Meet Star Circus, the missing link between ELO and Def Leppard

(Image credit: Dean Addison)

Dave Winkler, frontman with Star Circus, the London-based quartet who represent the missing link between ELO and Def Leppard, used to spend his evenings pretending to be other people.

“I was Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance for a bit,” he says, smiling, “Then I was Ozzy Osbourne; one time a Brazilian couple came up to me and said that they’d seen me at Rock In Rio, which was astounding, really.”

Huh? If you haven’t already guessed, Winkler was a hired hand before Star Circus, playing in other people’s bands, including tribute acts. It paid the bills at least, he reflects.

Seemingly, he’s drawn on this range of experience across the rock spectrum for Star Circus. Taking inspiration from acts as varied as Thin Lizzy, Alice Cooper and Leppard, they’re a throwback to the days when bands would try a little bit of everything.

“I’m a huge fan of people like Queen and Guns N’ Roses, bands from the time before sub-genres of everything, when the guitarist would throw in a metal song or someone else threw in a funk-pop track.

“I’ve been in bands where it’s like: ‘[disappointed voice] Oh, you’ve written a song in a major key. That’s too happy for what we do.’ Or dismissing a ballad because it’s got a key change.”

STAR CIRCUS - One Hit Wonder - YouTube

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Star Circus’s recent single One Hit Wonder is certainly inspired by band life, in this case, a particularly controlling individual. “It became a thing where as soon as we got signed, suddenly there were rules, like we all have to stand in diamond formation; I was only allowed to walk forwards if I had a particularly important guitar solo.”

While the first Star Circus album, 2022’s Separate Sides, featured Winkler alone, recent follow-up From The Wreckage is very much the sound of a band. First to join was Sophie Aurelia Young on bass, followed by… let’s just say a guitarist.

“We had quite a major issue with him at a festival we played at last year,” says Winkler. “He behaved… well, inappropriately. Very inappropriately.”

Young takes up the story: “We were due on stage at two p.m. So we got to the festival in good time, and saw the organisers, and they told us that this person had been thrown out of the festival a few hours before we were due to play – and this was supposed to be our biggest ever gig.”

Fortunately, the band’s keyboard player was able to deputise. “He doesn’t do all our shows, but luckily he was doing this one,” says Winkler. “We had to pick him up from the train station and tell him: ‘You’ve got ninety minutes to learn all the lead guitar parts I don’t play.’ Somehow we got away with it – even if I had to run up to him between every song with instructions.”

From The Wreckage is out now via Renaissance Records.

Will Simpson was Music Editor of the Big Issue South West in Bristol before relocating to Thailand to become Deputy Editor of English language books magazine New Arrivals. Since returning to the UK he's freelanced, writing about music for Classic Rock, IDJ, Metro and Guitarist, and environmental issues for Resource and The Spark. He also writes for contract publishing titles such as Teach, Thomson Air, Musician and Korg.

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