Starvin Hungry: The Language Of Rock 'N' Roll

It's hard to figure out the music of Montreal rockers Starvin Hungry. Their latest opus, Cold Burns, is a balls-out rock album that mashes influences of pop, blues and alternative, while perfectly capturing a haphazard old school punk spirit.

Don't over-analyze things with Starvin guitarist/vocalist John Milchem, though. He likes to call it good ol' fashioned rock 'n' roll with no strings attached. We talked to Milchem him recently to figure out where Starvin Hungry fit in.

ChartAttack: Now I noticed that you're called Starvin Hungry with no "g."
John Milchem: Yeah.

But there's no apostrophe either.
Yeah, because it sounds the same with or without the apostrophe. But I don't get mad anymore if people put it in. It's a real old name. The name Starvin Hungry started just when I started playing alone. It just sort of stuck. But originally it was just me. There are a lot of apostrophe bands out there [laughs]. There are a lot of no "g" bands out there.

I guess they think it's cool to not speak proper English.
Probably.

It says here on your MySpace, "Sounds Like: babies crying." What is that?
What is what? Have you ever heard a baby cry? Have you ever had a woman cry? Have you ever had a lover cry? [laughs] It sounds like what it says. It means what it says.

So you enjoy babies crying?
If you'd like, yeah, I love it.

Why do so many bands nowadays label themselves as simply "rock n' roll?"
Why not? The foundation of all the popular music created in the last 40 years is an offshoot of rock 'n' roll in one way or another. I mean, I would absolutely call myself a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really think that the miniscule categorizations of every kind of music, every different kind of music, is accurate at all for the most part, so why not be vague? It's not exactly a narrow category if you want to categorize things. What should people say instead? Should people say, "I'm a post-structuralist post-punk?"

I ask because I grew up listening to metal, where every little sub-genre had its own classification.
Metal is rock 'n' roll. I mean, within the sub-culture of metal they love doing that and that's part of the nature of what metal is, I guess. There is this weird purist thing about metal and punk, and I guess that's what that thing's about. I love metal, but we're not a metal band and I'm not a purist in that sense. I'm never going to do that.

Well then, why even call it rock 'n' roll? Why not just "music?"
Well, why not? Good question. There are certain characteristics. Loud guitars, four-four beats, verse-chorus-verse, you know. There are a lot of people who can't stand any rock 'n' roll, metal or otherwise.

Do you care about the punk scene?
No [laughs]. I care that there are bands who are taking the idea of what punk is, taking the concept of not really giving a fuck about what other people think and trying to do something with that — that kind of contrary impulse. There are always bands who are strikingly original coming out of punk rock, like, they're there on the margins of it. As far as whatever sort of mainstream cultural version of what punk rock is supposed to be, I couldn't care less. I'm interested in it when there are people who are taking an idea and running with it in any direction they feel free to do.

So you enjoy pushing the boundaries and originality.
I do enjoy that, yeah.

And this is what you strive for with Starvin Hungry?
Starvin Hungry kind of moves in sub-directions. Starvin Hungry is kind of a band that's backward-looking and forward-looking at the same time. I'm not trying to revive anything. I'm just doing what I've always felt what's there to do and as far as whether it's younger or older, that's not really a consideration to me.