BEEN STELLAR Share New Single & Video “Breakaway”
Been Stellar – Press Photo by Santiago Cerrillo
BEEN STELLAR Share New Single & Video “Breakaway”
Today, New York’s Been Stellar have shared their first single of 2025, the distortion soaked and melodic “Breakway.” The single follows a breakout year that saw the band release their debut album Scream from New York, NY via Dirty Hit, tour with The 1975 and Fontaines DC, and pack out clubs on their own merit.
“We needed to capture a few feelings with this song. Some mixture of sadness, anger, regret— and ultimately optimism,” shares vocalist Sam Slocum. “When Sky first showed me the initial idea it struck me how punchy yet melodic it was. There were already a few emotions in the guitar part alone, so the words followed naturally and the song came to life. We quickly brought it into the studio with Aron (Kobayashi-Ritch) and recorded it together live.”
The single arrives just before the band’s Primavera debut, and a run of EU & UK dates including three stops with Fontaines DC in London, Lyon & Arles. Tickets available HERE, and watch the video for “Breakway” below.
Been Stellar – Single Art – Breakaway
Scream from New York, NY is a remarkably brutal debut – bruised and volatile, it captures an image of ‘20s New York that’s unrelenting and harsh, where tenderness is a finite resource burned up by the machinery of the city and human connection is a luxury product. Leaving behind the driving shoegaze of their early recordings, the NYC-based five-piece tap into the disaffected sound and spirit of New York luminaries like Sonic Youth and Interpol, as well as the nihilistic, yearning cool of Iceage and Bends-era Radiohead, striking upon a sound that’s fearsome, buffeting and beautiful at the same time – a tidal wave as viewed from underneath.
As its wry title implies, Scream from New York, NY, is a record about what happens when language fails – between friends, partners, a city and its citizens – and the primal scream you might let out when words just don’t work anymore.
Preceding the album release, Been Stellar shared a handful of standout singles including the white-knuckled and cutting “Sweet,” the ferocious late-album highlight “All In One,” the masterfully dynamic “Pumpkin,” and head turning lead single “Passing Judgment.”
Tour Dates
June 4 – Sala Nazca – Madrid, ES
June 5 – Primavera Sound – Barcelona, ES
June 9 – Nuits De Fourviere – Lyon, FR*
June 10 – Theatre Antique – Arles, FR*
June 12 – Radar Estudios – Vigo, ES
June 13 – Primavera Sound – Porto, ES
July 5 – Finsbury Park – London, UK*
July 8 – Blind – Istanbul, TR
August 7-9 – Haldern Pop – Rees, NRW
August 15 – Pukkelpop – Hasselt, BE
August 22 – Reading Festival – Reading, UK
August 23 – Leeds Festival – Leeds, UK
*supporting Fontaines D.C.
Like so many other dyed-in-the-wool New York bands, Been Stellar are transplants. Guitarist Skyler Knapp and vocalist Sam Slocum first met in their freshman year of high school a decade ago; members of the cross country team, they bonded over the band t-shirt Skyler was wearing and decided to start jamming together. In Michigan, they started performing under the Been Stellar name, but it wasn’t until the pair began studying at NYU that a sound started to coalesce and the band took shape.
Determined to break new sonic ground, the band embarked on a relentless practice schedule, even renting scrappy studios on days off during tours with Fontaines DC and Shame. After befriending him at SXSW, the band tapped producer Dan Carey (black midi, Wet Leg) to help coalesce the disparate elements of their sound that had been percolating: forceful, driving physicality; pop classicism; gnarled beauty; and a rich emotional core. The resulting 10-song album announces Been Stellar as gimlet-eyed chroniclers of contemporary youth, staring through noise and confusion into the dark heart of modern life. These songs embody the spirit of a city that makes and breaks its inhabitants on a daily basis – an irony befitting the album’s tone: Been Stellar’s preternatural ability to capture the disconnection that haunts New York with photorealist detail might just be the thing that vaults them into its pantheon.
Been Stellar is Sam Slocum (vocals), Skyler Knapp (guitar), Nico Brunstein (bass), Gigi Giobbi (drums).
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