Spend Another Day: Finding the Heart of the Song

Some bands are built around a sound. Stella Drive is built around a shared language. Formed by siblings Demi Kotsogiannis and Douglas Caraballo, the band creates music that feels deeply instinctive, shaped by long conversations about life, literature, film, and the quiet emotional weight of everyday existence.

We The Cool: For someone discovering Stella Drive for the first time, how would you describe the band in your own words?
Stella Drive: Driving up the westside highway, with your entire bloodline sitting in the backseat. 

WTC: Who is behind Stella Drive? 
SD: Stella Drive was started by brother and sister Demi Kotsogiannis and Douglas Caraballo and Anastasios Kotsogiannis. 

WTC: You're a family-led project. How does that dynamic shape the way you create together?
SD: Sometimes we create songs separately that have the same feeling. We’ll show each other what we’ve been working on, and they will weirdly align emotionally and musically. 

WTC: Why did you decide to call the band Stella Drive? Is there a story or meaning behind the name?
SD: Yes but we will never reveal! 

WTC: How do your personalities complement each other, both creatively and personally?
SD: We have similar influences because we grew up together. When we create we are trying to feel the track as opposed to over intellectualizing it or adding a sound for the sake of sound. We dig through our influences to pull what supports the emotional weight of the song we are working on. 

WTC: How do you divide roles?
SD: Is it something you've consciously established, or has it naturally evolved over time? I don’t think we divide rolls necessarily. Our process is more exploration of an idea or song one of us is working on. Sometimes one of us will make a beat or musical idea and the other will write to it, and vice versa. We come with a lot of ideas, and Daniel helps us hone and prune them. 

WTC: Your debut single is called Spend Another Day. Can you tell us the story behind this song?
SD: What inspired it, and why did it feel like the right introduction to Stella Drive? We had that melody for a really long time but could never write to it. It was the last song we recorded because we had a breakthrough lyrically with it, and it felt right for it to be the first single.  The song is a push and pull between certainty and uncertainty. Things are said with clarity and then questioned.

WTC: Can you walk us through your songwriting process? Where does a Stella Drive song usually begin?
SD: We talk for hours about life, and then these songs sort of manifest themselves from what we’ve been talking about. It could be a book, or movie, or just the weight of being.

WTC: What does a typical writing or rehearsal session look like for Stella Drive?
SD: FaceTime. FaceTime. FaceTime. Silence. Complete demo. No idea why it works like that. 

WTC: Have you collaborated with other musicians, either in your live performances or during the songwriting process?
SD: We had the opportunity to rent Daniel Blondes studio from October to January, and met a bunch of incredible musicians. The Piano on spend another day was written by Zain Lokhandwalla who happened to play almost exactly what our mother used to play after church by herself in a corner. Life works in weird ways. 

WTC: Your music feels both intimate and cinematic. Where do you usually find inspiration outside of music?
SD: Literature, art, film and reflections on society. Life is cinematic even at its most dull. 

WTC: This issue is about going back to basics.  What does that phrase mean to you as musicians?
SD: Music and other arts are suffering from a lack of cultural center. Creators should go back to the emotional core of humanity, rather than this or that ideology of the times. Art can be a pathway through turbulent times , but a lot of artists are in danger of becoming mouthpieces for people seeking status and social power, rather than resonating with the human spirit. I would also urge musicians to stop calling their albums or paintings or books “projects”. You are expressing a deep part of your soul, not presenting a paper machet to your kindergarten class. 

WTC: Looking ahead, what kind of sound, or maybe even emotion, are you most excited to explore next? 
SD: This album has a melancholy sound over addictive rhythms. Sad happy so to speak. This is our first album , and there are some core sounds we discovered that will remain a part of our future art. I would say the songs we are working on now have more life in them - we trying to say things simply that hit you deep. 

WTC: Where can people see you live? Are there any upcoming shows you are hosting or playing at?
SD: We’re working on booking shows in NYC ! We should have a show end of October lined up at Pianos!