There’s an adage in publishing circles that goes “novelists are born at 40.” In music, however, most rock stars are dead at 40, or at least their best creative years are behind them. San Francisco Bay Area-based Static People, however, are writing their own rules and in their book, 40 is the new “shut-the-fuck-up-about-our-age-already.” It does beg the question, however, “why this band, why now?”
“I feel like I’ve been kicking off since I moved to San Francisco in 1992,” says Dmitra Smith, whose multi-octave range and keen sense of the dramatic bring a rousing energy to the act, which also features guitarist Pascal Faivre and drummer Ken Shelf as well as a coterie of auxiliary members, who are brought in as projects require. “I started dreaming the ‘self’ that I’m becoming now when I was 14, but I had a hard time hanging my ass in the wind in public.”
Smith’s reticence gave way in 2008 when she formed Static People as an act of personal survival.