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If you could combine deep, almost haunting vocals, intense lyrics, raw and aggressive guitar work, soft melodies, tight drum tracks, and a wall of sound that encompasses brilliant digital and analog effects and somehow bring them all together to round out a concept album, chances are you're going to make an impressive musical statement. If you're able to do this in your full-length debut, it makes it even more inspiring. Pulling all this off with only three guys, well, that might just be showing off. But that's exactly what Portland-based trio Stars of Track and Field have gone and accomplished on their debut release, Centuries Before Love and War.

A band that defies standard classification, you can hear influences and elements that criss-cross the pop, rock, alternative, and digital genres. There are musical progressions that bring Radiohead to mind, and raw guitar tracks that hearken back to the early days of Pink Floyd. Says guitarist Jason Bell, "People seem to take great pains not to offend us or lump us into a category... Digi-Pop is the [genre] that we get the most in the Northwest, because I think there's a string of bands here that incorporate a lot of digital elements into their music. So it may be a sub, sub genre, but it seems like that's the one that sticks."

With a deceptively huge, full range of sound, Centuries Before Love and War brings you along for the ride, using lyrical depth as the common thread that weaves together the tapestry of digital and analog sound. It comes off as more than a concept album, but a continually developing narrative from track to track. Take this album out for its first spin and listen to it in solitude. Open your mind, and let the sound do the rest. With Centuries Before Love and War making its way to the public ear, Stars of Track and Field are now heading out on the road to tour in support of the record. As for the live show, the band states that their live performances add a depth of raw emotion and musical aggression that is difficult to capture in the track transitions of a studio album, so keep an eye out when they roll through your town.

Soft vocals with hard impact, memorable riffs, and ingenious digital effects: Portland knows Stars of Track and Field well. Soon, the rest of us will, too.

Virgin Mobile caught up with Stars of Track and Field guitarist/vocalist Jason Bell:

VM:   So how did you guys come up with the name Stars of Track and Field for the band name?

STF:   The band name was derived from Dan our drummer. Dan is Scandinavian, and he had a lot of relatives that were on a Scandinavian-I can't remember which-Olympic team. One of them was a high jumper and so we were joking on about it one day and I said "We should name the band Stars of Track and Field... ha ha ha" and everyone went "That's fresh!" And so we decided to go with it. And then of course about a day and a half later I was in my car and heard the Belle & Sebastian song "The Stars of Track and Field" and it sort of was an interesting little deal that we're Belle & Sebastian fans but we didn't put two and two together till after. It's cool since I'm glad we like the band. If we didn't like the band then that would be a train wreck.

VM:   So can you tell me a little bit about the new album, Centuries Before Love and War?

STF:   Sure, The album is, in its entirety sort of a loose-fitting concept record. As the title says, it deals with three concepts, Love, War and Time. Most of the album is concerned with not necessarily a soapbox sort of protest record by any stretch, but just dealing with the psychological aspects of society at large when there's conflict at hand, and the multiplicity that happens when you start to look at wars and the battles that we fought in the past up until today. Some of the music is written from a soldier's point of view-or what we would imagine a soldier's point of view could be. None of us are soldiers or claim to be that tough, but basically what we're dealing with here is just the maligned memory that occurs when you have someone that you care deeply about and you've lost them to a conflict. In this case, that sort of beauty that lays in human sorrow I guess would be one way of putting it. Of course it's diagramed in this case between love, war and time.

VM:   There is no bass player officially on board. Was that kind of the plan from the inception or was that something that just kind of evolved?

STF:   What happened was that we had a bass player and he ended up, due to some life situations, having to quit the group. This was right at the very beginning of the band, and so instead of rehearsing bass players and finding someone new we just felt like we were tired of doing that in the past with other projects and didn't want to deal with all the bullsh*t that's associated with want ads and meeting new people and so I just thought, well why don't we just grab a robot and see if we can sequence the bass lines ourselves. There has been a movement in the Northwest in the past of smaller combo rock bands using sequence for music software programs to create sort of wall of sound music like The Helio Sequence or some other bands in Portland that do that kind of thing. So we thought that's a pretty cool thing to do and we just rolled with it and now we've just grown accustomed to it and forgotten that it's sort of an oddity. But when we play live it's the same, it's just the three of us. The music is full-on, huge sounding, and there's no drop off at all.

VM:   The band has been enjoying all kinds of accolades and has been listed in numerous publications. You're on the short list of buzz bands to watch, and you guys are included in everything from editorial pick lists from the smallest websites, through iTunes. How does the industry's attention on the band map to the expectations you had as you were wrapping up your first album.

STF:   You know, that's a great question. One half of me wants to say "Well, damn right!" and the other half of me says it's wholly crazy and absurd that we would be getting all this attention. When we made the record we were on much a smaller label, and then the record and our contract was purchased by Wind-up, but at the time I guess our expectations were a little smaller just due to the amount of accessibility you have to a band on an indie label. It's much more difficult to get the music out when you're on a smaller label. But we knew that the record itself was really great and we all were all very proud of it, and kind of had this feeling the whole time we were making the record; this gnawing nervousness like "Is this a total piece of crap, just absolute sh*t?" And then you feel like you could swing either way, "Are we on a plateau, or are we in a crater?" It's hard to see the trees from the forest. Once we completed the record and had a little bit of time away from it, I think that unanimously we were pretty happy with how it came out. And so judging by the musical application we felt like this record should turn some people on to us. If I heard it I would be stoked on it. And then of course we started getting some better shows and it started happening for us. Then as it picked up and the expectations had grown and the album leaked in several different places early-It got out everywhere, which is great... it definitely boosted it. I guess it's just as you said, it mapped the expectations. It's basically opened up a much bigger map for us in terms of what our possibilities are. Hopefully at the end of the day people just like the record and continue to say it's a cool record and we keep playing shows. Hopefully we can play in front of more and more people and get opinions on what they think of our art.

VM:   So, one thing that was interesting to me was reading that your musical influences are as wide and varied as they are. You know, The Beatles to Pink Floyd, and just everything beyond that. Are there specific bands or artists that were the heaviest influences for you, or was it more an interest in the sound and the pulse of particular genres?

STF:   You know, that's a good question. For me, I think my influences lie mainly in British rock and roll, just in more of the pulse of everything. The Beatles obviously-I mean saying that you're influenced by The Beatles at this point (sigh) is one of the dumbest things you can do, although we are doing it now (laughs), in our bio. You know, it's like "Really? The Beatles? You're influenced by The Beatles, huh? That's, just wow... congratulations." (laughs) Tchaikovsky would have been influenced by The Beatles if he were alive in 2006. So yeah, The Beatles, certainly. For three or four years I went through a creative time where I was pretty engrossed in the books, the videos, the albums, and anything I could get my hands on. And then in modern day I would definitely go with Radiohead-those guys are just champions. They're just so amazing with all the sh*t that they can do. I love how the band has re-shaped itself so often. To make an album like The Bends and OK Computer and then come out and sort of redefine yourself at the expense of maybe a third of your fan base or whatever, but just saying this is what we're doing as an artist, and that's how we're going to be. If you like it, great; and if you don't, well, you can f*ck off. I love that sort of unnerving attitude towards art. I think that once you stop having that attitude-although it sounds crass-then unfortunately there are a lot of people that can seep into the process of making your music, and it can eventually bias you towards one thing or another that may not be the best thing for the actual music itself, and that's really unfortunate. I've always thought maybe that's why they take such a hardcore stance, just because of the absolute fear of the slippery slope. Letting one thing change your process and then compromising what you do. So those bands in particular are amazing, and of course I live in the Northwest, so, I cut my teeth on Death Cab for Cutie records, Modest Mouse records, and every Northwest indie elite band you can think of.

VM:   Speaking of genres, this is a question I had for you guys specifically-what genre do you guys consider yourselves? I've seen the band slotted differently in so many reviews. Sometimes you're listed as indie, other times as rock or alternative, and other times Pop; I even saw one that listed you as "other."

STF:   Haha, the "other" category (laughs). Yeah, I don't know, that's a tough one because every band wants to say that they don't fit... that they're indefinable. Every band says "I don't understand why we're in the alternative category, or why we're in the pop category, because we've got all these other elements." But yet at some time you have to bend and just accept the fact that they have to organize music and bands into headings and sub-headings, and so you have to fit into something for everyone to organize you. But for us I would say... I don't know, I mean, it's a tough question. I guess I would just say... you know... I don't really give a sh*t, to be honest. You want my honest answer, I don't! Pop, Alternative, whatever. You know, we've been called way crazy sh*t like Post Apocalyptic Digi-Pop, you know what I mean? The amount of effort that people have taken on our behalf to come up with a cool way of describing our music has been excellent (laughs). Those are actually more entertaining than some of the reviews, just because people seem to take great pains not to offend us or lump us into a category that doesn't deserve us or something. Digi-Pop is the one that we get the most in the Northwest, because I think there's a string of bands that incorporate a lot of digital elements into their music. So it may be like a sub, sub genre around here, but it seems like that's the one that sticks. Digi-Pop, man!!!

VM:   So, I want you to talk a little bit about this grassroots-level support that you guys seem to have all over. I'm noticing in the online indie community, just blogs upon blogs-people are getting really into you guys, taking the cause up, and can't say enough good things. I wanted to talk a little bit about that kind of grassroots-level support, and how it's enhanced band visibility.

STF:   Well, it's been very recent. I don't really pay attention too much to that stuff. I'm always too afraid to read what people are saying, so to any of those people who are saying these nice things about us, thank you! I think that our music has an appeal towards a sophisticated sort of music fan that has a little bit of education in terms of influences, and it seems like those types of fans typically gravitate towards us. A lot of the indie bloggers, from what I've read, seem to be some of the most educated music people on earth, so it doesn't necessarily surprise me-and I'm really glad. It's obviously helped us quite a bit in terms of rallying the support. But grassroots, that's how we started, that's how we've grown. You know you always hear that cliché, one fan at a time... that's literally been us. I mean, it's growing, maybe its two fans at a time right now or something-maybe we're that level, but it's certainly been a pile of work. We work super, super, super hard at it and we've made a name for ourselves in the Northwest by going one fan at a time and being uncompromising in the music. I think that a lot of people get off on that and respect it and say "that's cool, this is what they do, and they're not going to back off on it. Whatever happens, happens." When you play live, I think that the live set is really communicative of emotion, and we definitely try to leave every last bit of energy on the stage when we're done. We feel if people are going to pay money to see us play and hear us perform these songs that they've bought, then we have every responsibility to put forth as much energy and effort as possible so the people can feel like they got some good art and they also were entertained by people that don't screw around.

VM:   Awesome. Well, I really appreciate the time you spent chatting with us today. One last question and I'll let you get going. Is there anything else that you'd like to say either to the Virgin Mobile fans out there that are getting out there to try to experience some new music, or anything else we should know about the band?

STF:   I'd say I would make it less about the band, and more about art and just say go see great bands play at this point in time. There are great bands, and with the music industry and the way that it is, live music is where it's at, so go check out your favorite local bands, and support your local communities for sure.