While the Bluebird may not be Mars, the band will be making a stop at the venue on their journey, playing with the Tourniquets on Thursday, Jan. 22.
The band members said that when they play a show they try to be energetic so the crowd will have fun.
“I like to leave people with at least the thought that we’ve at least given them a unique experience musically and provoke thought,” guitarist Karl Behrens said. “I don’t think we really do that, but that’s what we like to think.”
The genre Behrens uses to label the band is psychedelic indie, but he said that it’s really just something to put on the band’s Facebook page.
“We’ve been battling this question our entire existence,” singer and guitarist Evan Munz said when asked to describe Stellardaze’s music.
The band members had a laundry list of musicians that have influenced them, ranging from Beach House to Pinback.
Despite the wide variety from member to member, they listed bands like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin as big influences for the band as a whole.
Stellardaze’s first extended play, “Paintress,” was released October 2014. They said the different sounds they were exploring can be heard on the album, from the reggae guitar riff in “Eulerian Circles” to the saxophone-filled “Mold.”
Alex Cromer, the band’s drummer, said they are still searching for the exact sound they want to pursue as a band, but he said he thinks they’re closer to a definitive sound than they were when they released their EP.
A new song titled “Figurine” has the sound that Behrens said he thinks the band wants to pursue.
He said Stellardaze is currently in a songwriting phase and they have two new songs completed. He also said he doesn’t know what the next thing they record will be, but he hopes to have a full-length album finished by summer.
Being a Bloomington band has been an adventure, Cromer said.
Being a part of a community of musicians that help each other out, he said, has been a great experience.
“It’s pretty great when you can play a show with a person that offered it to you and then have a blast with them, and then you get another show and you offer it to them,” Behrens said. “It’s a communal kind of thing.”
The band has a few shows outside of Bloomington set up in the near future.
They said they would like to do a tour of the Midwest as well as play at a music festival.
“I think we’ve grown a lot,” Cromer said. “I think we’ve come a long way.”
