Listen to Gold Star's New Album
Marlon Rabenreither, the man behind the band Gold Star, has been making music in Los Angeles for nearly a decade. When I first saw him play, he was fronting a three-piece called CG Roxanne and the Nightmares. They sounded like they looked, leather and dirt and ripped shirts. Marlon’s voice was distorted and screechy and inflected punk vocals to enhance the vibe. A few months later, or maybe more, it’s hard to remember now, Marlon performed a solo show under the name Gold Star. He sat alone on stage, holding his guitar, a harmonica apparatus strapped around his mouth, and sang a collection of stripped-down, soul-bearing acoustic Americana ballads that nearly broke my heart.
As his live performances evolved, incorporating various members and lineups and iterations, Marlon’s metamorphosis as a musician began to take shape. Near the end of 2018, Gold Star released their most well-received album Uppers & Downers on Autumn Tone Records. I saw him play in support of that album in February of last year, right before the world shut down. Gold Star was everything it had always been, only brighter, with more definition, a band unmistakable and full of potential.
During the ensuing quarantine of early 2020, Marlon began conceptualizing what would become his next album, Headlights U.S.A. “I started writing the songs a bit before that,” he says. “But with all the time spent at home, I was demoing loads of songs, and these were the five that I thought worked together.” Stuck in the confines of his apartment, with his laptop and creativity as solace, Marlon fine-tuned these five tracks together into an EP that reveals the evolution of his music and creative process.
“Originally I was just going to release the demos as an album,” he tells me. But something changed. Life changed. The songs no longer worked in the same way previous Gold Star albums came together. “I was going to record [the demos] in the studio with the band, but I was using a lot of new things and doing stuff on a laptop at home, and I thought, you know what, even if they are demos, even if they’re fucked up, it should be its own release.”
On first listen, the songs on Headlights U.S.A. remind me of Springsteen’s Nebraska, with its haunting Americana-soaked ballads and tales of the open road. “That’s one of my favorite records of all time,” Marlon says. “And the story behind it is amazing. He did it all on a 4-track himself, and I don’t think he added anything to it.” A subconscious similarity, Springsteen famously carried around the Nebraska demo tape for weeks and even tried recording songs with the E-Street Band, only to release the originals as is.
For Headlights U.S.A., Marlon added Nick Murray on drums, “to flesh it out,” and Connor 'Catfish' Gallaher on pedal steel and keyboard to add dimension and bring it to life. But otherwise, he intentionally left the songs in their original demo state, with drum machines and laptop synth layers and all the nuance of home recordings. “That was the hope,” Marlon tells me, “that [Headlights U.S.A.] would have the energy of a fresh new thing.”
Fresh, robust, and poppier, in a very good way, Headlights takes Marlon into unchartered sonic territory and out of his acoustic comfort zone seen on previous Gold Star albums. “I think the other big difference is that it’s definitely the most collaborative thing I’ve ever done.” For the first time, Marlon enlisted musician Jordan Odom as co-writer and guitarist to “help craft melodies and melodic elements” they felt belonged on the album. He brought in members from his live band to contribute. He brought in Chris Coady (of Blonde Redhead and Beach House) to mix. In the past, Marlon spent most of his time in a recording studio alone, scrutinizing every decision and final take. “I’ve made enough records doing my own thing,” he admits. “At a certain point, I just wanted to see how I could expand on it.”
Marlon’s musical expansion couldn’t have happened at a more ironic time. During quarantine, as musicians found ways to express themselves through solitary mediums, Marlon found himself drawn toward community and collaboration. And maybe that isn’t so ironic. Maybe it’s just human. He says that was the fun part of making Headlights U.S.A., “asking friends if they wanted to be involved." The daunting hopelessness of isolation became an excuse to get together and make music.
Marlon survived the pandemic by writing songs, but with live concerts and tours permanently on pause, he admits he began to lose a part of his identity. “I’ve been playing shows for 10 years,” he says, “and then all of a sudden it’s just gone.” Marlon returned to his roots of songwriting as an escape, and realized that “the blessing of being a songwriter is that you really don’t need anything to [make music], all you need is an idea and space, and that’s it.” Obviously talent goes in there, too, which Marlon has plenty of. And, he realizes, the absence of live music brought him back to his initial desire to write songs in the first place. “I think a lot of people had to ask themselves, ‘What are you saying, and why, and what’s your reason for doing this?’”
So why does Marlon sing? “I think I just have to,” he says resolutely. “It’s how I express myself and it seems necessary to me. Not to say it’s not therapeutic, or cathartic, but that's how I make sense of the world. And if I can tell my story, to try and do it honestly, then maybe someone else can relate to it, too.” –Maya Eslami.
Headlights U.S.A. drops today on Sub Rosa Records. Listen to it here. And don’t miss Gold Star’s record release show at Zebulon on September 15th – info here.
