TC Superstar
- Patrick Duggan
- Nov 2, 2024
- 18 min read
Updated: Feb 20
Honk! Honk! The Toyota Corolla that is discretely initialed in TC Superstar serves as the perfect metaphor to describe both the visible wonder and the internal machinations of one of the most impactful music groups in Austin, Texas – and, soon to be, the world. The vehicle that represents the potency of the mundane, the rich experience of the years you drove it along with the feelings towards those who occupied the other seats. And yes, the formative music that screamed through the unrefined speakers, inducing the finger drumming and head bobbing to breathe life into your regular commute.
This 9-5 vessel was not your dream car, it was your awake car - an overlooked concept that is explored, captured, and felt with every dimension offered by the monochromatic rug-cutting group known onstage and in our hearts as “TC Superstar”.
For the unbaptized, we will share the good word with you in the same convincing manner every TC fan spreads their gospel:
“Check out their music, but YOU HAVE to see them live.”
A casual and generic-sounding endorsement that probably packs more potential energy than any other band it has been assigned to. The words to describe them deliver like water on rock compared to the feeling that washes over you once the first key on the keyboard releases that warm synth sound into the atmosphere. From that moment on - everything is kinetic and everyone is free.
Do not let the monochromatic outfits fool you, every member of the group brings an array of color to the stage and to the performance. It all begins with the foundational wellspring of TC Superstar, Connor McCampbell – the person who envisioned this grand design and willed it to existence. McCampbell is the one who turned the key and started the ignition, but what cannot go unnoticed is the number of hands that share the wheel of this beautiful machine. The collaboration that exists within the group is as visible on the stage as their band uniforms. The attire onstage is synonymous to the blue collar uniform, as each member dons the same monochromatic garbs. Whether they be jumpsuits, t-shirts, or tanks, they are never with a pattern or design, just solid color. Per synesthetic fashion, each body of work by the group is tethered and chaptered by a single color that fuels the emotion of the music. The pantone you see at a performance is inspired by the setlist’s DNA. The band’s first color was teal for their debut album Masc (2017) – and it’s not just because McCampbell already had a teal sweater at the time. In 2019, with the release of their second album, R & D, the hue shifted to a pastel pink because, according to McCampbell, it just “felt like a pink album.” And the palette continues to build like destination bumper stickers along the trip.
The idea for the one-color-one-band identity was ignited at a museum
in Nice, France that McCampbell once visited while on a European excursion. The gallery was featuring the work of the late French artist, Yves Klein, in particular his works of monochromatic statues. These great Greco-Roman busts of human and heavenly bodies that Klein masked in blue paint by impregnating sponges with an acrylic and “washing” the statues until the entirety of the surface area was beaming vibrant Klein Blue. In alchemic fashion, Klein became obsessed with creating his ideal pantone of the color that dressed the sky and sea by mixing indigo and ultramarine paints with the academic assistance of local chemists. At his opening gallery in Paris 1960, Anthropometries of the Blue Epoch, there were live nude models covered in KB from head to toe and pressing themselves against large canvases to serve as “living brushes”. In the artist’s words:
“Blue is where the invisible becomes visible.”
This encounter of Klein’s pigmented statues struck McCampbell with the epiphany of how
color would become an essential member of the band. This visual and sonic identity that is distinctly
visible and audible today was the fully realized vision and sound from day one. In fact, with so many dimensions of the band so clearly defined, McCampbell’s greatest difficulty was convincing people that this idea was built for collaboration and not just a madman’s solo project. They remembered wondering
if one person playing guitar and singing over a backing track was truly a big enough draw for people to even leave the comfort of their own home, much less buy a ticket. They saw what their creative friends
were accomplishing around them in their various disciplines and it motivated them to introduce more rivers to feed into this ocean. Soon the audiences of West Campus were introduced to this young energetic group that sang and danced in all-teal outfits for every song of their set.
Yes, you read that correctly. The band performs a choreographed number - not for one big song, not for a few songs, but for every damn song. The movement on stage is relentless as each routine is performed with two to four dancers, depending on the venue’s size. McCampbell and the dancers float in unison under the lights with moves that look the way you feel when you dance feverishly in your bedroom for an audience of mirrors.
From the first song, the choreography punches across the room and clears the way for the power keys and bass of Aaron Chavez and Ateen Savadkoohi, respectively, to fill the air. With all eyes drawn to the stage the audience is lured in closer by the sexy-haunting monotone vocals of McCampbell. Anyone who was expecting a casual experience has now been seduced to the sounds and movement of this spectacle before them. The dance moves are as playful as they are elegant but most importantly they are intertwined within the story of each song thus elevating the emotional experience of the audience to something that is more than music, perhaps closer to theater.
The force behind the roster of dancers for TC Superstar would be the University of Texas Dance Program. Since the bands creation they have had the opportunity to include a number of contemporary dancers for their show, including: LB Flett, Emily DiFranco, Francis Rodriguez, Yuriko Roby, Andie Duong, Emily Tolson, Kathleen Tiernan, Katie Lowen, Kendel Jones, Taylor Dominique, and Bradi Nelson.
To secure free studio space, the dancers would all sweep and clean the space together which has become a sacred time for everyone to catch up with each other’s lives before the work begins. This ritual would serve the friendship, trust, and collaboration they would pour into each and every performance. The choreography that pioneered the campy toing and froing across the stage was led by LB Flett. Keeping the movement faithful to the tone of the music but energizing the feeling each song offers, LB established a style that was both practical for the physical spaces they would perform in and also elevate those same spaces with sharp movements, spins, twists, and ballet extensions to generate a joyful flow that aligns wonderfully with McCampbell’s fluid knees and Byrne-esque energy. The spirit of the movement rides the song from its fastest pulse to finding space in breakdowns to create illustrative scenes. It’s important to note those moving and shaking on stage are as vital as the musicians to every song. There are always spots in their set when McCampbell steps off the stage to give way to dancers to take over the full spotlight.
“It’s my favorite part of every show,” McCampbell adds, “like, wow! We look really good up there.”
They are an essential part of every show from the stages of Austin City Limits to the pavilions of a local brewery.
The energy the dancers deliver on stage is undeniable as the sound fills your chest and your eyes try to keep up with the coordinated pitch, roll, and yaw in front of you. But you can’t, really, all you can do is stand there slack jawed or join in with your own dance moves (which is encouraged). Even pulling out your phone to record a video feels meaningless compared to the full-body hypnotism you and everyone around you has undergone. The emotion on stage combined with their visual identity fuels the mystery of this band for those looking on.
Even McCampbell was a bit of a tough egg to crack - for all the creative force on stage they are an amazingly unburdened individual once exiting the lights. It didn’t take long in our conversation to sense that all of this production and the work required is well within their stride. Their demeanor is surprisingly grounded compared to the eccentric physical presence on stage. When it comes to their work it is understood as a bare bones relationship between input and output with no room for visions of grandeur as those are reserved for the audience. It is power = energy ÷ elapsed time. They speak about their approach, the process, and the evolution of the band with such casual clarity that you have to wonder: is it really that pragmatic? Do my own visions of grandeur toward this band want to complicate this because it has to be such a puzzle to piece together something so effective in its beauty? The painful truth is that it is as simple as listening to your gut, trusting your collaborators, and blocking out the distractions.
“If stuff doesn’t feel right, don’t beat yourself up trying to make shit into a sculpture. If stuff feels great, don’t be too critical of it. Let yourself have fun with it. Don’t worry about it.” McCampbell advises.
They are a creative leader who understands the value of their labor and the labor of others. Not machine-like as there is far too much personality along with empathy towards the fellow superstars (again, not a madman’s solo project). Nor is there any reduction of any element in the process for efficiency’s sake. In fact the band has removed the idea of “deadlines” out of their world as it was felt it threatened the natural evolution of songs and albums. The move evidently has not decreased their output as they have released five albums and an EP since their arrival in 2017, and with plenty more on the way. It is McCampbell’s respect for the process that allows them to be so effective in their creativity along with their communication of creative goals. McCampbell is not amateur, they are capital P - Professional. The amateur loves the craft in a manner that inspires them to purchase a poster of their love and tape it to their wall unknowingly cementing their distance from them and their dream. The professional only recognizes a singular distance: A to B.
The length of the distance from A to B varies from artist to artist depending on their style and approach. For example, a name that should be familiar to our readers, Aaron Chavez, the frontman for Cloud Companion, serves as keyboardist for TC Superstar and is also a longtime friend and roommate of McCampbell. They even have a beer pact together, which is like a blood pact, but stronger. They confirmed the pact will last as long as they do or until the beer runs out - whichever comes first. Poetically enough, their roles are reversed in Cloud Companion as McCampbell sits back on synths for the mystical and celestial group, often donning a pointy wizard hat decorated in crescent moons and five-pointed stars. Now where Chavez thrives amidst the exploration of concepts and seeing how big the map can get to find out how far this highway goes, it is McCambpell who staunchly puts on their turn signal and says “We are getting off at this exit.” Important to note that the difference in style has created wonderful results for their collaborations. The A to B is not a singular trip for McCampbell nor is it a race to a result. It is their regular commute where new discoveries are made on the same traveled road.
“My approach to production is that of a rock collector, you know, I’m just a human experiencing things and walking around the world. And every once in a while you hear the right kind of rock” McCampbell says as they pick up two forks from the table and begin to bang them together to produce a lovely rhythmic chime. “And you’re like ‘Ooh that’s something I want’ and then you just put that in your backpocket.”
McCampbell empties these backpockets full of discoveries that include recordings of organic sounds, analog instruments, and inventive synth waves all into the proverbial collection closet. When the time is right, they open up the closet and select their bass, pad, and lead then promptly shut the closet door - warning of the danger of keeping it open while trying to hone in on your selected production elements.
Even if the discoveries never reach a finished piece they are all an integral force of the current that feeds into the holy ocean. They work through roughly 5-10 songs a week, where 5 or even 9 of them end up on the cutting room floor and typically remain there. No room for nostalgia as the band holds a firm “keep moving forward” policy. What is left behind isn’t a matter of what is strong and what is weak, but rather what works right now for the story that is being told. There are songs that McCampbell believes is some of their best work but the lyrics just didn’t fit the emotion of the music and vice versa.
That isn’t to say certain sounds and lyrics haven’t resurfaced to find their place in the new work but it is purely out of coincidence or muscle memory or perhaps the songs will to exist. McCampbell even admits to the occasional realization that they unintentionally remade the same song multiple times.
What we find most fascinating about McCampbell is not their tier-1 work ethic,
not their wildly inventive vision, and not even their ability to create a community where every individual shines. What we can’t move past is how they operate prior to a show.
On nights where TC Superstar is headlining or second to last on the bill, you won’t see McCampbell running through a checklist or ritual to ensure all the steps are measured and all the eggs are counted, nor hidden behind the stage or shacked up in a green room. In fact, they are quite easy to find. If you’re in the crowd at Hotel Vegas, Cheer Up Charlies, Antones, Mohawk’s, or any other of the venues they regularly play - well, so is McCampbell. Sometimes by themself and probably enjoying a cigarette. Simply standing there in between acts. Engaging in friendly conversation with strangers, fans, and colleagues about whoever is performing on the stage. Once the music starts the head starts bopping like everyone else in the venue and even breaking out dance moves when the rhythm calls for it.
Completely immersed in the atmosphere of the evening. Given their celebrity status, it seems strange at first to see McCampbell as another head in the crowd, especially at their band’s own show. Like opening up a Where’s Waldo book and seeing Waldo sitting at the table next to you. I don’t believe it’s a formal ritual to get comfortable with the environment, it’s all far too natural. But once again I am overcomplicating something that is profoundly simple. Here is a person who fully embodies the concept of the present tense - in the most complete and honest way. Whether it be producing, songwriting, dancing, performing, editing, holding a conversation or a cigarette - they are undeniably present, well-temporally-adjusted, and in that moment giving all of their eyes, ears, and mind with the cool handed demeanor that only disciplined hard work can earn.
A trait that is rare to find in people but clearly attracts those who share it, as this quality beautifully exists in various ways with each member of TC Superstar. The culture of the group is one that resembles family. Not the cliche Olive Garden idea of family or even the traditional sense of a patriarchal family, but more in line with the friends you make at camp and develop a novel relationship with through this shared space and activity. Friends that ultimately feel like family that you share stories with and look after.
To offer a snapshot of the kindness they share with each other, we joined the band at their pre-show dinner before a headlining performance at Mohawk to kick off their fall tour. It was also ET’s (Emily Tolson) birthday. In a ceremonial manner, a tres leches cake with a candle emerged, and going around the table each member shared their favorite memory of ET which revealed not only the warmth and care they have for each other but also a testament to the endurance of the group itself to exist for such a time that each member present was able share a rich anecdote as the restaurant table began to feel like a mess hall. The campmates dynamic perhaps shines the brightest when the group goes on the road.
“Tour is always fun” says Chavez, “Tour just feels like a weird dream. Once you’re in the middle of tour, this reality feels like a weird dream and you’re just in tour world. There’s this perfect balance of familiarity. It’s the same van.. the rhythm of the day is somewhat the same. But there’s also novelty because the city that you’re in is new and you’re meeting new people, the environment is always changing, the part of the country you’re in is always changing.”
“It’s a practice of making fun out of being anywhere in the world.” adds McCampbell
This philosophy was put on display multiple times throughout this
most recent tour as the games included playing soccer on a friend’s ranch, pulling over the van to go down the world’s fastest natural waterslide, that is properly
named “Slippery Rock”, and earning the attention of Philadelphians by consuming
hot dog
after hot dog
after hot dog after
hot dog on stage.
Each new location is greeted with a sense of adventure, from the random bar stages to selling out Baby’s Alright in Brooklyn. A common thread can easily be followed from the band’s dynamic on the road to the TC Superstar approach to the music itself.
“One of my philosophies for songs and songwriting: I want everything to feel like
a journey,” McCampbell revealed. “I love playing with reverb and space and texture, so it always feels like you’re moving into a new space sonically. The feeling of walking through a house, and every room is a slightly different size. As you move, it’s changing – so you can’t be in the same headspace you were when you started. You go through multiple mental resets or progressions.”
This common theme of navigation is met with another common theme of discovery - both the beautiful and the haunting and all in the perspective of the present tense. Their debut album MASC (2017), a navigation of modern masculinity through the firsthand lens of an individual man: the Toyota Corolla Superstar. Exploring the dynamics of strength, infatuation, lust, friendship, commitment, freedom, and self all within the mundane arena of regular interaction where you feel out of place at a cubicle and cut off your boss in traffic and all in concert with the campys 80s pop sound that you find yourself bopping your head to if not wholly dancing.
Their next released project is titled HEAT DEATH (2018), a conceptual EP where the story takes place in a near apocalyptic world where the navigation’s path is the five stages of grief felt towards a world that is being defeated by environmental threats and overconsumption. Each track is titled for each of the stages and carries a melody familiar from the first album where once again the band has you fully engaged in the sound despite the lyrics of a broken world.
In 2019, they released another story-driven album titled R & D, where the navigation was tethered between the young romance of two young lovers, Ricky & Dana. The perspective of each song switches back and forth from Ricky to Dana as they discover the new and exciting feelings they have for each other as they encounter sparks and then feelings of growth - both within themselves and with each other, followed by the confusion it can bring. You feel like you’ve been dropped into a John Hughes movie, where it doesn’t matter how long ago you graduated high school, those feelings you felt for the first time towards someone and they felt toward you and are no longer locked up as historical memories, but rather the glass is shattered and they become immediate once again, and you find yourself dancing with the freedom of a teenager who knows nothing of the real world that awaits them.
It’s not long before you look around to see everyone in the crowd around you moving the in the same uninhibited way you are as they also have undergone the same transformation, and what a tremendous moment for everyone to be caught in the gravitational pull of this planet of sound and movement as we all dance in orbit surrounded by the stars. But unlike a John Hughes movie, the credits do not roll here at the peak of youthful discovery. The story of Ricky and Dana continues to be tested against the weight of time, loneliness, travel, separation, and perhaps resolve.
What is masterful about this album is that the funk and the groove that was fueling our dopamine in the beginning of the story and is intertwined with the happier and more innocent tones does not let up as the journey of Ricky & Dana is confronted with real life troubles, weariness, and doubt - as if to say life doesn’t break down, it just keeps humming along without too much concern for your own journey. Also, that every feeling you feel with someone is new for you and new for them, not just the initial feelings you got to experience in the beginning. The album concludes on what has become the band’s most well-performing single out in the world -“Into You” a bouncy track with a back-and-forth narrative portrayed by the dancers through crafted cinematic scenes that slowly boil with the music to an explosive climax of song and dance that clears the oxygen out of the room and leaves the audience completely breathless.
Once again capturing the feelings as we feel them. The practice has become vital to maintaining this incredible gift of being present for the process and being present for others. This perhaps is
best exemplified with McCampbell’s relationship to technology. We can all admit that undivided attention may be a relic of the past along with Blockbuster video chains and pet rocks thanks
to our parasocial selves that are governed by the everpresent machine in our pockets. That is just the way most of us exist in the world of today, with almost every action in relation to our devices. It has reached a level where you can earnestly ask “Could I exist as who I am without it?” For McCampbell, that answer is essentially yes, it has to be. They shared with us the fact that when they’re in a creative groove they’ll put their phone in a drawer for two to three days and even in some cases two to three weeks without opening the drawer. A factoid that was verified by the quiet and possibly frustrated nodding of heads from the rest of the bandmates.
I must confess my own knee jerk internal reaction to hearing this was “Fuck you”, like an inmate hearing someone tell them they escaped the prison just by walking out the front door. It has even become a ritual that McCampbell will retreat to the family cabin at an undisclosed location in Texas alone or with fellow bandmates to decompress and capture sounds of the woods to transform into sound design for new tracks. Before this begins to sound all magical and mystical, they admit that this commitment to disconnecting has brought strain on other commitments in life like social activity and whatever job they are working at the time.
The corporate office jobs McCampbell has worked in the past have only empowered this need to disconnect and step away from the technology that drains one’s energy and restricts one’s urge to just wander and just move around. This mindset has led them to find occupations in more physical areas, like building home furniture for people as a freelancer or working as a ranch hand for a local rancher they met at one of their shows who suffered a moshpit-induced shoulder injury that night and after hearing the rancher worry about the state of his labor, McCampbell promptly offered theirs. Not totally out of the skillset as they tend to their own lifted-bed garden in their home where they grow cucumbers, cutes, okra, squash, tomatoes, herbs, and more. This journey of being in the grip of everyday technology and carving a path to a healthier relationship with the world outside of devices along with the world where these devices must exist would be the powder keg for the album that explored these themes. And the match? Quarantine.
In their third album, As Seen On TV (2021), the group navigates the dynamics of our parasocial relationships with television, media, and technology and discovers both the honest and false feelings towards the emotions we share with the glowing images and just how much they are built into our foundation as an individual. Stories from disillusioned parents who stop at nothing to feel the joy of being on America’s Funniest Home Videos to the misleading proximity you feel with someone or rather their image produced on the screen.
The music once again synonymous with the identity of the campy get down TC Superstar is often identified with, but this time accompanied with plenty of sound design captured and influenced
by the technology that is as present and invasive in our lives as it is on the tracks in the album. This is also the first album where monochromatic outfits evolved into multiple primary colors of green, blue, and red (It needs to be known).
Their latest album, Static Dynamic (2023) was more of a leap from the sound they have established with their work since 2017, as well as a leap from Earth. The navigation, accompanied by an existentially pained HAL-esque AI narrator, is the journey into space towards Mars that explores not only the new scenery of the final frontier but the tensions felt with those who share the journey with you along with the diminishing tension felt towards those left behind on the home planet.
“Was trying to do more of ‘Ok What’s it like to sing mostly falsetto in a pop cadence?” McCampbell provided. “It was fun, but probably not doing it again anytime soon.”
The album from the audience perspective exits the comparisons of Talking Heads, When in Rome, and Psychedelic Furs and enters the comparisons of Daft Punk, Bee Gees, and Jungle.
This time the sound glimmers and shines like the disco ball lights you should be dancing under when listening to it. Even with the backdrop of the intergalactic soundscape it is the lyrics that once again capture the arena of regular day-in day-out interaction, thus expanding what the band is capable
of delivering regardless of setting and at the quality their fans have come to expect.
“I don’t like the same stuff every 5 years, it changes and it’s gonna keep changing” McCampbell proclaimed. Even teasing new uniforms on stage for future projects to represent the changes in style and sound that could vary from Indie Rock, Death, Electronic, Acoustic Disco, and possibly even a sequel to R & D.
No matter where the journey takes place, you can count on these themes of navigation and discovery as the music keeps your body kinetic and your smile wide. Following in line with the early influence of Yves Klein, McCampbell has taken the ingredients of influential bands, original sounds, collaborative artists, talented performers and then mixed them together in beakers and cups, hydrating and drying, heating and cooling, until they resulted in their own defined TC Superstar Blue - a color that reminds us of the warm familiar but is truly it’s own expression. With musicians and dancers serving as the live brushes of the inventive color we are so fortunate to experience in sight and sound.
“Blue is where the invisible becomes visible.”
It is the real gift of TC Superstar’s music, movement, and songwriting
to capture the everyday scenes, noise, and feelings of our daily lives and present them in the most spectacular fashion that romanticizes the mundane and communicates that your life
is an incredible journey of present experiences at are worth dancing to.
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