If the winter blues have you wanting to escape to another world, book a visit to Planet Glam with your celestial guide Shelley Star at Reclaim Arcade next Friday night.
Shelley Star is the onstage persona of Northern Virginia performer Shelley Siller, along with her partner Paul Alan Hogan (Alan Xtra).
IF YOU GO
Shelley Star and The Galaxy with Bryce Bowyn, Friday, Feb 27 30, 8 p.m. Reclaim Arcade, 2324 Plank Rd, Fredericksburg, $15 cover at the door includes games, ages 18+
On their most recent concept album “Crystal Beach” — for which they have been nominated for a Wammie, DC’s music awards — they created an entire backstory for Star with a compelling plot filled with space travel, lust (for a sea monster), deception, and a world Siller describes as perfect, sparkly, and shiny.
The music is modern pop with a retro edge.
“When people ask, it’s like Lady Gaga and Chappell Roan if they went to space,” Siller said. “It’s very theatrical and futuristic pop. It’s sort of like The Jetsons, where it’s futuristic but also with the retro vibe like the ’60s and ’70s in there as well. I love go-go boots and ’70s groove. We also take a lot of our inspiration from bands like ABBA and David Bowie with that kind of retro futuristic pop sound.”
Shelley Star is the musical persona of Shelley Siller. (Photo by Lucienne Nghiem).
In creating her stage persona and band name, Siller looked to the sky.
“I wanted my last name to be really fun and retro-sounding and glam rock-sounding so I named myself Shelley Star as my stage name,” Siller said. “Then someone from my old band just rolled off her tongue Shelley Star and The Galaxy. Then the whole sci-fi spacey theme was born and I love sticking to a theme.”
Siller met Alan Xtra, her music partner, in October 2022.
“We started making music together and the idea was always to have this big production,” she said. “Over the next year or so we started to gather our cast of characters for the live band and the dancers and some costume design people, makeup people, and stuff. It’s just been snowballing since October of 2022 gathering people and bringing them on to the team to help us create the world.”
Sharing the bill with Shelley Star and The Galaxy is DC-area pop singer Bryce Bowyn. Bowyn‘s synth pop sound works well with Star, and the two collaborated on a song on “Crystal Beach” called “Dark Matter” where Bowyn sings the part of a villain trying to bring Star to the dark side.
“When we wrote the song together, we imagined how the music video would look and we thought about his home, Planet Vanta, where everything is black and grey and stark, sort of like the black sand beaches in Iceland, in sharp contrast to bubbly purple Planet Glam where I’m from,” Siller said.
Bryce Bowyn will join Shelley Star for the show at Reclaim Arcade Feb. 27. (Photo by Clarissa Villondo)
Bowyn is an advocate for the LGBTQ community and has performed for the last several years at Fredericksburg’s Pride Festival.
“It is one of our favorite festivals to play,” Bowyn said. “This past time it was crazy; we were playing it for the second year and people knew my songs, which is not a normal occurrence for me so that was just incredible.”
Bowyn has seen support and acceptance for the queer community grow in recent years.
“I’ve been doing pride festivals for the last few years and one of my favorite parts is going to some smaller areas on the East Coast,” Bowyn said. “I’m from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, which is just outside of Pittsburgh, and the fact that there is a Pride festival in Latrobe, Pennsylvania — as a teenager I would never have imagined it. In cities that are not large metropolitan areas I like to just get out there and support our community.”
Bowyn’s music draws from many of the same inspirations as Siller, but lately, he’s been expanding his musical horizons.
“Britney, Madonna, and Gaga are like the pop trinity,” Bowyn said. “You can’t do better than that. But I’m also into different kinds of electronic music. I’ve been getting a lot more into rock and I’m currently into a Judas Priest phase. My influences are very eclectic and I’m working on an album right now so all of that is kind of being combined. It’s interesting to see how all of those sounds are coming out in my music.”
