San Jose’s Star 99 formed in 2020 with four longtime members of the Bay Area music scene, vocalist/guitarist Saoirse Alesandro, vocalist/guitarist Cole Calvo, bassist Chris Gough, and drummer Jeremy Romero, and later Thomas Romero replaced Cole. Collectively, they’ve previously played in Great Hart, Matsuri, Bread Club, and Drop In, and Saoirse has a solo project too. They put out EPs in 2021 and 2022, and now they just put out their debut album Bitch Unlimited digitally on Lauren Records, with vinyl shipping in the fall. The 26-minute LP whips by and feels like a trip back to the indie-punk era of bands like Lemuria and Swearin’, with great hooks and a scrappy, lo-fi aesthetic. You can stream the album below, and to learn more about it, the band have given us a track-by-track breakdown of every song.
GIRL (Saoirse)
We’re from San Jose, CA, which is big city with a relatively small DIY scene. Girl is about moving back home and getting older in the place you grew up in. It’s about looking up from horse-blinder early 20’s self-involvement after a decade and realizing some of your friends are still there and some aren’t.
SALT (Thomas)
I wrote this song while I was feeling really anxious about my relationship, how I catastrophize when things don’t feel like they’re working out, and why I get to that point in the first place. Salt is a song about how past trauma comes back to haunt you in the present, in the form of lashing out or pushing away loved ones, and being terrified of a future where my avoidant behavior never gets dealt with.
COSMIC GLUE (Saoirse)
I briefly sort of dated this white guy that plays drums. One day, I dropped the “what are we” question and he brought out that book BE HERE NOW by Ram Dass. I think that could be really moving for someone else but that really ground, grinded (?) my gears!!
The real explanation is that this song is about being a girl conditioned to forge an identity from scraps given to you by the men that you date. The version of you anyone else makes up isn’t nearly as cool as the one you’ve been building the whole time.
SOUTH SECOND (Thomas)
Once upon a time, everybody in Star 99 used to live together in a house called Hot Box. Growing up in Guam, I was really enamored with the idea of punk houses and intentional, alternative living spaces, and South Second is a reflection on what living that ‘dream’ actually looks like: Getting mugged down the block, neverending house parties, living with a bunch of cats and dogs, saying things to people you love that you can never take back, and the unfortunate realization that you can & will grow beyond or fracture close friendships.
ELASTIC (Saoirse)
Elastic is about being in a long-term codependent friendship. My friend Adrian said just now “It’s hard because I feel like people teach you all about toxic relationships, but not about toxic friendships”.
KENTUCKY (Saoirse)
Kentucky was written in half an hour in a basement. It’s about anticipating hanging out with someone casually and feeling sort of empty, knowing something is missing, and feeling unable to accept compromising what you really want. The blue glow of television in the dark and the lonely!
JACKIE (Thomas)
I’m really into ’90s twee like Rocketship and Belle & Sebastian, and I’ve always wanted to write a song with super obnoxious organ synth parts! I wrote this song in an hour, the lyrics are about an aunt I’ve had a Love/Hate/Love relationship with; I’ve been really into making amends with people I’ve been beefing with, and so this song is about patching things up with loved ones and giving them room to irritate you from time to time, because their love is worth it!
SPIT TAKE (Saoirse)
I wrote another song called “Born to Run” about listening to Springsteen, Circus Circus, and breaking up. I saw this as a second part to that song. It’s about being the wrong person for someone and you both know it, but you both avoid it as long as you can stand it, and you hurt each other a lot in the process.
GUIDE THY HAND (Thomas)
Lots of my songs are about lamenting relationships, and trying to piece together how things got bad in the first place. I’ve gone through my own cycles of abuse throughout my life, and I feel like that sense of alienation and inability to verbalize being treated like shit with my own abusive family members is how I got pushed into going to punk shows in the first place. This song is about my dad, and growing to a point where you can address past trauma.
VEGAS (Saoirse)
Vegas is about my Wellbutrin existential crisis and getting really paranoid about the maps in my room.