Catharsis, Friendship, and the End of the World with Drug Bug

Drug Bug is the alias of Star Starer, aka Alex. Initially focusing on the join project WillyRodriguez, Alex grew to have a strong following before shifting to a focus on solo music in late 2023. Drug Bug is like a kaleidoscope of sounds, mixing in everything from glockenspiel to balaiaka. The emotional and cathartic sounds have presented themselves in many ways, leading to a following that continues to increase in size and strength. But under the surface, Alex is more than the music, with a vibe that lights up the entire room.

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Kade: To start us off, could you please tell me a little bit about who you are and the music that you make?

Alex: My name is Alex and I make like, layered music. Lit music. Sendy music, bro. That's what I do.

Kade: First thing I wanted to ask you about music wise was about A Season's End, which had a lot of tracks that were really layered and very impressive structure and composition wise. Could you walk me through the process that you had when making songs like that, especially the title track?

Alex: So, I usually start out on my guitar, then I record the drum track, then I think of other layers I want. Then bass comes next, but let me show you real quick, like only you get this. I got my instrument collection underneath my bed, and it's got a lot of shit. I got my balalaika and my glockenspiel. So, I usually just look under my bed, and I pick whatever's there.

Kade: How do you make your tracks feel so grand without feeling overwhelming?

Alex: Oh fuck, let me think here. I spend a lot of time on mixing. I know the mix sounds shit to a lot of people, but I like it. I don't know, it's hard to explain, but compression really helps. Are we talking generally or any album specifically?

Kade: I think especially in A Season’s End, it felt like the tracks had a larger buildup that felt more gradual, because sometimes you listen to this grand track, but it just feels overwhelming, like sensory overload.

Alex: I get you, I get you.

Kade: But the songs on A Season's End felt very purposefully layered, to the point where each instrument had their opportunity to shine without overwhelming one another.

Alex: Yeah, I get you. What I like to do generally when I record an instrument, I always double track it. Like every instrument I double track. So, I don't know if that helps it stand out. When I'm arranging something, I do like when an instrument is covering one note of a chord. When I did clarinet for my album I would get it to play the third and the root note would be covered by the trumpet and the trombone sometimes.

Kade: Are there any instruments in particular that are especially fun to add into the mix?

Alex: The piano. The piano is my favourite. That was the best investment I've ever made. That fucking piano. Oh my god, bro. Do you play the instruments? 

Kade: Yeah, I used to play piano and guitar, but I don't have as much time anymore with life in general, just everything going on. But at the same time, I think I wasn't enjoying it as much as I enjoyed writing about music. I think meeting people and seeing them have such passion for their instruments is much more fulfilling than any time where I was playing instruments myself. 

Alex: That's beautiful, really cool.

Kade: I think part of it as well is the community in Brisbane is such a welcoming place where it's very easy to feel very happy and fulfilled with the people in the local scene.

Alex: That's lit. In Brisbane you got Tame Impala and King Gizz?

Kade: That's other side of Australia for Tame Impala, then King Gizz is Melbourne, down south. For Brisbane artists, do you know Mallrat?

Alex: Sounds familiar, I think I know her. I gotta keep it real, like I don't listen to music, I listen to like the same two albums over and over.

Kade: Which two albums? 

Alex: Two albums was a big of an exaggeration, but the artists are like Beach Boys, The Smiths and Weatherday. 

Kade: Is there some Will Toledo sprinkled in there as well?

Alex: Sometimes, but honestly it makes me a little sad sometimes that people think I'm very influenced by Will Toledo because honestly, I'm not really. I only started listening to him after Willy showed me and that was in 2022. Honestly, I don't find him influential to me at all. And it makes me sad when people say, “this sounds like Car Seat Headrest”, because he's not an influence really.

Kade: What about Phil Elverum?

Alex: Huge influence on me, absolutely. I love him, I love how he records.

Kade: Another thing I wanted to ask you about was live shows. With Friend’s Fest 2025 being not too long ago at the Vera Project, how was it?

Alex: Wow, that was the best night of my life, bro. Yeah that really was the best night of my life. The crowd singing all the songs and shit, I felt that shit in my guts bro, felt it in my balls all the way to my liver, you know what I mean. Then there was the eye contact, I was making lots of eye contact with people which was nice. I used to not be able to do that just in general, like I was pretty bad at even talking to human beings.

Also, it was extremely overwhelming for me emotionally. I kind of shut down after everything. When I wasn't in front of people and it was only me and my friend Cici driving back to go to the airport, I was completely shut down because, well there was around almost 200 people there and I met a lot of people, and I had to sign a lot of things which is extremely new to me. Just the attention was overwhelming, and signing people's stuff, people telling me how important my music was to them and how far they'd come was a lot. Even as far as Portland or Denver and even two people came from where I live in Alberta.

And I was just, I was overwhelmed by that because in my day to day life I don't like to be the centre of attention. Just in general, I only enjoy when I'm doing music, but if everyone's staring at me in a room, I'm fucking dying, bro. I just can't do that. It's really overwhelming.

When people want me to sign their stuff, it’s really nice to do that for them and to see how happy they were for that. When people had questions, I was always happy that they asked. I was happy to take a lot of photos with people. It was weird meeting my audience. When it goes from numbers on a screen to real people all of a sudden, it's crazy. I just remember when nobody listened to my music, because I've been doing this for around five years now, since 2020, and nobody was listening to me back then.

Kade: Do you think that, not just Friend’s Fest, but also Friend’s House Records in general has influenced how you've approached being an artist, especially in the last couple years?

Alex: Yes, absolutely. It made me realise that I could actually do this as a career path. Because I actually just put my two weeks in for my framing job, my carpentry job, because I've been doing carpentry on the side for almost a year. I was going to have the plan A of music and the plan B of carpentry. But then I realised that carpentry was eating all my time for music, and I'd rather just be doing music. I'm actually pretty prolific when I'm unemployed and doing nothing. Like, I'm already writing songs again, so that's making me happy.

Kade: You mentioned recently about wanting to play more live shows as well, right?

Alex: Yeah, definitely. I want to play more shows, just in general. I want to build my audience locally too, because I did a show and there was only like 25 people there, which is still good, but it wasn't like a lot of people. I'd like to start filling up some shows in Edmonton and see how that goes.

Kade: Do you think there are any places you would like to play across the world?

Alex: I was thinking some crazy shit like Bosnia or Lithuania. See what's up there, see if they fuck with it. I was thinking of going to a rural place like Denton, Texas. I don't know if you've heard of that place. Denton, Texas has a crazy scene that I'd like to go see. Also, mostly America. Honestly, America is one of the best places ever, bro. You gotta go to America and see what it's about. It's literally life changing. You're from a Commonwealth country as well, it's so lame in Commonwealth countries. It's not lit. It's not lit like America, bro. America's like GTA V. You ever played GTA V?

Kade: I've also heard that. I've spoken to American artists when they've come to Australia before and the one thing that they all seem to agree on about Australia is it's like going from a GTA online lobby to an almost Stardew Valley-esque place in comparison.

Alex: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm thinking that our countries are pretty similar because, you know, Commonwealth kind of vibe. I think yours is probably a little bit more fun.

Kade: I feel like in Australia, one of the best things about it is the fact that a lot of the time your enjoyment can be directly tied to how much you're going out to find new stuff. We have a very, very strong local music scene. There's lots of collaboration between all different mediums of art, whether that's visual, or in music or movies.

[Alex shows me a selfie of Gustavo of Gingerbee and I, taken at the Your Arms Are My Cocoon show in Brisbane, where I was wearing a Wetdream shirt]

Alex: Is this you?

Kade: Yeah, that's me.

Alex: Did you meet Gustavo?

Kade: Yeah, yeah, I did, I just happened to wear the shirt the same night.

Alex: I didn't know you had this epic shirt dude.

Kade: Yeah, I made it on Redbubble.

Alex: I thought Brisbane was in like Ireland. I was thinking what is he doing all the way around there, bro?

Kade: Yeah, Gustavo was playing with Your Arms when they came to Australia, because Alyssa wasn’t there. I got to meet them [Gingerbee] actually in Yokohama in Japan because I was on holiday there with my girlfriend in between uni semesters. It just so happened that the Your Arms show was on our second last day in Japan. So, we went down there and Gingerbee were there as well. So, we got to meet them. I did an interview with Gingerbee actually, in the garage of that tiny ass venue. 

Alex: Damn that’s really cool.

Kade: It was really awesome because Gingerbee weren't playing the Australian leg of the tour, so I got the opportunity to meet them, talk to them. I don't even know where from, but I've known Dani, like Suburban Apathy, online for a couple of years now. I don't have any recollection of how that even came about. But yeah, full circle moment to meet Dani and the band. Someone I had been listening to for a little while. The fact that Your Arms was there as well when I missed them the last time they came to Australia. and seeing the other bands that were playing that night, that same street and soccer.

Alex: That's so cool. And I've heard of all these bands, which is cool because I don't really know many bands.

Kade: Yeah, it was a crazy stacked lineup. And I think outside of the bands, there was maybe like 15 to 20 people there that night.

Alex: Really? Wow, that’s like nothing.

Kade: Yeah, it was great. It was a place called El Puente, I think it was a small live music bar. It was tiny. And my girlfriend and I had no idea what we were doing, because we had never been to a show overseas.

Alex: That's very cool. Was that when the photo was taken?

Kade: I actually saw Gustavo again at the Brisbane show, which was like 2 weeks after the Yokohama show, and I was listening to Bad Therapists before the show. So I thought I should bring my Wetdream shirt. Then the first thing he said when he saw me was he pointed out the shirt and said, “oh, I have to get a photo with you like right now”.

Alex: That's so awesome. Yeah, he sent that to me. I was like, damn, I'm really like Mr Worldwide, bro.

Kade: I've been trying to spread the gospel for a while now, so.

Alex: Thank you. Thank you Kade. Alberta is kind of lame. Do you know the layout of Canada?

Kade: I mean, I know the general idea of it.

Alex: So there's this beautiful place called beautiful British Columbia. It’s the best province to live in, well, it's the most beautiful province, it’s not the best one. Alberta is in between Saskatchewan and BC and Saskatchewan is one of the most hellish places ever. Like the crime's insane and it's just flat and boring and there's like nothing to do. I think there's like some emo bands from there too. But you know the emo bands where I live? Like, do you know about I Hate Sex?

Kade: I've definitely heard of them. 

Alex: Well, Mac DeMarco is from Edmonton. That's pretty lit. There's also Cindy Lee from Calgary.

Kade: Oh, hell yeah.

Alex: You like Cindy Lee?

Kade: Yeah, of course man.

Alex: Cindy Lee is so fucking awesome, bro. I love Cindy Lee. Shout out.

Kade: I'm wondering if there are some Brisbane bands you may have heard of. Blind Girls are from Gold Coast, which is near Brisbane.

Alex: Oh yeah I’ve heard of them before.

Kade: It’s a bit harder in Australia to break through I think compared to a place like the US, just by virtue of having us having a much smaller population. The amount of niches that can kind of go into the mainstream are a lot smaller I feel.

Alex: Yeah, no, I get you, I get you. That's how I feel here. There is also too many lame people here, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know if you guys got a lame people problem, but the average guy here likes to fish and drink beer and listen to bro country it's like lame.

Kade: Following on from the talk of Friend’s Fest, I was wondering if you had a favourite moment from the night.

Alex: Playing with Cameron was really nice, he's like one of my best friends. I don't know if you know about The Fencesitters, he's the guy who makes all that music. It was nice to play bass for him. It was kind of fun because the monitor engineer was just like not great. It was her first show and so I couldn't hear myself, and nobody else could hear themselves. Nobody could hear themselves during the whole thing, so it was even crazier when there was like nine people. Also, the drummer Liz from Lemon Bread came in on the day of the show, so we didn't get to practice with her. She fucking nailed it somehow. That was beautiful.

Kade: What do you think was your favourite song that you performed?

Alex: I'm always happy to play the title track from Wetdream. That one's probably the littest, the one that gets the party going, you know? Every time I play that one, I just feel a strong emotional connection to the lyrics and this time it was just insane how receptive the crowd was to that one. Like people were crying and people told me they had bruises from the pit. It was very emotional.

That's my favorite thing to do because it really is just a release for me. I feel a lot of feelings in my gut. I got a lot of feelings in my brain. I have ADHD. I need to let it out. So, what I want to do on stage is let it out. It's like a fart for me, you know, it's like letting out a big old fart. It feels really good to just fucking let out all my emotions and one of my favourite performers who's very emotional is Dan Barrett from Have a Nice Life. If you look at that guy performing it's like you can see his soul. He lets it all out every time and it's beautiful. Yeah that's my favorite moment though, every time I play Wetdream is the part about 4 minutes in where it goes doo do doo doo dooo doo doo doo do do doo doo.

I also was really happy to play songs that had never been played live before. Like snowing in las vegas and rosemary. That one was fun. I love rosemary. Because dude at one point I brought up furries onstage during snowing in las vegas and they bumped into the keyboard so the keyboard was just insanely out of tune and you gotta hear how God awful it sounds. [see 4:20:20 in Friend’s Fest 2025 Stream]

Yeah, somebody fucked him up and he couldn't hear himself. That was also on lost in translation that piano. So that was really funny to me. I couldn't even be upset, it was my fault. I really cared this year.

This year I was really fucking terrified of; this is something I'm gonna yap about. Because there was nine members in this band. I'd been planning this since January. This was one of the most important shows I ever played for myself. So, there's nine members. I individually talked to each and every one of them about everything they did which was something I wasn't planning on doing but I did it anyway because I wanted it to sound perfect. I felt really bad about my acoustic guitarist Alec because he didn't start practicing until like a week before we were supposed to go to Seattle and that was like 45 minutes of material that he had to learn. So when he was in Seattle, he would stay up all night, every night, just playing the songs over and over and over. Which I felt terrible and sad about because he was stressing himself out. He was very, very stressed out. He was terrified. If you look at him, he doesn't move an inch. Augustine, he's the bassist for Carter C's band, and you fucking nailed it. I was very happy about that. Cameron Sims, my goat. Amazing electric guitarist. Cici played the trumpet beautifully. David, the pianist, fucking killed it. Made me feel deep feelings in my gut. It felt like different enough from the recorded version that it just was so gorgeous. Also, my friend Eli on the tambourine was my favorite part, probably. The tambourine is one of my favorite instruments because it just adds so much, I feel. I'm big on dynamics. I like them dynamics. And I feel like tambourines give nice dynamics, I don't know. 

Kade: It adds so much for doing so little.

Alex: It for real does, you know? One of my favorite moments was every time I went into the crowd, God, I had a blast. There was this one guy there, he was on shrooms. I couldn’t tell if he was on shrooms, but when he told me, I was like, okay, that makes sense. He was looking at me and smiling the whole time making insane eye contact and I was so happy about it. He was so cute bro, he was like a little cute guy and so I pulled him up and I started dancing with him at one point. It was also crazy meeting people, like I'm 22 but I feel weird because most people who listen to me are children so there was like 15 year olds talking to me and asking me to take photos and I was like okay.

Kade: I'm 20 and I'm the oldest Drug Bug fan alive.

Alex: Everyone’s a child, bro. I met a 12 year old there. He was really nice. He asked me a question, and I felt awkward.

Kade: One thing I wanted to ask you about was the cult status Wetdream’s gained. It hit number one for 2023 albums on Album of the Year, it’s 17th for 2023 albums on Rate Your Music, and the title track is sitting top 800 all time for highest rated tracks on Rate Your Music. I wanted to ask how it feels seeing all of this happen, posthumously, if you will, considering WillyRodriguez is now disbanded? 

Alex: Fuck my life bro it's over dude. I was like fuck dude, we just hit it now? That one took the soul and fun out of everything I ever loved about making music because most of Wetdream is like literally me like in my room just like playing with toys.

I think about it every day. Everything in my life built up towards that album and I literally can't surpass it. I literally can't do anything better than this. Like it’s been almost two years now and I don't think I can surpass something like that. I'm completely fine with this though, this is what I've come to accept. But this fucking album, I’m good to ride on it as long as people listen to it bro, I'm good to play it.

It feels very insane that it's getting popular and subsequently I'm getting popular from the success from the album. It feels like a lot honestly. When I see fan art of my face I'm like “whoa that's me bro.” They're making me look like a pretty girl when I'm chopped and ugly bro. Fan art is awesome I love it. I love fan art.

Wetdream changed my life bro I don't think I'll be able to surpass Wetdream. I just put so much time and effort into it. It was also during a point in my life that I was very developed as a songwriter. I was in the zone. I saw this basketball edit and it said “when WillyRodriguez was making Wetdream they were in this kind of zone” and I was like that's true. It doesn't even feel I made it anymore. It just feels like something that came out of me.

Kade: Do you think you’d describe it less as something you made and more just an extension of yourself that now exists on its own?

Alex: Yeah, I would say that. It's like my heart and soul. So, when people tell me it's their favorite album, I feel like I'm inside them, you know what I mean? In a gay way. In a weird way, in a weird way. In the way that is the weirdest way to say. It feels strange to share myself with other people, my art.

There's a lot of feelings about Wetdream getting any listens. I don't know. Since I'm like the one that is more public and talks to people, people just ask me all the questions about everything. And that can be overwhelming when I'm not the person who did the lyrics, I did the music. I did write a couple of lyrics, but I did music for the most part.

I think it's cool. I think I want to make another album that sounds like it in the future. I think that's where I'm going right now. I was trying to switch up my vibe. I got really into Motown and then that's why I made the other album. Wetdream is more influenced by the Beach Boys side of things.

Kade: It’s very annoying, the whole idea of all long song equals Beach Life-In-Death, it makes me just lose my mind.

Alex: It really is so frustrating. It does make me a little crazy when people say “oh well it’s the exact same structure as Beach Life-In-Death”, “Wetdream is the exact same structure”, when they actually have pretty different structures, in my expert opinion. Also, I was really inspired by a lot of progressive rock at the time too. I was listening to a lot of Rush. I don't really know if that's something that comes across because there's not a lot of progressive rock parts, but there's some.

Kade: I was also wondering if there were any artists that you were interested in wanting to collaborate with down the line?

Alex: I like playing on people's stuff, but I don't really do many collaborations like that. I do like playing on people's stuff though, so if I could play on somebody's stuff, probably Weatherday. Dude 100%, if Weatherday was like “Yo, can you rap on a part for me bro?” I'd be like yeah, what's up. Probably also Cindy Lee if she's if she's willing to.

Kade: What about if you were approached to like include instrumentation for someone's project?

Alex: I would love to do that. I actually do that a lot for people. If anyone asks me, I try to do it. I am pretty slow sometimes, if I'm not into it. Sometimes I won't tell you if I'm not into it because I'm very scared of hurting people's feelings. So generally, if I ghost somebody, I'm just not feeling the vibe, dude. I hope they don't get their feelings hurt. But sometimes I'm feeling the vibe heavy, and I'm like, yo, let me add some clarinet to this person’s track, let me spice it up with some glockenspiel. I like to see what I can add. Sometimes people ask me if I can add anything and I'm like, bro, it's perfect. Yeah.

Kade: I know we briefly touched on it earlier, but I was curious, what plans do you have for the future of Drug Bug?

Alex: Gonna make a lot more singles and hopefully an album eventually. Honestly I was not happy about A Season's End. It was something that I wanted out because I was pretty unhappy with and I just wanted to release it because I spent a lot of time on it. But I wanna spend a lot of time on another one and make it really good. So that's my plan.

Kade: Are there any types of styles or genres you want to broach on a new project?

Alex: More post-rock. People say that Wetdream is post-rock, but I actually disagree with that. I don't know. I haven't really explored post-rock that much. I want to start doing longer songs again. I kind of like long songs. 

Kade: You have to dethrone revisited. 

Alex: Yeah, I do. I'm gonna make an hour-long song. revisited is a very interesting song for me because, I always wanted to make a 20-minute-long song, and it's so weird that it's done, because I felt like it was gonna be a thing that I was always gonna be wanting to do in the future. But now I have a 20 minute long song out. I'm pretty happy with it. I was scared. I originally didn't include it on the album because I was thinking it was too long and too boring. Then Squee convinced me to. So, I was like, shit let's do it.

Kade: Then for a final question, if you could achieve any three things within the next year, whether musically or personally, what would they be? 

Alex: The next year… Number one, I'm trying to get my money up, trying to get stacks coming in. Number two, I want to get more well-known in my local scene. I wanna play more shows just in general. Number three, try to get ripped. I think I'm gonna try to get ripped.

Kade: Thanks so much for your time, Star, really appreciate it.

Alex: Of course, thank you for having me.

Listen to ‘sometimes it gets worse…’ by drug bug below.