Starcrawler LA

Cowboy Goth and Vintage Shopping

with L.A. Locals Arrow de Wilde and Henri Cash of Starcrawler

Interview by Chloe Zofia

The first time I saw Starcrawler, the band’s lead singer Arrow de Wilde spit on me. She was in the midst of a spirited performance where she, a 6’3’’ slender teenager with ratty blonde hair, choked herself with a microphone cord before spitting fake blood out over her adoring audience. Arrow and her guitarist Henri Cash are two of the most entertaining performers on the scene today and their careers are still remarkably young.

Starcrawler is writing a chapter of musical history one chaotic show at a time, and fashion is a central part of their identity. Cash swoons the audience like a rhinestone cowboy from hell, while Wilde plays a crazed, gangly rockstar commanding the stage with her jarring prowess. If this band isn’t on your post-pandemic bucket list of upcoming live entertainment, I suggest you pencil them in.

On stage, Starcrawler is an unclassifiable anomaly. They have a unique je ne sais quoi that just might land them in the ranks of rock royalty. But wait– is it rock? Glam? Punk? Goth?? Western?! Yes to all of the above. It’s Starcrawler.

Offstage, Starcrawler is very warm and polite. On October 21st, I had the chance to chat with Arrow de Wilde and Henri Cash before their show at Los Angeles’ Regent Theatre.

Zofia: One of your most popular songs is called “I Love LA” so we have to know– what are your favorite places to shop in LA?

Cash: I like this place called Space City Vintage.

Arrow: It’s more men’s stuff, but Space City is good. They have a little tattoo shop in there and really good T-shirts and jeans.

Cash: They have custom leather belts too, where they’ll make them right there.

Arrow: I go to Squaresville a lot, on Vermont Avenue. 

Cash: But for a lot of our stage clothes there’s a local lady here in LA named Jessica Owens. She makes a lot of our clothes.

Arrow: Yeah all of my stage costumes now are custom-made because I don’t want anyone to wear the same thing.

Cash: We also have our own custom western shirt out now, an H Bar C design. It’s at our merch booth tonight. 

Arrow: Yeah [H Bar C] is this old western brand that classic country musicians used to wear. They just recently restarted the brand and started reissuing old designs. We did a collab with them.

Cash: It’s technically our first real fashion collab. Although, we did a fashion collab with X-girl (a 90s brand founded by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth and her friend, Daisy von Furth) but that was more like band merch.

Arrow: Yeah, [the H Bar C design] doesn’t say Starcrawler anywhere. It just has a little garment tag that says “Starcrawler” on the inside to indicate the design collab. It’s a pink cowboy shirt with white stars and fringe.

Zofia: Possibly your first fashion collab of many. Labels are always looking to cross industries.

Arrow: Yeah, I loved doing it.

Cash: It was honestly really fun designing it. 

Arrow: I think it’s cool. I want to do more artsy stuff like that.

Cash: It’s also cool because I wear the shirt often. We wanted to make something that we personally like to wear, something that kids can come to a show and be like “oh, I get to wear that too!”

Arrow: We want to create a vibe or an aesthetic, so that our fans will come dressed up. 

Cash: Like Insane Clown Posse.

Arrow: Yes! Yes, exactly. Like a cult, you know? Right now we have these goth girls come and some wear western shirts but with a punk twist.

Cash: I love this idea. Goth western.

Arrow: Yeah it’s the vibe. Cowboy goth.

Zofia: Do you guys have any style icons? Past or present.

Cash: My favorite designer was Nudie Cohn and his suits with the rhinestones. Elvis and early ZZ Top. I really like the shiny stuff.

Arrow: I really like Mick Jagger’s style

Cash: Any Stones

Arrow: Yeah the Stones, L7 too. I like a mix between rockstar vibes and just kind of ratty. Also, the old groupies like Sable Starr and the GTOs [Girls Together Outrageously]. New York Dolls too.

Zofia: What did you guys want to be when you were kids?

Arrow: When I was really little I wanted to be a make-up artist. Then I watched this TV show “How It’s Made” and they went to the DumDums Factory. There were people whose job it is to just taste the flavors. They wore lab coats and acted all serious about it.

Zofia: That’s really funny. What about you Henri?

Cash: I wanted to be either a musician or a zookeeper.

Zofia: So you’ve wanted to be a musician ever since you were super young?

Cash: Yeah, I grew up in a family of musicians

Zofia: Not Johnny Cash, right?

Cash: No

Zofia: Does everybody ask you that?

Cash: No, surprisingly not.

Zofia: In one of your older songs, “Toy Teenager”, you mention something about feeling like a clothes hanger. I once worked at Paris Fashion Week, and saw models treated kind of like that. Was that the main idea?

Arrow: Yeah, there was a point where it felt like every teen girl was being swept up to be the new YSL modeling thing, and then they’d just be thrown out. I saw so many of my friends thinking that they’d finally made it– then they just got paid like shit and were told “bye!” So we wrote that song kind of about that experience.

Zofia: Oh cool, so it’s literally about teenage fashion models

Arrow: Yeah, you really got it.

Zofia: Did you do modeling? 

Arrow: No, I actually really didn’t want to because my whole life people would come up to me and be like “Oh my god!” and scout me. I’d tell them “actually I want to do music” and they’d be like “no! You can’t do that. You have to be a model.” People would be very forceful about it because of my body or whatever. It’s not the worst thing someone can say to you but after a while, it started to annoy me. Getting scouted didn’t start until I’d already decided to be a musician. I just wanted to establish myself as a musician first and foremost, but I’m not opposed to modeling now.

Zofia: Yeah, I get that. You wanted to be a rockstar that models instead of a model that starts a band. You guys started this band when you were really young. How old were you?

Arrow: I was sixteen.

Cash: I was fifteen when we started the band, but I met Arrow when I was fourteen.

Zofia: Did you have any weird experiences going into clubs that young?

Arrow: Oh yeah.  We ended up getting fake IDs eventually, but at first some venues would make us wait outside to play.

Cash: Sometimes it’d be cold and snowing. You can’t even sell your own merch if you’re underage.

Arrow: Yeah the alcohol laws are really strict in America. It’s crazy. I guess when we were 15 and 16 we hadn’t really started touring yet, so we were just playing around LA.

Cash: When we finally got fake IDs, [Arrow] was from Chicago and I was from Michigan.

Arrow: Oak Park baby! Then that one got taken and I got a Michigan one, so it would match [Henri].


Zofia: What did you guys do during lockdown last year?

Arrow: It sucked for a while. Not being able to see friends or play shows.

Cash: We actually went to the desert together and got an Airbnb. We were like [disinfecting] every single little item we brought in.

Arrow: Yeah, we were super intense about it.

Cash: But we wrote a lot of new music while we were out there in the desert and more during the lockdown. We recorded a record.

Zofia: That’s exciting. Any release date yet?

Cash: Not yet. Soon though. In the next coming year for sure.

Zofia: Do you guys have any other goals for next year? Personal or professional

Arrow: Hopefully to go on tour all year.

Cash: Yeah, to do the whole thing again. Really just get back into it and play new songs. We’re going to be playing some new songs tonight.

Zofia: A U.S. tour? Maybe Europe? Japan again?

Cash: I know we’re going to Canada next year.

Arrow: I wanna do it all.