Jade Starr - A Musical Transition

THE BEGINING
Born in 1972 in the unwanted form of Masculine, Jade was always going to be an entertainer. All through her childhood Jade was facsinated with all aspects of art and media. A budding artist, actor and singer in her primary school days which lead her to further her studies in music and singing throughout high school. Jade joined her 1st band at 15 and has never looked back

Jades musical tastes are vast, varied and sometimes bizarre. Brought up on a musical soup of Death Metal, Jazz, Rock, Pop and Noize, Sometimes all at once. Her Vocal abilities are truely original and amazing. With the vocal range of Pure gutteral death to high pitched female vibrato her sound will have you addicted.

Jade has performed with bands like Despised, Peppertoe, Filthy Maggoty Cunt, U-10 Cells, Malmahydrogen and Running with Scissors, just to name
a few....

DESPISED
From the early days of her 1st band "DESPISED" which blended thrash metal, jazz, funk, pop and death metal, heavily inspired by the bands of that era... Mr Bungle, Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers etc... Jade's original vocal style and metal stage antics earned glowing press reviews and much success. After 3 Demos, 1 CD, numerous line up changes and 5 years of solid performing "Despised" broke up.

FILTH
In 1994 Jade wrote all of the lyrics and music for Melbourne cult band "FILTH" They recorded a demo called "clitoral vision" and became an overnight cult success. Inspired by bands like Blood Duster, Napalm Death and Impetigo, FILTH only played 2 shows before Jade ditched the band. Filth continue to perform as an underground grindcore band.

SYDNEY
Around 1995 Jade moved to Sydney to begin a career as a street performer, singing her original acoustic compositions and many covers which earned her regular solo gigs throughout the local music scene. During this time she was a part of a bizarre band called "Malmahydrogen" and performed some of Sydney's most disturbing shows to date. Heavily influenced by bands like The Bordoms, John Zorn and Mr Bungle. During this time Jade also began wrting songs for her solo project DreadCircus. These song refected the inner turmoil she had been feeling for many years and wanting to change gender. Jade had actually moved to Sydney to begin the transition process. Things did not eventuate so after 2 years Jade decided to move back to Melbourne to begin her next triumph.

F M C
FMC (Filthy Maggoty Cunt) began as a joke on the heavy metal scene and eventually turned into one of Australia's biggest cult metal band successes. FMC's material was quite disturbing to say the least, songs about sexually exploiting animals, Fecal kleptomania, child molestation and blatant blasphemy to all minority groups. Totally tongue in cheek and riddled with black humor FMC's debut CD "sadomasadisticwankore" featured Jade playing every musical instrument, and vocals bar the drums which were sequenced on a Sony Play station. After the CD's release Jade enrolled the services of a few friends and then began solid touring for over 2 years across Australia. Reminiscent of bands like Blood Duster, Anal Cunt, Carcass and Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ, FMC developed more into a mesh of Stand up Comedy, Death Metal Drag Shows and made as many people as they could look more stupid than themselves. After 3 years and 3 independent CD releases FMC called it a day......

U-10 CELLS
During her time in FMC, Jade had other side projects on the go. "U-10 Cells"... A 2 piece experimental creation which challenged the normal concepts of song writing and live performance by creating music, sounds, noize and mayhem with anything they could get their hands on. Described best as Horror Movie Soundscapes, U-10 Cells shocked, baffled and bewildered many people with live shows that were as intense as a GG Allen show. U-10 Cells currently have 2 CD's available independently and a 3rd on the way in 2006.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
Jade was hired by a Melbourne band Called "Running With Scissors" which featured the guitar talents of Hilly from HateCore metal masters "DAMAGED". Heavily influenced by "Acid Bath", Jade was hired to give the band a distinct Death metal growl and a heap of melodic vocal lines. She performed with RWS for over a year and recorded an awesome EP called "Rock". Jade decided to leave the band to continue working on her main project "DREADCIRCUS" and to begin her transition from Male to Female....

DREADCIRCUS
Jade had been writing acoustic music during her entire career, never really doing alot with the material as her main bands always demanded much time.
In 1996 whilst living in Sydney she began to record her 1st demo titled "DreadCircus". This recording was an eclectic mish mash of quirky acoustic songs and was never released to the public. Jade continued to write material for the DreadCircus Project and by 2001 she had begun working on the Debut CD "Word & Music" which was completed and released in 2002. Written, recorded & produced by Jade amazingly on her home PC, the CD captures the moment perfectly during a time in Jades life where transition was inevitable as a mass depression had taken hold.
Not long after Jade enlisted the services of Andy (Drums), Maz (Guitar) and Matt (Bass) and they began playing the Melbourne circuit. The very next year Jade replaced the line up with Will (Guitar), Keita (Drums) & Masa (Bass) who were studying in Australia from Thailand & Japan and recorded the 2nd CD (EP) "DC" which featured 4 songs from the 1st CD only with a "Rock Band" feel. During this time Jade began taking hormones to transition from male to female. After a year of gigging in Melbourne Jade split from the band and decided it was best to move back to Sydney to start a fresh life away from Music.

SYDNEY 2 (DREADCIRCUS)
Jade moved to Sydney in 2004 to concentrate of her transition. Away from many of the people she knew, it was a great place to get her new life in order. She met Erik and fell in love, became a HIV volunteer, went back to Uni and concentrated on really making a go of her new life. In 2006 Jade came across MYSPACE and decided the time was right to return to the music scene and began promoting herself as "Jade Starr". Before long her page had actually become popular and people were very keen on the new look Starr and it seemed her music had more depth within the new marketable DreadCircus. Shortly after she enlisted the services of awsome guitarist "Jet Starr" and the 2 began playing shows. Jade then released the "Transition" solo demo in May 06, which only shows further songwriting development promising some great new songs on the next CD available 07.

DREADCIRCUS
Successful tours of Adelaide (Feast Festival), Melbourne (Midsumma Festival), Sydney GLBTI Mardi Gras and even Lismore DreadCircus added 3 new band members. Melissa Stone (Bass) and Lauren Allison (Drums & Percussion) and Kali Simpson-Goff (Vocals, Guitar & Keys) to replace Jet who parted due to lack of commitment. DreadCircus have been featured on Radio in Melbourne (JoyFM), Adelaide (Aqueerium), Sydney (98.3FM Lesbians on Air). Also gained a huge following thanks to interviews and press coverage in Sydney Star Observer, SX, LOTL, Beat, Inpress, The Age, The Herald Sun and even gained a spot on Melbourne TV Channel 31's "BENT TV". The DreadCircus has had over 80,000 hits/music streams and almost 5000 friend requests in just over 1 year and continues to grow from strength to strength.

THE FUTURE
Currently DreadCircus remains an evolving entity. After touring all over Australia as a solo, duet and full rock band, Jade took some time off to tour with comedian Glace Chase as backup guitarist, singer and straight person. After touring Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne's Comedy Festival in 2009. Jade is now touring in a rock cabaret show about her transsexuality called "From Metal to Maternal". Tours of Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane Thailand, Canada and the US are planned for 2010 of Metal to Maternal before Jade re-enters the studio to release the next DreadCircus evolution.....