Interview: Star 99 @ Growing Up is Dumb 2025
Star 99 is a band of friends. If there’s anything that’s been clear about their newest album Gaman and watching them perform at Growing Up is Dumb 2025, it’s that their energy comes from their chemistry. In the span of three months, I have had a unique proximity to their work, so much so that I found out some of my friends know them personally in San Jose.
The band’s brand of punk, emo-tinted power pop is raising their profile to the degree of opening for Los Campesinos!, a band that had a large influence on their own music. Even though Star 99 is in demand, the band is extremely thoughtful and reflective of what brought them here and what stuck them together: local, DIY community.
It was appropriate then that on the cracking sidewalk outside the Echo after sound check, we dove deeper into this moment in time with Star 99’s Saoirse Alesandro, Aidan Delaney, and Thomas Calvo.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
We are at Growing Up is Dumb 2025 at the Echoplex. What’s the vibe here?
Alesandro: It’s air conditioned, which is great cause it’s fucking hot in LA. It’s really good, yeah.
Delaney: Vibes are very good. When we pulled up and got out of the car, Algernon was sound checking. So it’s hard to not be in a good mood after that.
Calvo: You know, I feel like the Bay Area and Southern California still feel totally different places. We pulled up to Echo Park and I saw a dude in a band shirt and I asked him if he knew where all the acoustic sets were. And he had no idea. So I feel like that’s a vibe.
Alesandro: There’s a lot of fashion punks though.
Calvo: That’s what I meant to say, is that there’s a lot of fashion punks at Echo Park.
Alesandro: We’re also seeing real punks that we’ve known for, like years and decades, and that’s cool. It’s a family reunion, like, OK, our friend Eddie [Han] just pulled up and we went to the first two, maybe three, Growing Up is Dumbs together just to see everybody. So it’s crazy to play it. It’s nuts.
You’re part of the tapestry, right?
Alesandro: The Great Tapestry of Lauren Records.
Who are you most excited to see today?
Alesandro: Oh my God. Good Luck. Good Luck is right after us and I’m freaking out. I love Good Luck. Yeah, I could go on, but it would be embarrassing.
Delaney: Even though we just played the last two shows with them, I’m super excited to see Shinobu. And I may or may not have put in a request, so I hope they play the song.
Calvo: I’m stoked to see Algernon Cadwallader, but I’m also really stoked to see Whatever, Dad. Elaiza used to sing in Crying. But I think Whatever, Dad is like the better, more intimate project. I think their lyrics are great. They’re a really great subdued songwriter. And I’m stoked that Lauren [Records] is giving a band that I thought was really small a platform to play a fest like this.
Alesandro: Also, TikTok too.
Calvo: Thank you, TikTok.
Why not Star 100?
Alesandro: Okay, Star 99 is named after a porn shop in Campbell, CA, near our drummer Jeremy [Romero]’s parents’ house. So yeah, that’s it, that’s why.
I thought it was like a Mario reference.
Alesandro: It’s worse. It’s way worse. And we never went there because it closed before we were like 18. I just thought it was cool. Like, it’s this big blue building with red letters that says Star 99. I was like there it is. Our porn shop band name.
Kind of a very tame porn shop name in my opinion, right?
Alesandro: That’s cause the tapes were 99 cents.
What was the easiest creative decision in making Gaman? And what was the hardest?
Calvo: The easiest was asking Aidan to join the band. That was like a no-brainer for us and we’re really happy that he’s in the band. I think Aidan brings a lot of qualities to the table that every other member lacks, personality wise and skill wise. [He’s] down to play all sorts of instruments. So that was a really, really easy answer for us.
Alesandro: Aidan’s a mommy. Aidan’s our band mom. Seriously. Like mother hen. Like takes us under their wings. And comforts us in their bosom.
Response?
Delaney: Yeah, that was probably the easiest decision for me too. I really love these guys. It was also a no-brainer to join.
Calvo: I feel like the hardest one for Gaman was–I’m like an over perfectionist. And so we had a run of vocals for all the songs. Initial takes. And it took us two weeks, but we had to redo all of those vocals and we did it for the benefit of the record.
Alesandro: I have crazy asthma. But yeah, it was bad. I was wheezing cause there was a dog that we love, but we were very allergic to the dog. We just came back another day.
Calvo: It was also Fleet Week in SF at the time [of recording]. So there’s all this jet fuel in the air and people in town checking it out. And I have asthma. We have asthma.
Alesandro: We’re an asthmatic band. We have allergies too.
What’s your favorite track on the album and why?
Delaney: I think my favorite track is “Gray Wall,” just how it came together was really cool. Saoirse had the idea to do a song with a drum break and it was just kind of out-of-the-box. We were super excited to do something different. And we wrote it just listening to the drum loop over and over again and noodling around guitars. We put lyrics together in the practice space and it came together really well. It’s also about our friend Derek, who we miss a lot and we got to see in New York. So that was awesome.
Alesandro: Oh, I like “Esta.” “Esta” is my favorite track on the record. I think it’s the best track on the record. It makes me cry and I don’t know, [Thomas] poured [his] shit out into that one. It was great.
Calvo: That song’s about growing up really Catholic and having a Catholic family and generational differences with my grandma. It’s a song about my grandma who passed away and kind of looking at her life and trying to be sympathetic to the stuff she was going through, even though I had a difficult relationship with her over religion.
My favorite track I would say is “Pacemaker.” Aidan sings on that and instead of me singing I’m just kind of doing this country chicken picking thing. I feel like the song really sounds like stuff we were listening to like Remember Sports. There’s a country element to it I really like that we leaned into.
Can you share any tour highlights or weird stuff you haven’t processed yet?
Alesandro: No.
Calvo to Delaney: Ohh man. You go first.
Delaney: I think for me the New York show really stood out as one of the first fully packed shows and just good vibes. The sound guy was awesome and afterwards we just hung out with a bunch of friends that were out there. We got to, you know, get a bacon, egg and cheese at a bodega at three in the morning. It was great.
Alesandro: Okay, Denver. Denver was probably my favorite show of our country wide tour. And there was this kid that came out, I forget his name, and I don’t even think we introduced ourselves, but there’s a kid that came out and he brought his two little siblings and it was their first DIY show ever. They drove six hours and they had listened to Bitch Unlimited before, and it made me cry. I was crying. It was crazy. It was so cool.
I was talking to the sisters and I was giving them advice. It was like, “you need to play music.” And I was losing it. It was really cool. And we had a lot of those experiences where people would come out from kind of far away, you know, because we were visiting a town near them, and I don’t know if that happens a lot in, like, Bowling Green, Ohio, you know what I mean?
Calvo: I was gonna say Denver cause it was a great city and it’s kind of unexpected that it’s got a great punk scene. But honestly, the Gilman show that we played the other night. We were playing with Shinobu. The first time I went to Gilman was to see Shinobu. They were playing with Joyce Manor in like 2011. And our friend Bailey from Scout was working the door that night. And then we had a bunch of friends in Leer who are now Superworld. They were all there that night and it’s just a very full circle event because now they’re all my friends and we’re playing a sold out show with Shinobu, but they’re not like rock stars or anything. They’re very normal down to earth people.
[I understand] kids driving 6 hours to go to a show. I mean I flew like 17 hours to go see some show at Gilman because I was staying in the Bay for a summer. It’s really special.
Can you say some stuff that only folks from San Jose will get?
Alesandro: Orange sauce. Finger Chili Wendy’s. Samurai sword. Walgreens. Midtown McDonald’s.
Delaney: The Sharks will get a cup someday. Maybe not this year, maybe not next year, but someday.
Calvo: Oh man, buying Ben Davis workwear at Stevens Creek Surplus. Also just buying military surplus at Stevens Creek Surplus. Kind of like an army jacket or something and then getting a slice of pizza from Slice of New York right next door. Love that spot.
What was a movie that stuck out to you in the last year or couple of years?
Alesandro: I watched the movie Party Girl with Parker Posey. That’s not new at all, but I was just looking at the clothes. Honestly, it was sick. And there’s a bunch of drag queens in it. I’ve been watching so much RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s insane. Somebody talk to me about it other than Jeremy. Please! That’s it.
Delaney: I’m definitely late for this one, but I watched Mulholland Drive for the first time like two years ago. Yeah, rest in peace David Lynch. I understand why people won’t stop talking about that movie, because now I’m one of those people, and I won’t stop talking about that movie. And we’re in LA, which is where it takes place, so that feels right.
Calvo: At the end of last year, I watched the Jean-Michel Basquiat biopic with Jeffrey Wright and also Parker Posey’s in that. And David Bowie plays Andy Warhol. I just really like Jeffrey Wright. He kind of reminds me of Adam Duritz from Counting Crows in that movie, like he’s got the shoulder length dreads, and he’s just saying this cool slacker prose stuff. But he’s also, you know, he’s playing Basquiat. I don’t paint or draw or anything, but [I’m] channeling that energy when I play guitar. That weird public music persona, you know.
What’s your go to karaoke song?
Alesandro: “Stay” by Lisa Loeb.
Delaney: “Slide” by the Goo Goo Dolls.
Calvo: It’s either “There is a Light That Never Goes Out” or “Losing My Religion”.
What’s your advice to anyone wanting to start a band?
Alesandro: If you’re young, don’t date anybody. If you’re not gonna listen to me, use it to inform everything you’re writing. Write a bunch of poems first. Read! You should read.
Delaney: Just write something, even if it’s bad. Just make it, because at a certain point it will be good and you need to kind of work through your own process and find a voice in it, and once you do it will feel way better than just sitting on the same five songs that you’re not going to put out because you don’t think they’re good enough.
Calvo: My best advice if I was 16 — I would say if you have a favorite band, go listen to what your favorite band’s favorite bands are. Because if you just listen to Green Day and that’s all, you don’t ever go deeper than that. You’re missing out on a whole universe and the ability to talk to people about music. Just pretend that you’re your favorite artist and pretend you’re listening to their favorite records.
This interview was conducted by Justin Ricafort on April 5, 2025 at the Echoplex during Growing Up is Dumb 2025.
Header photo taken from Instagram.
Artist pages: Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp
