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DAVE WINKLER - STAR CIRCUS UK band Star Circus are planning on releasing their debut album later this year, and if you love anthemic choruses and punchy songwriting, it should be right up your alley. Star Circus are fronted by Dave Winkler, who has also toured with Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow, Trophies Of Man, Ryan Hamilton & the Traitors, Renegade Playboys and fronted a My Chemical Romance tribute band amongst others. He’s also vegan, so is a star when it comes to animals, and obviously is definitely NOT a fan of animal circuses. Here, he tells us which animal lives he’d most like to save, what he thinks of people that don’t love animals, and how he discovered he has a talent for making soup from scratch.
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| Shari Black Velvet: You released a song called ‘Save Your Life’, written after the death of Chris Cornell, about how we don’t always know what someone is going through, especially if they keep things to themselves and don’t communicate, and how we can think successful people have it all, yet inside they may be going through turmoil. Do you think men in particular can suppress their feelings and avoid telling people when they’re going through tough times? Dave Winkler: Absolutely. I think that unfortunately men have been conditioned by society to suppress their feelings more than women, particularly if they have more traditional values and upbringings. There’s an Amy Winehouse lyric ‘You should be stronger than me. Don’t you know you supposed to be the man…’. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be tongue in cheek, but it’s quite a dangerous and outdated message. The beauty of art and music is that it’s a means of self-expression, and can certainly be an outlet for darker and negative feelings. I’d like to think that, at least in creative and more progressive circles, in 2021 you can be open about who you are and how you feel. I’ve probably cried more this year since lockdown than the rest of my adult life, which is messed up. But at least I can open up and admit that. It’s really sad how many beautiful people have been lost to depression and isolation, particularly the frontmen from that 90s era, Kurt Cobain, Layne Stayley, Scott Weiland, the list goes on. Chris Cornell was talented, successful, attractive, he really seemed to have it together, which made the impact even greater. So maybe we’ve got a way to go yet. SBV: You sing about sleepless nights in ‘Save Your Life’? What has given you sleepless nights? DW: Too many chilli beans. Sorry, this is a vegan interview after all! SBV: Since you are vegan, have you had any sleepless nights related to animals? DW: I would like to think that knowing we’re part of the solution and not the problem helps us all sleep more easily. There’s a long way to go, but despite what the headlines and the mainstream media would have us all believe, I think every new generation is becoming a little more compassionate. I’ve watched enough Netflix sitcoms this year to see how vegans and vegetarians were portrayed a decade or more ago, crusty hippies and all that stuff. It’s taken a while for it to be recognised as a great way of living. SBV: Which animal lives would you most like to save? DW: I think that all animals in captivity, battery farms, caged or exploited for entertainment, food or clothing are worth campaigning for. Some of it is pretty disgusting and that level of cruelty baffles me to be honest. I’m probably not as public with activism as many other vegans, I guess I’m concerned that being too pushy with the messages can sometimes put people off, as it did with me before I found my own path. But I do donate what I can to PETA and to a donkey sanctuary. Donkeys are cute, I don’t like the idea of them being abused so I guess that was a good place to start. Apparently, Eeyore was cut from Winnie the Pooh cartoons for being too sad, so I thought I’d do my bit for donkey happiness. SBV: Tell us about the day you went vegan. What made you take that step? DW: It was something that happened in stages for me. I was in a very long relationship with a vegetarian and eating more and more plant-based meals, with some dairy, obviously. Then, two close friends, Lee Benz from Trophies Of Man and his girlfriend, took the plunge and I guess I could relate to them doing it in their mid-30s. Before that I was afraid that, with my Jewish upbringing, I was totally addicted to chicken and could never totally give it up, but I thought eating lamb was pretty sadistic. Then I found out chickens tended to be butchered at an even younger age, and that upset me. Growing up in London I had to find out this information from people like Paul McCartney and Pamela Anderson on the internet, so I was a bit sheltered, so it took that long for me to come to my senses. Finally, I had a veggie burger that tasted amazing and the last time I ate meat was at Sweden Rock Festival 2014. I cut down on dairy in late 2017 once I’d become more aware of the cruelty in the industry, and then did Veganuary, which was good motivation to take what seemed like the next logical step, and then just stuck with it. Not the most exciting story, but probably a common one! SBV: Since animals are unable to speak, what do you think they’d like us to say for them? Is there anything you think animals would like to say, but obviously can’t? DW: I just think they would want us to treat them with love and respect, the same as most humans would. Hunting for sport and animal testing are particularly cruel, so I think speaking out about this is important. All life is valuable. I get there is a food chain, and in parts of Africa or freezing winters in Eastern Europe where nothing grows, eating meat is more about survival, especially in times where, globally, there were less alternatives. But on the other hand, anything you need to cook to an insanely high temperature so that it doesn’t poison you clearly isn’t supposed to be eaten! SBV: You sing ‘who’s going to save your life?’ Do you think going vegan can save human lives, health-wise? DW: I think there’s a lot of great information out there that suggests a plant-based diet can have some great health benefits, at least if it’s done right, with care to take in the right amount of vitamins and nutrients. Obviously, if you just live on chips and beans on toast you’re probably not going to be in great health! But ‘The Game Changers’ documentary on Netflix was particularly enlightening. Even my parents have switched to a mostly plant-based diet since I recommended watching it, and they’ve got a pretty traditional lifestyle. My mum has previously had cancer and my dad had a heart attack 8 years ago, so it’s good seeing them make better decisions. SBV: Star Circus’s first single was ‘Love Is The Enemy’. What inspired that? Has love been the enemy in your life? DW: I think love can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on the situation. Unrequited love is the worst; it’s great for songwriting though! That’s the upside to being a lyricist, artist or a poet, because pain can often fuel the best work, so it’s win-win! At the moment, love is wonderful. The chorus of ‘Love Is The Enemy’ was written on a break from a really long relationship. Then the relationship resumed and I forgot all about it. Then after another four years I was single again and finding all the romantic comedies on E4 and Netflix slightly sickening in that frame of mind, ‘Rules Of Engagement’, How I Met Your Mother’, etc. So I wrote the verses and the rest of the song out of disgust! It’s one of the more tongue-in-cheek songs on the album. Europe have a song called ‘Love Is Not the Enemy’, so it’s also a flip on that. The musicians I was working with at the time, and the PR company and everyone, seemed to love the hook, so it was an obvious choice for the first Star Circus single. SBV: What do you think about people who don’t love animals? DW: Meat is the enemy! Seriously though, I think honesty and integrity is the most important thing. I think we’re far from the whole world turning vegan; I get that there are people with allergies that make a lot of alternatives a challenge. But don’t put ‘Animal Lover’ on your Instagram profile and then post a picture of your steak dinner! I didn’t grow up with pets, so maybe I have a more impartial view on this. I genuinely don’t understand why people think it’s not OK to kick a dog, but perfectly fine to kill a 3-month-old chicken or torture a cow all its life and steal its milk. I’ve got friends who love meat, including some of the guys in my band. I've got friends who think war heroes are awesome. I’ve got friends who voted for Boris fucking Johnson! You just have to get on with people and value their positive traits to some degree or you’ll end up hating everyone! But It’s nice when they at least have some integrity and consistency! SBV: You released ‘Before The Song Is Over’ as a charity single to raise funds for the NHS. Do you know people who work for the NHS? Do you think they deserve more than they get? DW: I think nurses are certainly undervalued and underpaid. I have friends who work in health, some of whom have left their jobs since the epidemic, probably for these reasons. I think we should be grateful that we have a healthcare system that doesn’t discriminate like in the USA for example, but we are somewhere in the middle. Things seem to run a lot better in countries like Germany and New Zealand, and we should take note after the shitshow this last year has been. SBV: Has the NHS saved any lives of people you know? DW: It saved my dad’s life when he had a heart attack. He died for 4 minutes, like Nikki Sixx! Except he’s nothing like Nikki Sixx. SBV: How’s the lockdown affected you, personally and professionally? DW: It has truly sucked in so many ways. The first and last electric show for Star Circus was over a year ago, it’s really tough when you’ve put a lot into something very new. I had to cancel so much last year. We keep booking socially-distanced shows that get postponed or cancelled. Also, I lost out on around 3 grand's worth of tribute shows that had been booked all over the UK, my calendar kept alerting me every other weekend that I was supposed to be in Bristol or Glasgow when we were stuck in watching Netflix. I haven’t hugged my parents in a year, I could only go to see my little nephew when the restrictions were milder over the summer, and so many festivals, holidays and events have been rebooked for next year. Lots of people have said they’ve found it refreshing, but it’s been really sad, particularly this third time round. It’s like being punched in the face again and again, just as it starts healing. SBV: What positives would you say have come out of the lockdown and the whole coronavirus situation? DW: On a positive note, it has brought me and my girlfriend Sophie much closer. It was a relatively new relationship, 9 months at the start of the epidemic, so we’ve been in the ‘new normal’ for longer than the ‘old normal’! I think it has really tested a lot of relationships, and perhaps taught people to appreciate what they have and appreciate the small things. I’ve really started noticing the beauty of trees and the sky a lot more, we’ve done a lot of walking outdoors. So that’s something. SBV: With coronavirus said to have derived from a wet market in Wuhan, China, do you think the animal meat industry can also cause pandemics? DW: Absolutely. Swine flu, bird flu, ebola, foot and mouth disease, the list goes on. They’re all linked with us messing with the ecosystem and exploiting and abusing animals. We’ve created such a mess of the world and now it’s come back to bite us. SBV: I see on Instagram you posted a vegan pizza you made entirely from scratch last July which included cashew nut cheese and said it was one of the best pizzas you’d ever eaten. Do you like to cook? Has going vegan opened you up to new food and cooking more yourself? DW: That pizza was at least as much Sophie’s effort as my own, so I can’t take all the credit! She got a Purezza vegan recipe book for my birthday, so we made the dough balls and the pizzas, with our own twists. The second attempt was particularly amazing. Purezza are totally vegan restaurants in Camden and Brighton run by real Italians; if you’ve not checked them out you should. I’ve always dabbled a bit with cooking, I’ve never been into takeaways outside of relationships. I’ve definitely enjoyed being more experimental since becoming vegan. Food has become more of a focus of the day during lockdown, as there’s a lot less to excite us at the moment, except Netflix and going to the park! Sophie has become an incredible chef. We were even considering opening some sort of alternative vegan burger and smoothie place when things reopen! SBV: You were excited when Fry’s Orange Cream came back – as that’s vegan. What other vegan products have excited you? DW: They’ve brought the strawberry and raspberry ones back now too! Those are great, but I think I binged a little too much on them when I first cut out dairy. I was a total milk chocolate addict growing up, so I love all the alternatives like Nomo, Vego and weirdly a company called Buttermilk do great chocolate salted caramel cups! The Beyond Burgers and Impossible Burgers are amazing. I first had them in a place called Veggie Grill in Los Angeles. There’s so many great alternatives now and they’re all high in protein and mostly no less healthy than meat, if not even better for you. Even some of the cheeses have got good, Violife do a better Greek cheese than real feta in my opinion! SBV: I saw you write ‘I never thought I was much of a ‘photographing my food’ type person until I started doing the vegan thing this time last year’. What was it that made you post some photos of your food? Did you want to inspire others or were you proud of your creations? DW: I was pretty proud of what I’d done, and veganism definitely reignited my passion for food and cooking. The first thing I did was make a Joanna Lumley recipe for soup, and it was one of the best soups I’ve ever had. I’d never made soup from scratch before, so I guess that’s a talent I’d discovered! I wanted people to see that vegan food can look vibrant and delicious. I always tell people the main reason I became vegetarian 7 years ago was to piss off the drummer I was working with at the time, who was so against it, he was so insistent that the vegans and vegetarians he knew never find anything decent to eat. He’s a Polish guy with quite a traditional attitude towards food; I think there’s still a strong relationship with meat in parts of eastern Europe. It often seems to be drummers who have a bit of a narrow view of dietary requirements for some reason! But yeah, I’m always up for a fight with anyone who thinks great food or fine dining means steak or ribs or pork loins or whatever. SBV: Have you cooked for any non-vegans, or inspired any friends or bandmates to try any vegan food? DW: Well, Sophie was pescatarian with vegan aspirations when we first met, so she went from eating a bit of fish with her parents to fully vegan and is now at least as passionate about it as me, if not even more so. Her parents have tried a few alternatives and been impressed, but they are culturally very French with their cooking, lots of cheese! We’ve found so many great vegan alternatives now that we can all enjoy the cheese course together at Christmas! As I mentioned, my parents have semi-committed to a plant-based lifestyle, but sadly we haven’t had a chance to cook for them or anyone else since lockdown. My bandmates vary. Two of the guys in Trophies Of Man, Lee and Flash, are vegan as are their partners. Regarding Star Circus, I like to think that William, who plays guitar and keys, has been influenced by me. In London, he’s a vegetarian leaning towards veganism. Unfortunately, when he goes back to see his parents in the South of France it all goes out the window. It’s very difficult down there. We managed to escape to the Languedoc region for a few days last summer and the supermarket isle for horse meat was about three times the size of the whole vegan/vegetarian section! We ate a lot of cheese-less pizza. The weather was great though. SBV: Star Circus’s debut album will be released this year. Who would you say it will most appeal to? DW: I would like to think anyone who loves anthemic choruses and punchy songwriting really. It’s definitely a classic rock album with a leaning towards power-pop. I’m not gonna revolutionise guitar playing like Hendrix or Van Halen and I’m not the greatest vocalist in the world, but I think I’ve given it 100% and I hope people like the songs; I definitely want to be part of a movement that puts the focus back on great songwriting. Far too much modern chart music is about production techniques and mind-numbing repetition in my opinion, and a lot of rock and alternative bands seem to pigeonhole themselves into tiny sub-genres and churn out the same kind of stuff over and over. The greatest artists like Bowie, Queen, Led Zeppelin, right up to Guns N' Roses and The Wildhearts had variety. If someone in the band wrote a great song, whatever the style, they would work with it and make it part of their sound. I’m 40, and I’m not expecting to achieve the level of fame and fortune they achieved back in the day, but I hope to bring that kind of feel back, where albums take you on a bit of a journey. There are a variety of great guest musicians on the album too. Dan Stevens from Inglorious, Ben Christo from Sisters of Mercy and one of my best friends, Tom Draper, who plays with Carcass (you should interview those guys, they somehow survived on a vegan diet in the late 80s!). So hopefully a broad spectrum of people will check it out. SBV: If you had to liken your forthcoming album to a vegan food item, what would it be and why? DW: Wow, that’s an interesting question! Maybe a Purezza ‘The One With All The Seasons’ pizza! It’s a twist on a classic theme, the four seasons pizza. A tomato base with vegan mozzarella, artichokes, Kalamata olives, wild mushrooms and smoked beetroot carpaccio. Lots of variety, rooted in a timeless Italian recipe - I have two Italians in the band. Sadly, neither of them are vegan, though. SBV: Besides the songs already mentioned, do you sing about any other important subject matter in any of the other songs on the album? DW: I would say 'Save Your Life’ is the darkest song of this collection for sure. But there are recurring themes of people’s repeated behavioural patterns and struggles to make sense of life, though perhaps it’s a little less heavy on the rest of the album. ‘Circles’ is about people who totally disappear from your life except for occasional cameos in dreams and memories, it’s loosely inspired by my first girlfriend, but also Justin Hawkins, who I’ve had a couple of unexpected reunions with under strange circumstances. 'Just Like In A Movie’ is really about people who throw their lives away waiting for a big moment that never comes, expecting their dreams to just happen to them instead of making things happen for themselves. It’s set to be the next single, and the video we have planned will be awesome! ‘Before The Song Is Over’ was written nearly twenty years ago for my old band Renegade Playboys. It was inspired by a poem called ‘Slow Dance’, which I received on a chain email, falsely claiming that it was written by a 12-year-old with cancer, you can actually still read about it on Google. Even though that turned out to be fiction, the story and the poem moved me to the extent that the song wrote itself in about 15 minutes, and it’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever done. Again, it’s about taking opportunities and enjoying the beauty of life before it’s too late. On the other hand, ‘Times Get Tough’ is either about playing a great show, getting laid or getting drunk. I’ll let you decide! Haha. SBV: Besides Star Circus, you also perform in a My Chemical Romance tribute band, toured with Ryan Hamilton & The Harlequin Ghosts and Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow. What have been your most magical musical memories? DW: Ah, so many good times to mention, really feeling it now it’s been a year since I played live. It was really great to get back into touring over the previous four years prior to the madness of 2020. My first serious band, Renegade Playboys, got to go on the road several times in the early 2000s, with bands ranging from Pretty Boy Floyd through to Dragonforce. Touring is magical both onstage and off. The shows start to kick into gear when you’re playing night after night and you can focus on actually having fun onstage rather than getting the songs right! And it’s great getting to visit places you may never otherwise have thought of and make new friends. We did some fantastic shows too, The Astoria with The Darkness and Electric Ballroom with Skid Row were highlights. There was a fantastic tour in 2005 with ourselves, New Generation Superstars and another band called Deadtime Stories where the three bands hired a luxury tour bus between us. The Playboys were all aged between about 20 and 24 and the other guys were a bit older, so much testosterone on one bus! There are some great stories I could tell, but probably shouldn’t or I’ll get in trouble! It was the Annabella thing that got me back out there; I hadn’t done a proper tour for more than a decade. She didn’t have a permanent guitar player in her LA-based band and I was friends with the promoter so he put me forward to learn 20 songs and do the shows. The drummer had been in W.A.S.P for a decade and the bassist had worked with people like Paul Gilbert so I was thinking ‘what the hell am I doing here?’! It was such a fun tour though, three metalheads playing post-punk and funk-pop stuff, by the end of the tour Annabella was requesting Motorhead in the van! All the shows I did in the States last year were awesome too, especially supporting Gilby Clarke at the Whisky A Go-Go on Sunset Strip with Trophies, but also the tour supporting Roger Clyne And The Peacemakers in May was great too; again, places like New Mexico and Arizona are so scenic and beautiful, but not typical places we would think to visit. Mountains for days! I would love to get back over there with Star Circus when this shit-storm is over. SBV: I see Annabella of Bow Wow Wow is also vegan. Did she inspire you in any way when you toured with her? DW: Yeah, she was somewhere transitioning between veggie and vegan back then. It was funny, the two guys in her band were not vegetarian and it wasn’t something I discussed with her on Skype. About two weeks before the tour, she came over to my place for an acoustic run-through of some of the songs and to generally get to know me. Being the mother hen she is, she brought two quiches, one vegetarian and one Quiche Lorraine and expected me to eat the meaty one. So we ended up sharing the veggie one and my lodger had the bacon one all to herself! It was great though, one of the promoters was vegetarian too so all the backstage food was hummus, falafel and stuff; we saved a fortune on eating out. Every experience has made me realise that being vegan on the road is nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be; even parts of Texas were OK, though in some small town fast food places it was just fries and onion rings for dinner. SBV: Are there any other vegan musicians or well-known people that you think are inspiring? DW: Phil Collen from Def Leppard is one of my heroes. His dedication to veganism and a healthy lifestyle in general is awesome. He looks amazing for his age and he’s a pretty decent guitar player too! Gotta love Brian May for making the decision at his age too, he’s probably my favourite guitarist of all time, so now I’ve got another reason to love him. Also, Bryan Adams made a point of speaking out about the correlations between the COVID-19 spread and animal cruelty in Chinese wet markets. Even though he apologised for some implications he made, this makes him a legend. People like Joaquin Phoenix, Woody Harrelson and Natalie Portman are great ambassadors for veganism in the Hollywood community too. It’s great to see it being embraced by the mainstream and not something just associated with hipsters. Even though I’m not so into their music, it’s really great to see people like will.i.am and Ariana Grande making it cool and speaking out. SBV: If you could inspire others yourself, how would you like to inspire them? DW: I believe moving and inspiring people is the highest form of pleasure you can achieve; I guess that’s kind of leaning towards Buddhism, though it’s a mindset that keeps me in check as an atheist. The few times people have genuinely connected with a song I’ve written or performed make everything worthwhile. I’ve yet to write a song with a strong vegan message though. Maybe that’s one for the next album! I hope that I already inspire people by sharing pictures of good vegan food for people to discover and try, and occasionally share vegan activism messages or memes if they’re witty or insightful. I don’t think you can make people care about things they genuinely don’t; people make their own choices. But you can stand for something you believe in and do your best to be engaging and informative. Hopefully people will turn to the lifestyle when they realise it can be healthy and delicious and, above all, ethically rewarding. SBV: Do you have any vegan-related dreams or ambitions? Is there anything you’d love to be involved with or do? DW: I think that if I was to make more of a name for myself as an artist, it would be great to be an ambassador for a vegan charity. It would be great to promote welfare and equality amongst all species and make a difference. Another idea Sophie and I have had over lockdown is to open some sort of alternative cultural hub. She already has a handmade vegan clothing brand and is an aspiring tattoo artist, I could help run a small live venue or recording studio, and, as mentioned above, we might add a small snack and smoothie bar. Anyway, I’ll let you know if that ever happens and you can finally try that amazing soup I made in my first week of veganism! Visit www.facebook.com/dwstarcircus for more info.
Photo By Sophie Aurélia Young
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