“Lisa was doing a solo show supporting a band that me and the bass player (Adam Learner) were previously in and we approached her because we loved what she was doing,” Murphy explains. “After the first rehearsal, the feeling was just so good that we decided we wanted to form a band. Since then Adam and I have left every other project that we were doing to completely focus on Dear Stalker and hopefully take it as far as we can. It’s the band we feel the most happy with and we just love playing the music; we want the whole world to hear it.”
Slowly the whole world is hearing as indie press in the States and the UK have begun suggestively muttering about the possible future this band has. Creating internet ripples is such a promising way to enter into the global scene and yet success on the World Wide Web can be deceptive and difficult to translate into real world opportunities. Murphy is readying for a television spot and an overseas video interview on the day we chat and explains that any overseas attention has been as much about them pushing it as them being discovered. “Having the latest video on YouTube resulted in a few places finding us and approaching us with offers to help promote the music and get us out there,” he says. “From that we’ve been able to reach other places ourselves. We also spent a lot of time picking and choosing the places we want to be heard. It helps having other friends in bands as well who have connections as well. It all just takes a lot of time finding who and want can help us.”
Still scraping it in as an independent band, the path most commonly trodden these days, Murphy is honest about the fact their independence has more to do with circumstance that a conscious business model or artistic ideal. Still, they’re getting by quite well so far with each member’s alternative talents. “At this point in time we’ve built up relationships with certain avenues,” he explains. “Lisa does all of our artwork and we have another person on board to do our videos so we have built up a solid team but we’re definitely open to absolutely anything that is gonna push us along in our career and help us reach a wider audience.”
With overseas media attention comes the desire to tour but finances and time constraints are always an issue for an indie band. “It’s something we’re looking into,” he says of touring. “Obviously, being an independent band, we still have to work crappy day jobs. If it’s something we’re gonna do we want it to be sustainable so it looks like it would be something that could happen towards the end of next year.”
Despite taking things slowly, the momentum isn’t stopping one bit and Dear Stalker seem to be jumping on every opportunity that comes their way. “We’ve got the end of year show coming up and we recently played a cancer benefit that helped to create some contacts for regional shows and some interstate shows that we’re looking at over the next few months,” he says. “We’ve also started recording our new EP with Joshua Whitehead at Crosstown Studios so we’re looking at putting that out next year with another video. We’re slowly but surely taking out time, finding the right avenues and doing everything we can.”
The road to indie success is a long and, at times, lonely one but the thing that makes it all worthwhile is loving the art you create and the people you create it with. Murphy seems to genuinely, almost romantically, love what the trio do together and that alone can give a musician the strength to weather any storm. “We just have so much fun but it’s also the music that we all love the most of anything we’ve previously done,” he says. “When people say that when you meet the right woman you’ll know she’s the one you’ll wanna spend the rest of your life with, well I really feel that’s the same with a band.”
BY KRISSI WEISS
