Local Ohio State student and musician Zachery Allen Starkey describes his band, Digital Empire, as dark, moody and atmospheric.
More than 200 people came to Skully’s bar – located in the Short North – Nov. 17 to see the band play, he said.
“I would say that show was probably our biggest,” he said. “Lots of people got up on stage and danced while we were playing, and were banging on keyboards. It was chaotic and wonderful at the same time.”
The band will be releasing two singles in January and February, called “Solitare” and “Nuclear Star.”
“Even though we are an electronic band and the music is catchy, and great to dance to, emotionally the songs are intense and the lyrics are very heavy,” he said. “I have a very unconventional singing voice. My voice has been described as a cross between a twisted Frank Sinatra, Marvin the Martian and Johnny Rotten.”
Starkey writes all of the lyrics and chord structures for the songs.
“My biggest influence as a lyricist is the poet T.S. Elliot, because he’s very intense and depressing,” he said.
Other inspirations have been bands like Depeche Mode, New Order, the Cure, Public Image Ltd., Neil Young, Nine Inch Nails and George Clinton and P-Funk, he said.
Starkey, who is also influenced by 80s post-punk bands, admits that he works with other people in the band on his music.
“I’m a self-taught musician- so I like to work with people who are trained musicians because they understand my vision for what the song should be,” he said.
These “trained musicians” include his two band members, Bo Kim, 19 ,and Crow, in his 30s. Both members play keyboards.
“Zachery told me he needed a keyboard player, so I just joined,” Kim said.
Kim moved from South Korea five years ago and attended the Columbus College of Art and Design last year to study photography. However, she said music was her true passion.
“I’ve been working on my music a lot lately,” she said. “I plan on doing music for a respectable amount of time.”
Kim does a lot of programming as well, Starkey said.
“I can program drums, bass and symbols, which is how we get all of our sounds affects for our band,” Kim said. “But it’s important not to make it sound like a karaoke machine.”
Kim has been in the band for about a month, and Crow just started, Starkey said.
“Bo is totally my main collaborator now, and her creative input has really been helpful with brushing out the songs and making them better,” Starkey said.
Though Crow has not been a part of Digital Empire for very long or has yet to perform live with Starkey and Kim, his talent does not go unnoticed.
“Crow is very, very talented. When Crow and I play together it sounds really good,” Kim said. “I’m excited for when we play next because we’re going to (be) better than we ever have before.”
The band plays at Skully’s on a regular basis, and has also played at Bernie’s Distillery in the past – a bar located on High Street across from the Wexner Center.
“I don’t like to perform at a certain place more than two or three times a month because people will get sick of you,” Starkey said. “But generally when we play we get a pretty good crowd.”
Digital Empire started in 2002 after Starkey had been playing under his own name, Zachery Allan Starkey.
“I would sing and play keyboards, and then the drum and bass would be on a backing track, but you can’t do very much when it’s just you singing and playing,” Starkey said. “It just got very frustrating for me to do.”
Eventually, Starkey decided to get other members to join in, which included guitar player.Andrew Harding and keyboard players Ryan Stolte-Sawa, Sarah E. and Trinity Shi.
Starkey thought it would only be fair to change the name of the band from (Zachery Allan Starkey) to Digital Empire after getting band members, he said.
Originally the band was called “Digital,” influenced by a song title from the band, Joy Division, Starkey said.
“I like names that are kind of short and brief,” he said. “But that name only lasted about a week because when I got on the Internet I found out there were about 800 other bands that had the same name.”
Wanting to keep the word “Digital” in the band’s name, Starkey decided to add “Empire” after it, because he was learning about the Roman Empire in an art history class at the time.
However, Harding and Trinity left the band after a year and a half, and Stolte-Sawa and Shi left after a month.
“After Andrew left, I decided I didn’t want guitar players anymore, so I just use all keyboard players now,” he said.
Digital Empire has 10 songs that are played live all the time, which is enough material for the group to record an album that is due out this spring, he said.
“Obviously, it would be wonderful if we could become the new Cure or the new New Order, and become really well-known and get our songs played at clubs, but I’m realistic,” he said. “If we could just get a deal with a small record label and be able to tour and play shows outside of Columbus, that would be really great.”
