Get To Know: Stef Chura
Detroit-based musician Stef Chura stands out with her distinctive, quirky vocal style and personal lyrics. Chura released her debut album Messes on January 27th, and has spent her time since touring around the country, including a stop at SXSW. Before her one-off show at The Empty Bottle in Chicago on May 4th, Chura chatted candidly with me about life since the release of her first album. The singer exuded her eager and authentic energy as she talked about her influences, accidentally seeing her friends' bands at SXSW, podcasts, and cover songs. Get to know more about Stef Chura now!
Photo Credit: Zak Bratto
Her influences include Buffy Sainte Marie and Kristin Hersh
Talking about her influences specifically for Messes, Stef says, "I’d never made a record before, and it wasn’t very derivative for me. I hadn’t thought out song arrangements at all, and I didn’t say like 'I want it to sound like this, I want it to sound like that.'" She continues on to reveal she has mixed feelings about it and that she wants to be more precise with her references for the next album. Elaborating on her general influences, Chura says, "More vaguely, I’ve been really into Buffy Sainte Marie...I love PJ Harvey and Kristin Hersch. There’s a lot a stuff that I feel like melds together to sound like what the record sounds like."
As far as her favorite songs on the record, Chura says she really likes playing "Thin." She pauses for a second before excitedly recalling another favorite, saying "You know what? This is something we didn’t used to play, 'Human Being.' Cause it’s all feel, and we didn’t have a bass player, so it wasn’t working. Now we have a bass player, and that has become my favorite one to play again. I used to like playing that when I was playing solo."
She appreciates fan art
I asked Stef about some of her favorite fan reactions to her music since the release of Messes, and she recalled some amazing art that one of her fans sent her. "Someone sculpted a picture of my face and painted it pink. That probably tops all. Then they sent it to me. I was like I don’t know what I’m going to do with this, but it’s actually amazing. So that was a good one."
Although she loves the fan art, Stef is just appreciative for her enthusiastic listeners. Continuing, she says, "I don’t know how many people have really heard the album, but I’m really glad that it seems like the people I do get response from are like wow, I really love this album. Like you know, they’re pretty into it, which is a compliment to hear that they like the whole thing."
She supported her friends at SXSW
A common theme when recalling SXSW experiences with artists seems to be that any and all plans completely change and shift throughout the festival. Stef recalled a similar experience, saying, "Ok, I was on tour with Sad13, and I ended up seeing them again a few times on accident. I feel like I ended up seeing my friends' bands again over and over on accident." She also says she was originally bummed she thought she couldn't fit Girlpool into her schedule, but it ended up working out that she saw them three times. Continuing her story about impromptu SXSW shows, Stef says, "We ended up playing a couple shows with Downtown Boys, and I ended up seeing them four times at SXSW. And playing with them once. And Sneaks. We played a couple shows with them. We saw them at South By. I really wanted to see Weaves, and they were amazing. I was really really into their set." Stef also mentioned Jay Som, Allison Crutchfield, and PWR BTTM as SXSW highlights.
True crime podcasts keep her entertained on the road
Throughout the entire interview, Stef's tone remained very friendly and laid back, especially when we chatted about how she spends her downtime on tour. "I’m very into like, murder podcasts," Stef revealed about how she entertains herself on tour. "Actually I’ve gotten into this real nasty one, called 'Serial Killers'. Have you listened to that? It’s really gross," She continued. Elaborating more on 'Serial Killers,' Stef said, "It’s definitely NC-17 at times. Wait, is that the porn rating? It’s not pornographic. I would definitely recommend it. It’s just really gruesome. I have this issue where if I turn on a podcast, I have to hear the end of it, even if they’re talking about something super messed up, like rape. They talk about some kind of insane murders that went down that I didn’t know anything about. That’s the one I’ve been the most loyal to going on. I got really into 'Serial', that first story on 'Serial.'"
Next up on the podcast agenda for Stef? She says she's started 'S-Town,' but still needs to fully commit to it.
Her biggest lesson learned is...
Stef started out learning firsthand about playing music by setting up a lot of her own DIY shows. As far as trade secrets for the Detroit DIY scene, she says, "Detroit is totally a dive bar scene as far as DIY stuff goes. In Chicago there is a huge house show scene that is always sustained. Michigan has a hard time. Cool dive bars to see shows at would be like Donovan’s. UFO Factory is a really... it’s a venue, but it’s great to see shows. They have a karaoke night on Sundays. It’s bigger, but El Club, I think they’re bringing a lot of really good stuff in now. I think if you’re in Detroit, you probably know about El Club."
After talking about learning the ins and outs of the Detroit music scene, I asked Stef about other life lessons she's learned from mistakes or from trial and error by doing something the wrong way at first. "Maybe there’s something about that just like...realizes your selfishness in a certain way. It’s kind of like not being able to help yourself when you have a really bad idea. I worked at a strip club, and I was like 'don’t do that'... then I was like I’m kind of curious about that, I’m gonna do it. Or my boyfriend’s roommate was into me and I was like, I probably shouldn’t sleep with him, and I did anyway. That was a long time ago, don’t judge me...Little things like that. Like maybe you wouldn’t even tell someone you did that, but you were kind of learning that maybe you should trust your intuition."
She used to be in a Liz Phair cover band
A little known fact about Stef is that she used to be in a Liz Phair cover band. While we know the Stef can play covers herself, I asked about some of her favorite covers by other artists.
Stef is stumped by the the on-the-spot question, saying "That’s a hard one! I feel like there are some covers I really like. There is something that I prefer. What is it? I like deep cuts...Oh! This is really corny. The White Stripes do a cover of “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” that I actually do prefer. That’s a good one!"