut album.


Pretty Noose - Soundgarden:

We refer to this song as Pretty Nose after our drummer, Jack misspelt it on messenger. He himself has a pretty little nose… 

Matt Cameron’s drumming on this track inspired Jacks drumming on our song, ‘Another Night’. What a band though, such a huge sound.


Eloise - The Damned:

As made famous by Barry Ryan, we love this cover of Eloise by The Damned. The instrumental stabs in this song inspired the end section of our song, ‘Jar Of Dirt’. We also once replicated a photoshoot of the Damned by lighting a snare drum on fire, the neighbours were far from impressed.


The King Is Half Undressed - Jellyfish:

We had to include a Jellyfish song on this list, we just love this band. A lot of people comment that we sound like Jellyfish which I personally don’t hear, but I’m always super flattered. This band combined 60’s pop, 70’s pop and glam rock plus all sorts of other styles to create two phenomenal albums, only to disappear off the face of the earth not long after, do yourself a favour and check ‘em out !


Sweet F.A. - The Sweet:

Myself and guitarist, Odin spent many years listening to this album growing up, it’s such a great heavy metal album, anyone who knows the Sweet well, knows that they just wanted to rock out like Zeppelin and The Who and they did it so well but their record label were more interested in pushing their poppier songs.


Three Days - Jane’s Addiction:

The Ritual De Lo Habitual album is a HUGE influence on Starcrazy. If you listen to our new album, I’m sure you’ll pick up on that. This was Jane’s Addiction at the height of their powers, even though they all hated each other at the time (and still do apparently!) Three Days is a mega song, so moody and mysterious and so heavy, it’s the obvious choice from this album,(although Then She Did is a close 2nd fav track for me).



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