Blending cosmic ambition with grounded emotional urgency, California-based band 6 Speed Supernova impress with the track “Starfire,” a groove-driven anthem rooted in resilience and shared human experience. The track reflects a band revitalized by change and driven by connection. We caught up with them to discuss creative renewal, rhythmic instinct, and their mission to be a light in uncertain times.
Your new single “Starfire” feels both cosmic and deeply human, channeling themes of fear, resilience, and empowerment. What inspired the emotional core of this track?
Those are core themes for us at this point. They’re both universal and deeply individual. With the world’s evolution over the last 10 years or so, we believe these concepts have become even more important to address. We always try to find themes that everyone can identify with and opt to touch on emotions everyone has experienced in their own way. We then present them in a narrative format both musically and lyrically. Music is and always has been an emotional rallying point. People need that now as much as ever. What better way to bring people together and empower them, than by tucking universal themes into irresistible groovy, rockin’ music that everyone can enjoy.
The single blends hard rock with progressive, jazz, and classic rock influences. How do you approach fusing these styles while maintaining a cohesive sound?
When you deconstruct a piece of music, it can often appear much more complicated than it probably ever was intended to be during its creation. The truth is, the special ingredients that make our band, and every great band unique get added by the individual members as they contribute to the creative process. The final stew is the product of years of each of us honing our respective craft, trying our best to master our instruments and become a conduit for our inner voice. That’s why we work so hard to chase technique or mastery; to have more unique and expressive artistic choices to create from. The life you live, the music you absorb and the emotional growth you experience over time blends together to create your sound. It is true that in writing each song, we usually start with a basic vibe or groove we’re chasing. Then, as the individual pieces and parts reveal themselves, we’re really just creating fresh versions and articulations of all the music and life experiences we have put into the pot. Ultimately, we hope it all combines to make an irresistibly delicious song.
There’s a strong sense of motion and urgency throughout “Starfire.” What was your mindset when crafting its dynamic shifts and high-energy instrumentation?
Groove and rhythm are almost always the first pieces of the puzzle we focus on when writing. Even a soft, slow ambient-type piece devoid of what you’d call rhythm would be a choice you’re making in order to create a sense of stillness, calm, etc. Whatever we’re going for, it most often starts with a rhythmic choice and then we wrap the melodic parts around those rhythms. The most infectious part of music, what really moves the masses are great rhythms. Whether you’re taking in a great DJ set or listening to the heaviest metal band from the mosh pit, the rhythms are driving the frenzy. Our goal is to blend the power of unifying rhythms with great melodies, lyrics and emotional content.
Lyrically, the track encourages standing your ground and embracing inner strength. How important is that message in the context of where the band is now?
Those are core themes that we, as band, are experiencing right now. The best art comes from deep inside the artist when they reach into their bag of influences and life experiences and emotionally reveal themselves. If artists are honest and effective in their delivery of their truths, audiences will connect to their own versions of those central themes and emotions. If the artist remains virtuous, the music will feel and sound deeply personal and be communally understood. There’s always solace in feeling like others understand your struggle; in knowing you’re not alone. The world is currently in a very volatile and unsettling place. We hope our music promotes a sense of community and empathetic understanding of the ongoing global struggles as well as a pure rock n’ roll escape.
You’ve spoken about wanting to be a “voice in the silence” and a “light in the darkness.” How has that sense of responsibility shaped your recent songwriting?
People want and very much need a rallying point; to gain a sense that others are feeling the same things they are and to know they are not alone in the fight. Our goal is to provide our listeners with a sense of confidence in knowing we are all in this time of turmoil and uncertainty together; there’s great power in numbers. We also want to somewhat lift our listeners out of their personal struggles, even if just momentarily, and give them an emotional free space to just let it all go and have a good time. Hopefully we’ve been able to and will continue to create music that accomplishes both of those goals.
The pandemic marked a turning point for the band, both creatively and personally. How did that period of reflection influence the direction of your newer material?
The Pandemic changed a lot of things for the band. We were riding a wave at the end of 2019 through the beginning of 2020. When lockdown happened, everything came to a screeching halt. There was no tide for a while. We had a full album ready to mix and master, but due to a lot of uncontrollable pandemic factors, we had to work extra diligently and overcame a lot of roadblocks to get it finished and released. It was discouraging to say the least, but we decided to pivot and use that time to revitalize and refresh our approach. We made a lineup change to further increase the power of our rhythm section and started collaborating with a new drummer. We also rethought our whole approach to releasing music.
Our old model was the classic formula; spend one to two years writing, rehearsing, testing new material live and then recording and releasing a full album. We’d then experience a period of intense activity playing shows, touring and garnering media attention. Things would eventually slow down. We’d go back into our writing phase and the cycle would start all over again. In today’s fast paced world, that old model just seemed outdated and inefficient in many respects. Our aim now is to release one song at a time at more consistent intervals. This puts pressure on us to have each and every song stand out on its own. This goal is demanding, but we love it because it forces us to stay sharp; it makes us a better band. We strive to be “all killer no filler” as they say. We never want our desire to put out great music to become diluted by the pressures of needing to produce content. We’ve also revamped our whole production process. We’re now recording the majority of the tracks ourselves and then finishing final vocals, mixing and mastering in a full studio production. The results so far have been great. These songs exemplify our best production quality to date by far. Our focus is to continue to put out fully realized art that we’re proud of at a more consistent pace and in so doing, maintain presence in the consciousness of our audience. It’s a hefty objective, but we welcome the challenge.
Your music often carries a cosmic or otherworldly aesthetic. What draws you to that theme, and how does it connect to your perspective as artists?
We’ve always been fascinated with the cosmos. How can you not be inspired by the universe and all the unknowns it encompasses. As an overall aesthetic, it allows us to be open minded and ponder the unquantifiable possibilities. We don’t like to pigeon hole ourselves into any one particular sound or genre. The otherworldly imagery is elastic and vast enough to allow us the freedom to explore all types of musical expression. We hope listeners will come along with us on this stellar journey as we explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy.
Marie’s vocal performance on “Starfire” is especially commanding. How did you approach capturing that intensity in the recording process?
Marie’s voice is very powerful and contains, like all great voices, a lot of raw emotion. We wanted to put her right up front in the mix so we hit the listener square in their frontal cortex. We made a conscious choice in mixing to leave the vocals as direct, dry and honest as we could to allow the humanity and emotion in the performance to be as palpable as possible.
If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?
That is a tough question. There are so many that it’s hard to narrow it down. Off the tops of our heads and with respect to artists still living, we’d say Muse, Avenged Sevenfold, Dream Theatre, and Halestorm. The mix of us and any of those bands would be epic! We’d love to hear Marie and Lzzy, or Marie and Matt, or all three of them throw down together. It would be amazing to hear Joan groove with the rhythm section greats. Our guitarist David would love to trade riffs and solos with Nuno, Mayer and others. Our list is long, ever growing and full of our personal artistic heroes.
What do you find is the most satisfying part of being an artist?
We love each phase of the artistic process as they each present their own challenges and rewards. Most enticing is the initial creative process of coming up with something new and believing in it enough to focus on it, mold it, shape it and turn it into a full song that we’re proud to put our names on. We love the process of working to make a new track grow, fill out and eventually become the thing it was always destined to be, a 6 Speed Supernova song. We also love the production side that comes along as you’re laying down tracks and are able to hear the whole musical picture come together. Making sonic choices, nourishing new ideas and inspirations and then polishing and enhancing the details until you’ve achieved the final product is what it’s all about. The artistic drive and the creative process in its entirety is everything to us. The beauty is in the journey, not the destination.
What is the biggest challenge you find in today’s music industry?
The machine that is the music industry has always been a difficult space within which to operate and create. The specific ways in which today’s music scene functions create even more and very real challenges. In some aspects, today’s music scene is much more open in that there’s the possibility to self promote and do everything independently, but that comes with a lot of noise. It hard to separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak. The one thing labels used to provide was a massive filter. You knew by the time an artist had signed a record deal and put out an album they had been vetted to some degree. You’d still need to plow through the lot of signed artists to find the true greats, but labels made the process much easier.
It’s harder now to poke your head out above the ever growing pool of artists. Audiences are being further and further subdivided, which makes it even more difficult for small to medium sized bands to even gain recognition let alone make a living off of their artistic efforts. The artists that labels are signing today are less and less diverse. Their selection process is hyper focused on selecting artists most likely achieve “pop” status as in “popular” monetary success. This leads to general audiences being less and less adventurous in their musical choices, which in turn pushes more diverse and unique acts to the fringes. So, like anything, there are goods and bads that come with each business model. For us, the trick has been and still remains navigating the realities of the current music scene, finding our place in it and establishing ourselves as a band to be remembered.
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