Starchild at Juliette – Photos by Lulú Rodriguez
Last Call is an interview series where I, Brittany Marino, ask talented folk all about their lasts: last time they did something, last time they felt something, etc. On this episode I met with Starchild & The New Romantic, or Bryndon Cook, at Juliette in Williamsburg. We chatted over a Caesar salad and fries.
I met Bryndon back in November of 2023 at The Voidz residency at Murmur Theater. After chatting for a bit in the storage room-converted staff room, I quickly asked for their instagram- something I tend to do when I meet cool inspiring artists. I am glad I did, because Starchild’s music was the perfect addition to my music catalog. I added songs like “Tape” and “Language” to my day to day playlist: Vibes – aptly named. The falsettos in “Hectic” are just what I need with my morning tea that I drink on my balcony, while I plan my busy day ahead, as if I am the main character of my own movie. And with the right soundtrack, you can be. Consider adding Starchild & the New Romantic to your life’s soundtrack.
Brittany: Who’s the last person you texted?
Bryndon: My mother.
Brittany: You don’t have to tell me, but if you’re interested in telling me what it was about…?
Bryndon: We were sending gospel songs to each other.
Brittany: Do you text your mom a lot?
Bryndon: Often enough, enough to be a good son.
Brittany: Yeah. Does she live in New York?
Bryndon: Maryland.
Brittany: Is that where you’re from, where you grew up?
Bryndon: Yeah, one of the places where I grew up in Maryland. Born in Washington D.C., raised in Maryland, and Atlanta.
Brittany: Okay, so you bounced around a little bit.
Bryndon: I went to more schools than I did states, you know?
Brittany: How long have you been in the NYC?
Bryndon: Over a decade, crazy.
Brittany: Are you here to stay?
Bryndon: If Brooklyn lets me.
Brittany: What’s the last song you wrote?
Bryndon: I wrote a song called “Rise to the Occasion,” it’s not out, I just wrote it. (laughs)
Brittany: Is it something you plan on releasing? Like, album, single?
Bryndon: I have no clue about it, I have no clue about that one. Hopefully I’ll rise to the occasion and find out.
Brittany: How long ago did you write it?
Bryndon: A couple nights ago.
Brittany: What was the last movie you watched?
Bryndon: Good question. Not that they all haven’t been good questions.
Brittany: I hope to keep it up! (laughs)
Bryndon: I really wanna remember this, I want to be specific, can I check my phone?
Brittany: Yeah! You can take your time.
Bryndon: True Detective season four doesn’t count. Let me think. The last movie I saw in theaters was “The Iron Claw.”
Brittany: Okay, what’d you think?
Bryndon: I wanna say this right. (both laugh) Part of me feels I’ve been waiting my whole life to see that film, I have a long storied relationship with professional wrestling.
Brittany: Like, WWF, or…?
Bryndon: Yeah, yeah.
Brittany: I haven’t seen Iron Claw yet. It’s based on a true story right?
Bryndon: It’s a true story, it’s based on a family, a wrestling family, back in the ‘70s, back before Vince McMahon created the WWE or WWF as we know it. Back then in the ‘70s, wrestling was kind of comprised of families and territories. And this was a family that was based in Texas, a large amount of brothers, and they rose to the occasion (laughs) and they also had a really fabled, tragic tale of events.
Brittany: I did get a spoiler for the ending.
Bryndon: Nice, nice.
Brittany: Someone else I interviewed for this series, their brother is in the movie, and they play the little brother.
Bryndon: Oh, Stanley?
Brittany: Yeah, Stanley.
Bryndon: He was great! He was phenomenal. Jeremy’s a friend of mine, and the last time I saw him I gave him an ECW hat that I had when I was on tour…
Brittany: ECW? What does that stand for?
Bryndon: ECW is Extreme Championship Wrestling, it was an offshoot which eventually got bought up by WWE, and swallowed into the conglomerate. But this is some real… (laughs)
Brittany: I grew up with WWF cause I have an older brother and he was obsessed.
Bryndon: Oh, word. Yeah, I think professional wrestling is very interesting, and we’ll get off this, but for a couple of reasons, it’s wonderful, captivating storytelling, you can learn a lot about America when you understand the history of it, as a business and as a commercial sensation. You learn a lot about pop culture, too, cause those are one in the same at times.
Brittany: When was the last time you cried?
Bryndon: Hmm. I’m quite threadbare, or that’s how I would describe myself, so probably recently. Sometime this week? It comes and it goes.
Brittany: Do you ever happy-cry?
Bryndon: Oh yeah, often. Probably equal amounts, I’d say. I cry sometimes just out of sheer wonder and amazement at things, which is kind of sometimes in between with happiness, or joy.
Brittany: What was the last concert you went to?
Bryndon: One that pops into mind, I saw Samara Joy and Charlie Hunter play at the King’s Theatre.
Brittany: Oh, that’s a beautiful theater.
Bryndon: I saw Rostam play there, that was probably most recently.
Brittany: Oh, I saw Rostam play there, too, he was opening for The Walkmen.
Bryndon: That’s the show I was at.
Brittany: Okay, yeah.
Bryndon: Yeah, that’s Hamilton Leithauser’s band, right?
Brittany: Yeah.
Bryndon: Yeah, I was at that show!
Brittany: Last thing you splurged on?
Bryndon: Some custom suits.
Server takes our order
Bryndon: They’ll never know about my gluttony. Keep that a secret, take that to the grave.
Brittany: (laughs) So, suits. Do you splurge on yourself often, are you someone who likes to treat themselves?
Bryndon: I can, I’m frugal but I’m not a tightwad. You know, I’m a tax paying citizen.
Brittany: I like to splurge on payday.
Bryndon: On payday? See, I’m a freelancer, so I don’t really have one, and if I did that, [groans]. So, it’s hard to say just some spur of the moment things… Let me say this right. Work has been done to be a bit better at, like, appreciating the moment when you’re in it. That’s nice.
Brittany: Last note written in your notes app?
Bryndon: My notes here are chaotic-neutral.
Brittany: Yeah, mine are lists. I’ve got a lot of lists. And then, drunk thoughts, too. Sometimes my friends will say something funny, and I’m like, “I have to write that down,” because I don’t want to forget it.
Bryndon: Then maybe I’ll do this… (laughs) Wait. Oh, I have a notes page that’s specifically dedicated to jokes, or observational humor. These aren’t particularly gut-busting-funny jokes. I have a section here about karaoke and the convention of karaoke, and I’m like, “Why do people get mad if you don’t– if they don’t know the song you chose? Like, when did this become about you? I wanna sing Wichita Lineman, and just because you don’t want to sit through my country western, this song is good for me! I’m expressing myself!” But people wanna be like, well I’m not DJing right now, but that’s kind of a bit I have.
Brittany: I’ve never gotten upset if I don’t know the song, but if I do know the song, know that it is now my song, too. I’m that kind of karaoke person. I’m like, I don’t need the mic–
Bryndon: That’s fair. People treat you like you killed the party if you sing something that they just don’t know.
Brittany: What do you think about– some people are saying that karaoke is not for people who can sing. A lot of people would say if you can sing well, then karaoke is not for you, karaoke is for the people who don’t sing well. Have you heard this discourse?
Bryndon: The discourse exists. I try not to be so draconian about it at all, because I’ve left karaoke places because there’s someone who is clearly a singer, who’s like, this isn’t fun, they’re, like, practicing. And I’m like, “Well this is too much.” Where is the happy medium where people can just be, people can sing Wichita Lineman if they so choose, and all is well in the world, you know? Why can’t we go forth and conquer?
Brittany: Okay I have my last question–
Bryndon: It can’t be the last one!
Brittany: I know! Last time you created something you were proud of?
Bryndon: Okay, I thought it would be. (brings out three vinyl records of his music) This is like the trilogy. That’s at least what I call it. These are like… when I was a kid, being a recording musician and artist was not my first choice, or life-walk, really. It’s always been something that’s been a part of my life, music, everything about it. But, I loved it, right? All the research, and the deep dives, and studying stuff in the 10,000 hours, and in that space, where it lived in my imagination when I was young, if I ever saw myself in it, it was always in a place of service to it. You know, I come from a very modest understanding of gift and talent, and just cause you have it A. doesn’t mean you can take it for granted, and B. you have a gift, it must be preserved and nurtured. So, that piece of my imagination and where I saw myself in music and the service part, the best thing I thought I could do was to bring a very concise understanding of all these elements that I just stow in my head, and these records I think, this trilogy, is literally the physical manifestation of, perhaps, everything I could’ve ever imagined, as a child, and a teenager, and as an adult now. And to actually have done it, created it, never compromised on it, and now moving forward onto putting out this next phase of music and work– I’m extremely proud of this. And if I never make a physical record again, if I’m never allowed to, if it’s financial or what have you, or just life and times, I know that I have this, and that people in the world have this, cause I’m shipping it to them, personally. And I could go to the grave gleefully on that.
Brittany: I’m curious– I had this conversation with someone, but we were talking about, like, talent, and me and my friend were disagreeing on what “talent” meant, and I was saying that you can learn, you can work to be talented at something, and he was saying that talent is something that you’re born with, which implies no work is done to get to that place of being talented at something, so what is your opinion on this?
Bryndon: On the nature of talent, any gift. Right, with gift there’s responsibility, right, Spiderman? So if one is a natural, and they have a natural gift and they’re talented in my eyes, it’s a bargain of the responsibility of the nurture and the practice. If you know better you do better, I’ve got to check, I think that’s Maya Angelou. I do believe in being a practitioner, you can be an apprentice at something and you can rise to the occasion and cultivate a mastery of things, but I think when it comes to gift and talent, everybody in the world has something specific to them, and the most important thing, I think, is gratitude. If you have a gift that’s specific, or talent, and you know it, you’ve have to be grateful to have it, and be obedient to practice it, and then if you don’t, if you’re not talented at something, if music, if singing’s not your thing, you have to be grateful enough to know, “Hey, that’s not mine.” You know, to be knowing enough to understand what your calling is. And that can be a talent, too! And some people are talented to help others find that within themselves. So I think all of it is really just being in tune with you. I can’t make a clear thing about, “You’re born with it, you’re born without it.” I think in some artistic practices, those things start to show themselves inherently in folk, so, you know, the proof’s in the pudding on that, but I think the most important thing we need to be talking about, about humans is: what do we do with the knowing? What do we do in it, right?
Brittany: Yeah, I think some people have a natural inclination to be good at certain things, for whatever reasons it might be, then other people can be just as talented as that person, with actual effort put into it, actual time–
Bryndon: Oh, but the question is about effort?
Brittany: It was a really long conversation about talent in general.
Bryndon: To me, a talented person who doesn’t put in effort, I don’t know if their talent will ever reach its potential.
Brittany: I think that what my friend was arguing was that if someone worked to be good at something, then they’re no longer talented at it, it’s a different word. And he was saying that talent is an inherent ability at something.
Bryndon: Well what would you say about someone like Michael Jackson or Prince? They’re arguably born with–
Brittany: They have a natural inclination to these things, yeah…
Bryndon: Or Michael Jordan, these are three people who were born, like, naturals, but they worked harder than anyone else.
Brittany: We had a long debate about it, so I was just curious what you thought about it. Cause I don’t think it’s so black and white, what talent means. It’s just semantics at that point, but I think that, yes, you can be talented, sure, without working at something, and you’re just, whatever, a gifted child. But I also think that you can work to be talented at something, and that doesn’t make you no longer talented at it just because you put in the work, you put in the effort, you put in the time.
Bryndon: What I think in human nature is stronger than talent or whatever, and has a stronger gravitational pull, is habit, or that kind of inclination. You’re not necessarily inclined to work, you know, so what are you actually habitually prone to do? You can build habits.
