Supermassive Star, a new project from two stalwarts of Sheffield’s music scene, drop their debut LP, ‘This Fucking Life’, today (7 July). Ahead of the launch, we grabbed a quick word with the pair to find out more about the poignant, genre-hopping odyssey that’s unlike anything they’ve ever done before…
You know the score. Every so often, a tune crawls into your lugholes, wriggles about in your ear canal and lives rent free in your nut for a while. For me, the latest earworm to belly flop through my AirPods was a 3-minute groove called ‘Black Soul Music’.
While this is hardly unusual, what came as a surprise was that the song in question had been quietly crafted by one of my oldest friends and former Harrisons bandmate, Ben Stanton – the sly old dog!
Alongside former Mabel Love drummer, Dave Mitchell, under the cover of internet, the pair have privately compiled an arsenal of the most interesting, diverse and downright quirky tunes this side of the River Don, all under the guise of Supermassive Star.
Having caught my attention, I headed to our native Hillsborough for an iced coffee with Ben and Dave (oh, how times have changed) to find out what Supermassive Star is all about.
“It was more than just putting an album of songs together to play live,” Ben tells me. “It was a bit like therapy in a way… just a release.” After the loss of Ben’s brother Tim Stanton, the pair leaned hard into music, not to chase success, but simply to cope. “We both had a tough couple of years,” he explains. “And it was like, let’s just keep doing it as… an escape.”
That grief, and the complicated beauty of processing it, bleeds into the lyrics throughout the album. “Lyrically, there’s definitely a reference to losing someone,” Ben says. “But then also trying to look at it like, well, life does go on, and life can still be a beautiful thing.”
Their debut album This Fucking Life didn’t come together in one tight burst of inspiration. It was pieced together from nearly 50 demos – beats, verses, guitar lines and vocals, sent back and forth between homes and makeshift studios. “We sieved through about 50 tracks,” says Dave. “And then these nine just seemed to jump out.”
From dreamy lo-fi beginnings, the duo slowly built a dense, experimental soundworld with the help of producer Chris Wilkinson, session musicians and singers, and sometimes untested mates – there’s even a touch of brass on there!
Despite the meticulous crafting, the record is no polished pop project. “It’s ramshackle, and it’s honest,” Dave laughs. “But that’s what makes it.” What sounds loose or chaotic on first listen is anything but. “If you listen to it really carefully, there’s loads going off all over the place,” Ben says. “Some of those little noises – we spent hours on them. It’s all thought through.”
That sense of openness and collaboration runs deep through the process. “You realise you don’t own it,” Ben admits. “You’ve got to let other people have their input. Something I’ve never been that good at!” Dave adds. “We never know what it’s going to sound like. There’s no agenda. We just let it be.”
If you’re looking for a defining ‘sound’ from Supermassive Star, good luck. The three tracks currently out on Spotify swing from Gorillaz-inspired hip-hop (‘Gutterman’) to Radiohead-style alt grooves (‘Black Soul Music’) to dreamy, silly synth-pop (‘White Sun’).
The band’s unpredictable palette is a product of that same openness, often sparked by unexpected contributors. Ben recalls the moment they first worked with long-time pal Sean Moore, who had never been involved in the musical world before, but lays down a blistering vocal on Gutterman: “We sent him a track, and he had it for about a day, sent a voice memo back of his rap and we just knew that it was going to be all right.”
That free-spirited vibe is not accidental. “We purposely pushed ourselves,” says Ben. “It’s not a pop record. It’s not mainstream. But we’re proud of the risks we took.” He pauses, then adds: “I’m more proud of us that we actually took those risks, and came away from being like anybody else.”
There’s no rush to take it live. If anything, they’ve been deliberately holding back. “We just wanted to get it out there. For it to exist first.” says Dave.
Ben admits he’s still a bit bruised from the slog of gigging in earlier bands. “We’re probably scarred a little bit from how much we did it before. The hours and effort it takes to really get it sounding right. Having said that, we’re not against playing live at some point.”
The band name, too, carries unexpected weight. After Tim passed, Ben found himself watching Brian Cox documentaries, reflecting on the cosmos, deep in full existential crisis. “I was questioning the meaning of everything. Apparently, when black holes swallow loads of stars, they use them. It’s almost like a collaboration,” he says. “That’s what we wanted to do.”
The album is their cosmic swirl: a giant, messy collaboration of styles, grief, joy, daftness and defiance.
A second album is already underway, and the duo are planning to approach it in a more cohesive way. “We might do this one more like a band. Just go in and do it all.” Dave says.
They’ve also roped in their kids to design artwork and logos, with the label name ‘Our Kid Records’ acting as a fittingly homemade umbrella. “They’ll get any money from merch,” says Ben. “It’s theirs. They’ve touched everything.”
Supermassive Star might be a different beast entirely from Harrisons or Mabel Love, but its spirit is no less Sheffield – honest, grounded and bursting with heart. Or, as Ben puts it, “It’s as experimental as we could probably be at this time.”
For your next earworm, check out the new album here:
