If it’s a surprise to you that Starsailor are marking their 25th anniversary, it’s a shock to the band themselves too. Ever since emerging with impassioned anthems including Fever, Good Souls and Alcoholic from their turn-of-the-century classic debut album Love Is Here, the quartet have created moving, communal songs of wonder and beauty.

The heavier side of their live shows, first truly incorporated on third album On The Outside, means recent records All This Life and Where The Wild Things Grow show a band who can show a wide range of flavours as they’ve grown together over the past quarter of a century. 

It helps that 2024’s superb Where The Wild Things Grow means Starsailor are celebrating their 25th birthday in rude health, rather than having to rely solely on past glories like many artists marking such a big birthday are forced into.
“The anniversary has crept up on us a bit,” admits singer James Walsh. “Apart from a four-year period from 2010 where we didn’t do music as a band, we’ve been hard at it for the other 21 years. Our start feels like yesterday, in a way. If we hadn’t done anything for ten years, we’d feel differently. But we’ve toured a lot, and we’ve tried to keep our songs alive for our fans.”
The manner in which Starsailor are celebrating their anniversary is typical of the forward-thinking ethos integral to the band since forming from local talent in Warrington, Chorley and Wigan in the late 90s. In addition to a tour celebrating their six albums, Walsh, bassist James “Stel” Stelfox, drummer Ben Byrne and keyboardist Barry Westhead will play two special orchestral shows at Liverpool Tung Auditorium on February 15, arranged by Joe Duddell, acclaimed for his work with Elbow, New Order and Richard Hawley.
“We didn’t want to take the easy way out with the anniversary,” notes Walsh. “We wanted to do something extra which stretches us creatively, so that it wasn’t all about us stepping into the past. These fresh arrangements of old songs, it’s the perfect balance of old and new.”
Starsailor first worked with Duddell when he pulled off the challenge of orchestral arrangements for all four bands playing a benefit show in Manchester in February 2024, with Starsailor featuring alongside James, The Slow Readers Club and The Farm in aid of foodbank charity The Trussell Trust.
“It’s very much a collaboration with Joe,” emphasises Walsh. “We wanted Joe to have chance to express himself, that it’s not just ‘Starsailor with strings.’ Way To Fall sounds amazing, while Poor Misguided Fool is the biggest surprise. Taking the guitar’s driving rhythm, then putting it onto violin and cello, it creates a style like Eleanor Rigby. It’s very different to the version people know.”
The new tour includes landmark shows at Manchester Albert Hall and Glasgow Barrowlands – Starsailor’s first gig at Barrowlands since supporting Manic Street Preachers in 2001. “That was a baptism of fire,” laughs Walsh. “The Manics had a really mixed audience. There were hardcore early fans going: ‘Who are these people? They clearly haven’t read enough Nietzsche,’ mixed with fans of Everything Must Go, who were a bit more receptive to what we were doing.”
The band still relish the chance to play their old classics alongside newer favourites. Walsh explains of the approach to the early days: “Four To The Floor, Silence Is Easy and Good Souls are songs I can still easily relate to. There’s a positive message to them I have a connection with.
“Songs like Alcoholic and Tie Up My Hands are very much written by a 20-year-old. That’s not to do them a disservice, as I’m incredibly proud of them, but they echo my view of the world then. They mean so much to people, we really enjoy playing them and the audience’s reaction. But there’s more of an element of stepping into a role and performing the songs heavily connected to where I was then. Four To The Floor, Silence Is Easy, Good Souls: they’re all me now. There’s no performance there, it’s an expression of who I am.”
It's natural that Starsailor have evolved both as a band and as people since they were first championed in the post-Britpop landscape, which saw peers including Elbow, Coldplay, Turin Brakes and Doves emerge. Walsh fondly remembers a show at The Monarch in Camden which saw virtually the entire music industry’s A&R talent vying to sign a band whose emotional nuance and classic songwriting would have been special in any group, never mind one yet to release a note of music. “That’s when I thought we’d have a chance,” says Walsh with considerable understatement.
It's significant that Starsailor have managed to maintain the same line-up ever since. If they don’t look like a classic rock & roll gang like Ramones or The Rolling Stones, don’t be fooled: there’s a considerable core of steel to a band who have survived intact these past 25 years.
“I was 16 when I met the others,” recalls Walsh. “They were a few years older, as I like to remind them. We’ve matured together, and there’s no-one better to keep you grounded if you get carried away with yourself. Your mates who’ve been there the whole time, they’ll go: ‘No!’”
Walsh, Stelfox, Byrne and Westhead are all confident in each other’s roles in Starsailor. Walsh writes the lyrics, but states: “I haven’t got a clue how to put a drumbeat together. Me and Barry leave Stel and Ben to the rhythm section.” The mixing side is Stelfox’s speciality.
“We’ve all got strong roles in the band’s process,” considers the frontman. “We all understand those roles. We’re each passionate in how a song turns out, so we’ll sometimes voice an opinion. But in the main, we each do our thing.”
Walsh also has a solo career that began with 2012’s album Lullaby, while Stelfox plays bass in Spiritualized, with Westhead and Byrne teaching music. “It’s not like I’m the only one with other interests,” he reasons. “That helps keep us going.”
Throughout Starsailor’s music, there’s a consistent thread which has captivated fans since debut single Fever detonated the Top 20 in 2001. “We hold onto the tenets of good songwriting,” smiles Walsh. “Some bands are amazing at starting songs from a drum loop or a crazy sound. We’ve always had to have the song there to start with.
“The majority of Starsailor songs are written on acoustic guitar. When you start from that base, then build up the bells and whistles from there, it works better for us. A song needs to exist in a simple way at first because, if the foundations are solid, people will always connect to it. Production techniques can date a song, which makes it harder to have longevity.” Walsh cites Bon Iver, James Vincent McMorrow and Phoebe Bridgers and her band Boygenius as current favourites: “Artists who have all made sonically interesting records, but where the quality of the songwriting unites them.”
The classic mindset of Starsailor’s songwriting benefitted from working with Embrace guitarist Rick McNamara as the producer of Where The Wild Things Grow, as Walsh explains: “That was a democratic process, as sometimes a producer can take over, dictating sonically how an album turns out. Rick was brilliant with sounds and production, but also open to our ideas. He was like another member of the band, and having a musician’s take in the room helped.”
Where The Wild Things Grow includes soaring post-lockdown anthem Heavyweight. “There was an optimism coming out of that period,” Walsh remembers. “We were excited when we recorded Heavyweight, especially the final refrain of ‘This is the greatest feeling.’”
Since returning from a hiatus in 2014, Starsailor have appreciated their magic together all the more. “Our live show is heavier than people expect,” says Walsh of the intense celebration of a Starsailor gig. “We tried to recreate that in On The Outside. On our last two albums, we’ve settled into a good balance between that side of the band and the emotional, plaintive mood of the earlier records. We know what a song needs, so Into The Wild is one of the heaviest songs we’ve done, while on Hard Love and Hanging In The Balance we’ve gone all out on the delicate and downbeat.”
If it wasn’t always easy, Starsailor seemed to cope well with the intensity of their early days, coping with the tensions of the Noughties scene by seemingly keeping a calm good grace. “We maybe got carried away with where our music was taking us,” reflects Walsh. “You can be guilty of looking ahead too much. If we sold out Brixton Academy, instead of thinking: ‘Let’s crack open the champagne!’, it was: ‘How can we sell out two nights next time?’ You constantly feel you’re on an upward trajectory, when life isn’t like that.”
There were moments when the champagne was poured, not least supporting U2 at Stade De France when Four To The Floor was at No 1 in France: “Even though we were so young, full of youthful ego and energy, we were overwhelmed and amazed by that one. That was a magic moment.”
Starsailor also benefitted from Peter Kay compering their homecoming show at Warrington Parr Hall in 2002 – “Peter was meant to introduce us, but he was so late coming from another show that he introduced our encore instead. He did his misheard lyrics routine, and the crowd laughed so much that we had a massive job following him back on, even at our own show” – while Silence Is Easy co-producer Phil Spector was responsible for an especially surreal note at a Los Angeles show.
“Lisa Bonet from The Cosby Show and Brian May were in the dressing room,” says Walsh. “Phil Spector stood behind us, swinging a football rattle he’d brought for some reason while singing We Are The Champions to Brian May. Brian is one of the politest men in rock, so he just laughed it off. I don’t know how he felt inside about it all. That was a mad moment.”
The mad moments are still happening to Starsailor after 25 years. So too is the love and admiration from a fanbase which has remained loyal and welcomed generations of newcomers since Starsailor managed to justify that early hype and thrived across an ever broader catalogue since.
“Neil Young is a big inspiration,” summarises Walsh of Starsailor’s goals for the next 25 years. “He’s a benchmark for longevity. I have a great admiration for The Rolling Stones still giving so much energy, but I think we’ll become more introspective. But you’ve got to do the odd Pete Townshend windmilling here and there.” Starsailor’s music has earned the right to another 25 years at least.