MSM: Would you start by introducing yourselves, and briefly explaining your music to potential new fans?
SATELLITE CITI: We’re an LA based rock band with our front-woman Anna Gevorkian on both vocals/drums and Shaunt Sulahian on guitars. We’re joined by our anonymous Spacewalkers on stage on guitars, bass and key for our live shows.
MSM: Tell me about your journey with creating music. How did you get started, and was it something you always knew you wanted to do?
Anna: I started playing drums when I was 12 after trying to learn piano and guitar and then realizing I couldn’t solo instantaneously. I just wanted to play an instrument that I could immediately start soloing on. My sister played guitar at the time and suggested I play drums so we could jam. I think I was about a week into playing drums when I wrote my first drum solo and that’s when I knew it would stick. I started songwriting and singing a few years later. And after meeting Shaunt I really started taking music seriously and realized we could pursue it as a career.
Shaunt: I started doodling on my dads Les Paul when I was 12 trying to play System of a Down songs. I figured out the first few chords of “Chop Suey” and my heart started beating all fast and I got super excited. Ever since then I was pretty much infatuated with playing guitar and trying to write my own riffs. I’d probably play guitar 4-6 hours a day religiously and wanted nothing else but to write/record/perform music.
MSM: Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and how have they helped to shape your sound?
Anna: I grew up listening to a bunch of different genres of music but lyrics were always the thing that I really focused on. Definitely listened to a lot of The Beatles growing up, Elliott Smith, Alanis Morrisette, My Chem, to name a few. I would just buy albums and open the lyric books and memorize every line. I think it really influenced me to put lyrics and songwriting first before anything else.
Shaunt: I have a pretty wide range of musical influences. Definitely started with nu metal early on and memorized the discographies/riffs from SOAD/Linkin Park. As I discovered sub-genres of Rock/Metal I started getting into anything from Muse, to Killswitch Engage. Coming from a metal background, I think guitar riffs are still pretty important when crafting a well-written rock song, so listening to a ton of metal definitely solidified that in my writing process.
MSM: How do you approach the songwriting process, and where do you draw inspiration?
Shaunt: It definitely varies from song to song. Oftentimes, I’ll show Anna a riff and some chorus ideas, and she’ll write the most beautiful vocal melodies on top of it and I’ll get super stoked and wanna finish the song then and there. Other times, she might bring a vocal idea and I might write guitars over it, which is sort of what happened with “Anxious Hearts” if I remember correctly.
Anna: Yeah musically it happens in different ways but we’ve definitely had songs that started with a vocal melody/lyric in the shower or in the car. Driving in LA traffic gives you a lot of time to think and come up with songs. Sometimes the lyrics come out of thin air. I don't even know what they mean until I really dive deeper but usually it’s a way of expressing the emotions that I’m feeling at that moment in time.
MSM: When fans recommend Satellite Citi to others, what song would be the best introduction to your music?
Shaunt: I think our debut album “Fear Tactics” is a good place to start. I think it showcases a bit of our personality and has a little bit of something for everyone who digs rock.
Anna: Our new single “Anxious Hearts” is definitely one of my favorites right now and I also think “Reaper” is a really fun one off our record “Fear Tactics”.
MSM: How do you stay creatively inspired and motivated as a band?
Shaunt: We’ve been doing a ton of reading and creative writing and I think, especially as of late, it’s been trickling down into our song-writing as well.
Anna: Unfortunately, life has been throwing us some curveballs lately, and I feel like songwriting has always been a form of therapy for us, so it’s definitely unavoidable to create during tough times even if things aren’t going great.
MSM: If you could collaborate with any artist in the world, who would it Be?
Shaunt: I think working with Vessel from Sleep Token or Courtney from Spiritbox would be pretty insane. Their vocal range is just ridiculous and their songwriting just feels like something special. Definitely two of our favorite artists currently and we can’t stop listening to them.
Anna: There are so many artists I would love to work with. I agree with Shaunt and love those two. I think currently I would also say Oli Sykes from Bring Me the Horizon because I love how much they experiment with their tracks and I would love to add those elements to one of our songs in the future.
MSM: What are your goals for your music career, and where do you see yourself in the next few years?
Shaunt: Our current goal is to get as many ears as possible on our latest single “Anxious Hearts.” Hoping we can sustain music as a career in the next few years.
Anna: I would love to be sharing the stage with our favorite bands in the next few years, playing festivals and having a big enough platform to share our music with people across the world.
MSM: What’s your motto or some good advice that you live by?
Shaunt: Bruce Lee’s “Be Like Water” quote is probably my favorite. Also having independent thought is super important :)
Anna: I don’t know if this is my motto but the first thing that just came to my mind was “Just Do It”. So many things in life will prevent you or distract you from reaching your full potential but if you keep going I really believe you will see results, in any aspect of life.
MSM: Lastly, is there anything else you’d like to share with your fans?
SATELLITE CITI: Hoping everyone enjoys our new single “Anxious Hearts”. We wrote it as a way to purge our feelings of anxiety through music and we hope that people who hear it will feel a sense of relief and also know that they’re not alone. Humans were meant to feel a wide range of emotions and overcome them. We are resilient and life is a journey. More new music coming in October!
