Deastro
"Let's Light a Candle"
Location: Detroit, MI
Website: http://www.myspace.com/deastro
Bio: Although Randolph Chabot’s music has always glowed with positivity, it took an adolescent epiphany to bring his alter-ego, Deastro, into the light of day. By ... (more)
age 17, Chabot says, “I’d written hundreds of songs already, but didn’t like any of them. I was praying, and then, it sounded like a space symphony – that’s the only thing I could call it – playing in my head, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. That initial sound has never left me. It’s always there, giving me enough hope to write.” Using whatever instruments he could find, Chabot began constructing the sound of his dreams: teenage anthems peopled by superheroes, aliens, lost souls, and star-crossed lovers. He’s been recording his space symphonies ever since, streaking the skies as his superhuman alter-ego, Deastro.
Since he began playing music more than a decade ago, the 22-year-old Chabot has self-released more than three albums’ worth of songs (all recorded in his parents’ basement), drawn his own album covers, and played countless live shows in Detroit’s network of DIY venues. Chabot’s live performances are becoming legendary – ecstatic, synth-driven gatherings that have earned him the admiration and respect of the Detroit scene. Deastro’s demos eventually found their way to eMusic.com, and the digital-download site soon released Keepers, an exclusive greatest-hits package culled from Chabots hundreds of demos. The compilation quickly became one of the site’s best-sellers. After Deastro’s elegantly lurching instrumental “Light Powered” appeared on Ghostly Swim, Ghostly’s collaboration with [Adult Swim], it became clear that Chabot had found a home for his joyful electronic pop, and Ghostly had found a kindred spirit in Deastro.
Like their hyperactive creator, Deastro’s songs can’t sit still, hopping from swooning dream-pop to gonzo TV theme songs to whisper-soft folk to crunching robot-rock, and always ringing with Chabot’s earnest tenor. Now five years on from his initial epiphany, the young artist has fully developed his musical alter-ego, and the miniature epics of Keepers (released by Ghostly in 2008) have grown into actual epics, finding form in the fantasy-world rock theatrics of Deastro’s 2009 full-band debut, Moondagger. “I wake up and I’m just determined to write a better song than I did yesterday,” Chabot says, “I’m determined to make a difference.”
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