Caitlin Starr is a fantastic artist from the USA who has just released a new EP titled “Speed Saves”. We had the chance to chat with her about music, touring and superpowers!

Benedetta

I’m here with the fantastic Caitlin Starr. How are you doing today?

Caitlin Starr

I’m doing good today. It’s like finally fall here, which is my favorite season, so I’m happy about that.

Benedetta

Great, absolutely, yeah. “Speed Saves” is like a brilliant release. I was like, “Wow, there is someone who can like rescue us from and save us from this boring AI music and this is a 100% genuine artist.” So thank you for this brilliant release.

Caitlin Starr

Damn, thank you so much. That really, I read your review, yeah, it made me so happy.

Benedetta

Okay, oh wonderful, amazing. Are there any songs in it that started in like one way and then completely changed into something else that we’re listening now?

Caitlin Starr

Yeah, I think like “Piece of Clay” I guess I brought it into the studio and it started as a piano ballad, but then I would play it with my band, with guitars and heavy stuff. Then I kind of combined both, so that definitely sounded different. All of them, honestly, like they usually start like with me alone in my room on an acoustic or electric guitar, so then they definitely take a different form, yeah.

Benedetta

Awesome, and that’s my favorite track, actually, from there, so yeah, that’s amazing.

Caitlin Starr

Hell yeah, I’m really excited for that to come out this week and the video that we made.

Benedetta

Oh wow, amazing, can’t wait to see that.

Caitlin Starr

Hell yeah, it’s got some crazy lore, I’m not gonna lie. We went upstate to Letchworth Village, which is like an hour and a half away. It’s like an abandoned children asylum, like all these buildings in the middle of nature, and then we got shut down by the cops. We had to sneak back in the middle of the night, and it was like so terrifying, but it was awesome, you’ll see, it’s cool.

Benedetta

Wow, yeah, sometimes these things make for the best stories.

Caitlin Starr

Period.

Benedetta

So you said that your songs start with yourself, obviously, and do you start working first on the lyrics or on the music, or is it something that happens simultaneously?

Caitlin Starr

Almost always I’m feeling a strong feeling, then I grab like whatever instrument (guitar, piano), and then I just press record on my phone and start like letting everything out. Usually like a melody with some lyrics comes in, and then I just keep pouring everything out, and then I like fill in kind of the lyrics later as I go. It depends on the song, like some really just all come out pretty much at once, but for those songs, for like an hour or whatever, I just was playing stuff over and over, and you kind of are expressing those emotions, and feeling what is like right, and I don’t know, yeah, that’s how I do it.

Benedetta

If you had to choose like an artist to do like a dream collaboration, which one would you choose from any genre?

Caitlin Starr

I snuck into the Slayyyter concert at Terminal 5 a few nights ago, with my friend, that was so fire, like I love what she’s doing, I would definitely love to collaborate with her. Honestly, like a lot of my friend’s bands are so tea. I live with black metal musicians, their band Wellness is so awesome, but it’s definitely real different. Kittie, or Die Spitz, or Mannequin Pussy, I would love to do something with them. There’s just so many, but mostly female-fronted or all women, and just like doing stuff that’s so exciting and powerful.

Benedetta

Do you think that life of an artist is a lonely life?

Caitlin Starr

Damn, that’s such a good question, I think it depends what your artistic process is like. I was just thinking about that, because I think to be a great artist you have to have a period, or several in your life, where you are very lonely, to connect with who you are. Usually when you are a great artist, it’s because you’re different in some way, and/or you feel unseen by the people you grew up with.

Then you go through that period, I definitely did, and you find like solace or connection in what you’re creating, or you connect to something inside you, or greater than you. You can go in and out of periods of community, because community can also be so inspiring and amazing for art… This is my home, the basement is a house venue for a bunch of us musicians, and it’s been the best thing ever. I feel like I love them so much but I do wonder sometimes, “Am I better at art when I’m in pain?”

Benedetta

I don’t know if that’s in your plans at all, but I would love if you could, like, do a tour in the US, or in Europe, maybe, is there a plan? Please come to Europe.

Caitlin Starr

Damn, oh my god, the way I would love to come to Europe. Yes, I would love to, so bad. We’re doing this really big release show on the 16th at the skate park which I’m so stoked for, and then hopefully we’ll get picked up on a national tour. I’ve toured a bunch with other bands, playing for bass and guitar for metal bands, like, Suzie Clu and stuff like that, and that was an awesome experience. Playing for other bands often really shows you things about yourself and what you want, and it’s cool to do.

Benedetta

Amazing. I hope that some booking agency in Europe will hear your EP and see how awesome you are, and just bring you here for, for lots of shows.

Caitlin Starr

Period. I, I really do, and I do believe this will happen, and then we can hang out at the show.

Benedetta

For sure! Do you think that we will ever reach some equality in the music scene?

Caitlin Starr

It’s a good question. I came back to New York in 2022, and that’s when I got back into the scene here, and definitely there’s a lot of men, but when women do it right, they just are the best. It’s just so tea, there’s some amazing female bands, instrumentalists and musicians, and they’re the ones that I’ve found and played with that come from a similar place. I’m just amazed and stunned by them, and I think, I don’t know… Equality is confusing, because it’s literally capitalism, 2026, and all that bullshit. I think there will continue to be tons of amazing female artists and acts, bands like Die Spitz and Olivia Rodrigo‘s whole festival and shit, that’s fire. There’s so many inspiring women right now, like, you know, even the big pop ones, like, Doechii, Doechii‘s not necessarily pop, but Doechii and Slayyyter and all these… I love a pop girl, I really do, not all of them, but the ones that are just cunt as fuck and slaying so hard, I’m, like, “Period”. But also, you know, ones that do more hardcore stuff. Anyway, I do think there’s definitely hope for amazing female stuff, but I don’t know what equality even means, really, we so far gone in ways.

I think a hot take that just came to my mind is that the female artists that are dominating pop they’re so powerful, but they’re also still very much leading and leaning into sexualizing themselves, and dancing in, like, a way that’s very hyper-feminine, and very, still for the male gaze, in ways. Female metal artists, they’re feminine but with raw power, and it’s not serving men, it’s serving actual inner freedom, and power. That’s still, obviously, very scary to this establishment, and shit, but I think it’s just so real that it’s so undeniable, you know. Even, like, Mannequin Pussy, when you go to the shows, she’s just so free, and then you get to mosh with people… she just speaks such truth with such power.

Benedetta

I wanted to ask you a fun question to change the, the topic a little bit, if you could have a superpower for your whole life, starting now, like, invisibility, or teleportation, or something, which one would you pick?

Caitlin Starr

Damn, super power, let me think… I feel, like, I’ve been watching lots of 90s tech fantasy movies… Maybe being, like, Frozen, that’s kind of tea. Also being an amazing hacker, that’s really fire, that’d be cool. Reading people’s minds would actually be terrible, definitely not that one. Maybe super speed, but some of that’s kind of precarious, because you’re isolating to run that fast. That’s my answer, what about you?

Benedetta

I’m not a person who likes to cook, so, I mean, if I could have the power to just have food ready without cooking it, that would be pretty sweet.

Caitlin Starr

I guess, that’s pretty fire, honestly, yeah, another good one would be to have consistent levels of confidence. Or some consistent dopamine levels, that would be amazing.

Benedetta

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me, and for being such a good sport, is there anything else you want to add to our viewers and readers?

Caitlin Starr

Well, thank you so much for having me, that’s my pleasure, and for listening, damn, I’m so stoked that you’re liking my stuff. A lot of this process was kind of about feeling very much not like myself in moments, and having a period of my life that was like that as well. Being lonely, or depressed, or ashamed, or all these things. I guess the thing I will say is that, even when it feels like in your brain nothing can change, and you’re stuck there forever, it actually can change. I really didn’t think it could, and it actually can, and I think if you honor who you really are, and find people that see you for who you really are, which is hard sometimes… Even if y’all are both freaks, we’re all freaky freaks out here, then things can get better, even if they’re not perfect.