Been Stellar spoke to NME backstage at Reading 2025 – where they gave us the lowdown on progress with new music, touring with Fontaines D.C. and The 1975, and if they’re still in touch with their name-inspiring Ben Stiller.
Fresh from smashing R+L’s Festival Republic stage, the US indie upstarts were on fine form given they’d arrived straight from a London show to mark to launch the ‘Breakaway’ EP – their first new music since their acclaimed 2024 debut album ‘Scream from New York, NY‘.
“It feels weird because we headlined in London last night and it feels like we just woke up and played this show,” said bassist Nico Brunstein. “Playing two shows in 12 hours feels funny.”
Guitarist Skyler Knapp laughed: “It was a breakfast set.”
Did you bring croissants?
“I had a croissant earlier, replied Knapp. “I had a bap as well, as you would say, a bacon bap.”
What followed was a lengthy discussion about regional variations of how British people refer to bread and buns, before we returned to talking about Reading & Leeds and Been Stellar making their debut – aided by Knapp’s beautiful new vintage thinline Jaguar guitar.
“I had to go to Canada to get it,” he told us. “Because of Trump’s new tariffs I couldn’t get it shipped over with spending another $1,000 so I smuggled it from Canada. You heard that, Donald? Lock me up, lest you try.”
Trump looms large on their minds it seems, especially as they’re now knee-deep in the writing of a new album – largely shaped by the horrors of the world. Check out our full interview with Been Stellar from R+L 2025 below.
NME: Hello Been Stellar. Do you guys feel the weight and legacy of playing a festival like Reading & Leeds or is a show just a show?
Sam Slocum, singer: “We strive for [thinking] ‘Oh, a show is just a show’. You should treat every show the same – if it’s a festival or in the middle of nowhere with like 20 people or whatever. Ultimately, you should be tapping into the same thing every night. Obviously that’s easier said than done, but it’s a pleasure to be here.”
You weren’t channelling Kurt Cobain vibes today then?
Slocum: “No, I wasn’t wheeled out in a hospital gown – but maybe next year! Depending on how my year goes…”
You guys have played some pretty huge shows recently, from Primavera Sound to supporting Fontaines D.C. at their huge Finsbury Park gig. What’s it like being on the road with them?
Brunstein: “It was good. We did a tour with them in the US and we loved it. Those venues were really cool. We also played some shows in these like Roman colosseum venues. Those were very surreal. They’re very nice people.”
Slocum: “They’re normal guys. Their team has been just as welcoming and helpful. When you’re opening up for bigger bands like that, you ask, ‘What can I gleam from this experience?’ Seeing an operation like that and how well-oiled it is, we were wondering how we can implement that in our own way.”
A highlight of the set was new single ‘Always On My Mind’. A beautiful song. What can you tell us about the decision to put a song like that out outside of the album, and having the confidence to lean on a love song like that?
Knapp: “We wanted to put out a few songs that, I don’t want to say ‘bridge the gap between the next records’, but we felt that we had a lot that we wanted to get out of our system. Before we had a label, we’d write a song and put it out on Spotify ourselves or whatever. The whole notion of being on an album cycle or whatever is kind of weird. We had these three songs, and we wanted them to have some life outside of being in an album cycle.
“Now that we’re working on our next album, it kind of cleared the pipes in a really good way.”
Does the upcoming ‘Breakaway’ EP signpost what’s to come or is it just about punctuating where you’re at?
Knapp: “No, it doesn’t really sound anything like what we’re writing now and it doesn’t sound anything like the first album. It’s its own thing. To me, it doesn’t feel like a foreshadowing of anything else. The stuff we’ve been working on now speaks for itself.”
Is there anything you can tell us about the energy, vibe or direction of the next album?
Slocum: “We have a lot in our heads and we’re working all the time on it. We’ve been working on it since the first album came out. It’s always a balance. It’s really good to have your eye set on the main goal. If you have a concept or [idea of] what you want the record to sound like, it’s a balance between that and remembering that they are just songs. You need to just write songs. You don’t want to get too attached.
“It’s revealing itself as we go, but shit’s getting crazy. There’s constant lyrical influence from what’s going on in the world. The one thing I’ll say is that we’re obsessed with this album. Our first record had so much to do with place, and we want this record to have a lot more to do with time and now. Not that this album won’t have to do with New York in subtle ways, because that’s where we live. There’s this collective consciousness happening right now where everyone has this thought of, ‘Where the fuck is this going?’ Without getting doomy, we just want to tap into that.”
Being in the Dirty Hit family, has The 1975’s Matty Healy given you any advice on dealing with hype and the industry or does he just leave you alone?
Knapp: “He leaves us alone! We’ve talked to him a couple of times. We toured with them and he came to our show in LA with Fontaines. We don’t have that kind of relationship with him, but on that tour we were really disoriented playing arenas. He gave us a lot of advice on wearing in-ears.”
This is the part of the interview where we ask you in you’re still in touch with Ben Stiller after you guys met?
Slocum: “I wouldn’t say that we’ve ever really been ‘in touch’ with him. He’s a nice guy. We don’t know him, but we met him years ago. He was very cool and gave us his blessing with the name. Then we met him again when he came to our show in New York in the Bowery. [To Knapp] Didn’t you give him a hug?”
Knapp: “Yeah. We’d met him before. So when he walked into our green room I went in for a hug and he reciprocated but very tentatively. He was like, ‘Oh, I guess I’m hugging this guy!’ I forgot he was like an A-list celebrity. Shout out to Capital Punishment, for the NME listeners. That’s his band. They’re like The B-52’s meets The Birthday Party. He plays drums and they’re really good.”
Should we expect a Severance cameo or not then?
Knapp: “If they’ll have us, of course!”
Check back at NME here for all the latest news, reviews, photos, interviews and more from Reading & Leeds 2025.
