TheStart help jump start new wave revival

Seeing her thrash and wail onstage, you'd never guess she has the inner serenity of someone who does rigorous Ashtanga yoga two hours daily and teaches a class twice a week.

"I found that one balances the other quite well in both ways," Echo said in a phone interview from her California home. "I don't know if I could do one without the other."

The music keeps her grounded and the yoga helps her manage her stage fright — something else you'd never guess if you saw her front the retro new wave band. Echo's distinctive voice mixes the polished pop of Gwen Stefani and the dark-edged punk of Siouxsie Sioux.

Echo formed TheStart seven years ago, but her music career didn't start there. She was the screamer behind the alterna-metal band Human Waste Project, which released an album in 1997 and had some high-profile gigs opening for Sublime, the Deftones and Korn.

"We made a record and toured around the world and stuff like that and it was really good," Echo said. "We sort of had different musical opinions as we were heading toward our second record, so half of us left and started this band. If Human Waste Project was my rock 'n' roll high school, this is my rock 'n' roll university."

Echo formed Hero in 1998, but due to legal and contract conflicts, the band ended up with the one-word name TheStart. Despite the difficulties, the band's keyboards and bouncy synth pop grooves helped usher in the recent new wave revival.

"Los Angeles' TheStart combine eclectic new wave ambience over catchy hard rock hooks to be one of modern rock's trendsetters of the new millennium," said the All Music Guide.

Echo is more modest about the role her band played.

"Although our name is TheStart, we weren't the only ones who started the love affair again with new wave," she said. "When we started this, people were really not that quick to come around to us. It is easier. We're gaining fans faster now than ever, and it's because the music we make is more popular these days."

Taking cues from music by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Jane's Addiction, the Cure, Depeche Mode, the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, PJ Harvey and Patti Smith, TheStart makes a brand of new wave that is darker and rawer than much of the current polished new wave on the radio.

Echo isn't bitter that there are newer bands out there cashing in on the revival she helped start.

"In a way it's cool for me because it's more fun to listen to the radio because there's stuff I like on the radio," she said.

TheStart have opened for bands such as the Offspring, Incubus and Weezer in the past, but due to the renewed interest in new wave, the band has found more appropriate tourmates. TheStart recently toured with the electronic dance pop band Head Automatica and are fresh off a tour with Garbage.

"Those two tours have been the first tours that have been appropriative for us as far as style," Echo said. "We've gone on some amazing tours, don't get me wrong, but it was always a real stretch for us to win a crowd over."

Despite the fact that the public is coming around again to new wave, there are drawbacks to being an underappreciated innovator. TheStart plan to start recording their third album in January or February, and they're having trouble feeling trendy.

"It's really self-defeating and it's not in any way trying to be elitist and cool, it's just that — even when it's your own sound — it's difficult when something is popular to continue," Echo said. "Certain people, once a sound gets popular, they'll jump on a bandwagon —and we've always been the people who jump off. We're making a record right now and it's taking a lot of guts to not jump off the bandwagon and commit career suicide.

"We're finding ways to sound different and unique and still keep our integrity and still be TheStart," she added. "We're not running this time."

Quick take

TheStart in concert

with Bark Bark Bark and the Slow Signal Fade

When: 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17

Where: Plush, 340 E. Sixth St.

Tickets: $6 online at www.virtuous.com or at the door, 798-1298