No Permission Required

How Stardust Remains Turned Setbacks Into Independence

By Daniel Sweet

Long before Stardust Remains was writing songs, producing her own music or imagining herself commanding a stage, she was standing on the other side of it.

She was a fan.

Music had been part of her life since childhood, but during her teens and early adulthood, Stardust immersed herself in the rave scene. She loved the music, the energy and the experience of being surrounded by people who had come together for the same reason.

Eventually, her musical world expanded deeper into rock. And Stardust wasn’t content simply watching the performers from somewhere in the crowd. She wanted to meet them.

“I pretty much met almost every performer at any show I went to,” she remembers.

Night after night, concert after concert, she found her way closer to the people making the music she loved. Somewhere along the way, an idea began forming.

Maybe she didn’t always have to be the person trying to get backstage. Maybe someday, people could be trying to meet her.

“I decided, hey, you know, maybe I should actually be the rock star someday.”

So she started becoming one.

From Fan to Artist

The transformation didn’t happen all at once. Stardust began writing lyrics. She joined a band. That band broke up. She joined another. Eventually, she became a solo artist.

There was no single straight road leading from the audience to the stage. There rarely is. Her early influences included women who built careers around powerful identities of their own: Pat Benatar, Joan Jett and Madonna.

But Stardust’s musical background stretches beyond rock. Her years in the rave scene left their mark as well. Asked who she would share a stage with if she could choose anyone, she rattles off a wonderfully eclectic list that includes TobyMac, Pat Benatar, Tiësto and Swedish House Mafia.

And the one song she’ll never get tired of? Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield.”

Today, however, Stardust says she doesn’t particularly look toward another artist for direction. She’s increasingly looking toward herself. That independence wasn’t necessarily the original plan. Some of it was learned the hard way.

When Setbacks Become Teachers

Making music costs money.

Recording costs money. Production costs money. Promotion costs money. And for independent artists trying to build something without a major organization behind them, nearly every step forward can come with another expense.

Stardust says financing her career herself has been one of her biggest challenges.

Another has been learning whom to trust.

Over the years, she had experiences with producers that left her frustrated and feeling taken advantage of. She also became increasingly wary of people and services promising musicians opportunities that don’t always deliver what they claim.

Rather than allowing those experiences to end her pursuit of music, Stardust gradually came to a different conclusion.

She needed to know how to do more herself. So she started learning. And eventually, the singer and songwriter added another title: Producer.

“I don’t have any training,” she says. “I’m just doing it all myself, and I think that’s pretty bad ass.”

It’s difficult to argue with her. Because producing your own music isn’t simply pressing a record button. It means making decisions about arrangements, performances, sounds, layers and the hundreds of little choices that eventually turn an idea into something another person can hear.

For Stardust, self-production also means something else: Control. Every skill she learns is one less part of her creative life that has to be handed over to somebody else.

A Woman With a Voice

Ask Stardust to describe her music and she doesn’t begin by naming a genre. She begins with a purpose.

“I’m a woman with a voice, and I’m here to use it.”

Her Christian faith is an important part of her life and appears in many of her songs, although she is quick to point out that it doesn’t define everything she writes.

She also describes herself as a “freedom fighter”; someone who believes there are messages worth putting into the world. And then there is simply the experience of being a woman who has lived some life.

Stardust speaks openly about having experienced plenty of highs and plenty of lows. Rather than hiding those experiences, she hopes other women will recognize pieces of themselves in the music she creates. That’s part of what makes the two projects she’s currently producing particularly interesting.

She’s working on two albums at the same time. One is a Christian album. The other comes from her perspective as a woman.

Instead of trying to squeeze every part of herself into a single musical identity, Stardust is giving those different parts room to speak.

Faith can be there. Rock can be there. The energy and movement she discovered in dance culture can be there. So can frustration, independence, motherhood, confidence and everything she’s lived through along the way.

Perhaps Stardust Remains isn’t supposed to fit neatly into one box.

The Artist Who Is Still Becoming

There is another part of Stardust’s story that might surprise people who encounter her music for the first time: She’s a mom.

And much of the music career she once imagined while standing in concert crowds hasn’t happened before motherhood. It’s happening after it.

“The majority of my music career is still in progress and happening after motherhood,” she says.

Those words challenge one of the quieter assumptions surrounding music.

We love stories about young artists.

• The teenager who picks up a guitar.
• The twenty-something band crammed into a van.
• The young singer who arrives in Los Angeles with a suitcase and a dream.

Popular culture has repeated those stories so many times that it can begin to feel as though dreams come with an expiration date.

Real life isn’t nearly so tidy.

• People raise families.
• Careers change.
• Money gets tight.
• Bands break up.
• Relationships change.
• Years disappear faster than anyone expects.

And sometimes the dream survives all of it.

Stardust is not telling her story from the comfortable perspective of someone looking backward at a completed career. She’s still inside it. She’s still writing. Still producing. Still learning. Still figuring out how to market her music. Still financing much of it herself…

Still becoming Stardust Remains. There is something refreshingly honest about that.

Building the Show Herself

The independence doesn’t stop when the recording is finished. Stardust wants her live performances to be visually memorable as well as musical. Audiences can expect “a lot of energy and personality,” she says.

That energy has another source: Stardust is a classically trained dancer. She knows how to move onstage, and she intends to use that background as part of the performance rather than simply standing behind a microphone.

Then there are the clothes. She likes making her own costumes. Of course she does. At this point in the story, it would almost be surprising if she didn’t.

Writing the music – Producing the music – Creating the visual presentation – Designing costumes

Stardust’s response to obstacles seems increasingly consistent: Learn how to do it.

Southern California and the Opportunity to Connect

For an independent artist building a career, Southern California offers something particularly valuable: people. “There are a lot of people to connect with in the Southern California music scene,” Stardust says.

There are also opportunities to perform throughout the year, something musicians in less temperate parts of the country can’t always take for granted.

But connection matters for reasons beyond finding another stage. Independent music depends on relationships.

Artists meet other artists. Musicians meet photographers, producers, venue owners, promoters and fans. Someone sees a performance and tells someone else. A collaboration begins with a conversation. A stranger at one show becomes a familiar face at the next.

Stardust’s own story began with that desire to connect. She was once the person attending shows, meeting performers and wondering what life might look like on their side of the stage.

Now she’s building that life herself.

The People Who Said Keep Going

For all the independence in Stardust’s story, she doesn’t pretend she got here entirely alone. She credits her brother and father with encouraging her along the way. She thanks God.

And then Stardust adds one more person to the list: Herself. “I’d like to thank myself for pursuing my dream no matter the many obstacles that have gotten in my way and still try to get in my way.”

That might sound unusual at first. It shouldn’t. We are comfortable thanking the people who helped us.

We don’t always remember to acknowledge the person who had to keep getting out of bed and doing the work. The person who absorbed the disappointment, or paid another bill, the one who learned a new skill, and the one who heard “NO” far too many times… And the person who decided to try again anyway.

Stardust hopes that persistence might encourage someone else regardless of how young or old they happen to be.

“I will prevail,” she says, “and I hope that I can be an inspiration for others to keep pushing.”

No Permission Required

There is a wonderful symmetry to the Stardust Remains story so far. She didn’t wait for permission from anyone… She went out and made it happen. As a music fan she kept finding ways to meet the people onstage. Then one day she wondered: Why couldn’t I be one of them?

So she started writing. She joined a band. The band didn’t last. She joined another. She went solo. She relied on producers. Some of those experiences didn’t work out the way she’d hoped. So she began producing herself.

Now she’s creating two albums, developing her live performance, making her own costumes and continuing to build a musical identity that belongs increasingly to her.

The story isn’t finished.

That’s precisely what makes it worth telling. There may never be a perfect moment when somebody taps us on the shoulder and announces that we’re finally qualified to pursue the thing we’ve spent years imagining.

Sometimes there isn’t a gatekeeper to convince. There isn’t an age we have to be. There isn’t a perfectly straight path we’re supposed to follow. And there isn’t always someone waiting to give us permission.

Sometimes we simply begin.

For Stardust Remains, the journey from the audience to the artist – and now from artist to producer – hasn’t been about avoiding setbacks. It’s been about becoming more capable because of them.

And perhaps the most interesting part of her story isn’t where Stardust Remains has already been…

It’s who she’s still becoming.

Contact Stardust Remains

Bookings Contact: stardustremainsband@gmail.com

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