As a child, Devin Badgett wished to avoid wasting the world. “I used to be brutally optimistic, doing my finest to reside the sword-wielding-hero archetype,” says the Nashville-based songwriter, musician and producer. “It was all only a battle of sunshine and darkish again then.”
Extra lately, Henry J. Star has discovered his approach into the fray. “I wished to write down a narrative with characters and themes I might’ve loved as a child—and Henry is a kind of characters,” says Badgett. “We share a center title: J. for Javon. Stars are essential to Henry, as he’s a prophet and makes use of the celebrities as a information.”
Badgett’s superhero alter ego is presently ramping up for the discharge of his debut LP, The Delicate Apocalypse, out October 17 through Acrophase. Star’s major mode of communication is a wide-eyed, esoteric mashup of Japanese journey video games, Southern literary references and ambient soundscapes.
“I spent plenty of time in my room as a child—studying, drawing, listening to music, taking part in Kingdom Hearts and exploring obscure web rabbit holes,” says Badgett, who grew up in Knoxville, Tenn. “My mother was very supportive of my odd, usually obsessive pursuits, so I’d find yourself with stacks of worn-out CDs and well-loved books about every kind of issues. A few of these issues make it into my inventive course of through literal avenues like sampling. However most of it merely encourages me to proceed the act of creation.”
“Ember,” the newest single from The Delicate Apocalypse, is about selecting life over a untimely loss of life, says Badgett, noting that maybe a dozen variations of the track exist.
“I had the refrain for a number of years, buried in an instrumental on an previous laborious drive,” he says. “It was a heavy narrative to spend time with and technically difficult to perform what I desired sonically. It took ages to get proper.”
We’re proud to premiere Henry J. Star’s “Ember.”
—Hobart Rowland
