Interview Ridin' Dirty: Fever Marlene's Scott Starr opens a new store in Bay View

Scott Starr is probably best known as the 28-year-old frontman of Milwaukee band Fever Marlene, but lately he’s been making a name for himself off-stage as well. After dropping out of UW-Madison’s psychology program—he realized “being a psychiatrist wasn’t going to be just like Robin Williams’ character in Good Will Hunting”—Starr created his own design firm and record label, Rev Pop Inc., in 2006. Now, after spending the past couple of years building a resume of local and international clients, Starr has opened Dirty Earth (2534 S. Kinnickinnic Ave., 414-431-7534), a retail outlet specializing in one-of-a-kind screen-printed T-shirts and concert posters. Before Fever Marlene plays The Onion’s 5 LBs Of Christmas party Saturday at BBC, Starr spoke to The A.V. Club about Dirty Earth, the current status of Fever Marlene, and why EPs are the new LP.

The A.V. Club: How did the idea of Dirty Earth come about?

SS: Rev Pop needed an office. I figured instead of making it this corporate hole in the wall, I’d open it up and be a little more social with the stuff we create by inviting people in to see it. It’s more like a design firm that has a store.

AVC: What is your vision for Dirty Earth?

SS: I want to keep it that gem on the other side of town, where if you know about it, cool. It’s not thrifty, but it’s got that that thrift mentality, with new clothes, limited stuff, and we don’t have piles of T-shirt designs that you’re going to have to worry about seeing somebody else with the same shirt. Everything is manually printed by us, designed in shop.

AVC: Have any bands approached you about screen-printing artwork for their concert posters?

SS: That's the next step. I guess the first thing we are going to do is posters for the Pabst. We're going to get a website together with just our examples of our concert posters. After that, once we have a good portfolio of show posters, what we are going to do is open it to local artists, theaters, bars and restaurants, and basically say for around $100 we will design and print like 20 posters for you. Then you can sell those 20 posters or do whatever you want with them. I guess the deal would be that we would do it for $100 and then we could sell it in the store or online and try to make our money back. So keeping it cheap for the community, yet giving us an opportunity to make some revenue. It just makes the community look better to have cool posters at Cactus Club and Mad Planet.  

AVC: Rev Pop is also releasing records by artists other than Fever Marlene, right?

SS: We are working with a guy, Kyle Feerick. He’s a local artist, sounds like Elliott Smith, just a kick-ass voice. He’s got his own thing going; he’s got his own records. What we want to do is bring him in and do a three-song EP, Rev Pop style, where Kevin and I will do what our perception of his music is. We’ll sell these EPs in the store and online and create somewhat of a community-based record company. Not for profit, just kind of another way to spread the music.

AVC: What about your band? Is Fever Marlene working on anything?

SS: We’re recording. We’re about half way through a volume of EPs. We’re going to do a digital release and then we will do records, LPs. The CD thing for us is kind of—not dead, but I’m more interested in selling vinyl at a show. We sell more records through iTunes than we do hard copies.

AVC: So you find that an EP is a more effective way to release music, versus spending the time that goes into a full-length album?

SS: I don’t want to say albums are dead, but I think we’ve kind of veered into a singles world, and people have lost patience waiting for the album. I would rather release five songs every two months and keep it alive. We might do something like, “This month it’s acoustic. Our inspiration for this album was Gram Parsons. We’re going banjos and accordions. In January we’re going a little more Postal Service.” We have the ability to do it. We’re not paying for a studio. We’re not paying for time. We know how to do it, so why not? I have a letter on my refrigerator from Clive Davis, saying that “Happy meeting you guys, your album is not what is sellable in today’s market." I came to the realization that, do I really want to do this? Do I really want to put my stuff in somebody else’s hands? Do I want to go on tour for two years? I would rather do what I’m doing right now.