Editor Note: In mid-June, Milwaukee, Wisconsin-formed alternative rock band Fever Marlene – the duo of singer-guitarist Scott Starr and drummer Kevin Dunphy – will make its long-awaited return with new album Still In My Blood, its first since 2013’s Medicated Friends and fourth overall studio album. The album, released via their own label Khemitones Records, also follows studio albums Civil War (2007) and White China (2008) as well as live albums Live In New York City (2007) and Febrile State (2009).
After Dunphy moved to Minneapolis almost a decade ago, the duo was limited to file sharing the occasional song idea. However, the duo reunited recently after Starr began sharing some of his most personal lyrics to date. In July, his mother died after an arduous battle with stomach cancer, leading him to writing ideas in a journal. Instead of a traditional method of a direct form of journaling his wide range of emotions, he used metaphors to describe and compare what he was feeling.
Sonically, the band’s approach is much more refined compared to past releases. Starr (who also played piano, bass synths, cello) recorded, mixed and mastered the album, utilizing skills he had gained in the group’s hiatus. Close friend Shauncey Ali provided additional string arrangements via violins and violas.
All in all, it led to a much more refined and mature sounding Fever Marlene album.
Below, SWT is thrilled to premiere the album’s title track ahead of its May 19th release (pre-release save on Spotify) and share an exclusive essay from Starr about his emotional journey leading to the album’s creation. (Make sure to check out the June issue of the Shepherd Express to check out Josh’s interview with Starr and Dunphy)
There are two things that come back to me, over and over. Dying. And the past.
Not always in big ways. Sometimes it’s just a color. A smell. The texture of a room.
For a second, I’m somewhere else. In the basement rec room, carpet rough against my hands, or riding my bike down a cracked sidewalk that felt endless at the time.
It moves through me like a current. Quick. Uninvited. Gone before I can hold it.
And I catch myself trying to mark the moment in my now, knowing it will disappear the same way. Violent and quick.
One day this – the moment I am in right now – will be something I ache for.
For a long time, I stopped writing. The guitar sat in the corner of the living room. The piano became furniture. Something to look at, not something to touch.
I told myself I was happy. There was no reason to write. Writing a full song started to feel alien. I had forgotten how to begin.
In my twenties, it was easier. I wrote about politics, inequity, debauchery. Things I thought I understood. Or maybe I didn’t understand them at all, and writing was just a way of getting closer.
It took me years to realize that what I was really doing was letting my subconscious speak for me.
In March of 2025, I flew my mother home from her annual vacation to Florida with my dad.
She couldn’t make the drive. The pain she was experiencing at the time had gotten too bad.
A month later, after fighting our way through a system that never seems built for moments like that, we learned that she had stomach cancer.
Everything moved quickly after that. By early summer, she was home in hospice. My dad and my two oldest sisters took care of her around the clock.
In July, we lost her.
The last few days, we stayed in an RV in the driveway. The house filled up – family, friends, people coming and going.
None of it felt real. Or fair.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew the day would come. I just thought it would look different. Later. That I’d be more ready. I don’t know what that means now.
You can’t be ready.
Aside from love, the emotions surrounding death feel like something we all pass through the same way. The details change. But internally it’s identical. And there are no words that help you through it. Just time. Even then, it doesn’t really leave.
After she was gone, I started writing again. Not intentionally. It just started happening.
I began ketamine therapy. Mostly to calm myself down, to sleep, to talk, to get out of my own head. What came out of it were pages of words.
Not journals. I’ve never been able to write like that.
They came out as fragments. Metaphors, statements, half-definitions, phrases that felt like they were solving something in as few words as possible.
Usually, I would write music first. Melody, tone, a feeling. The words would follow.
This time it was the opposite. The words were already there. I just needed something to hold them.
I built a space for myself. Part of it was necessity. Part of it was instinct.
There was a small setup in the back room of my design studio in Milwaukee. An old bowling alley from the late 1800s, a stage sitting in front of what used to be three lanes.
There was another in the basement at home. That came with its limits. I tend to burn the midnight oil and it doesn’t bode well with small children sleeping upstairs.
So I built a shed in the woods. Soundproof. Acoustically treated. Just far enough from the hous
e to feel like I was somewhere else.
I’ve always been drawn to analog. Tubes, circuits, the noise, the unpredictability of it all.
I had a tape machine already, but I knew this record needed to live on 2-inch. So I found one in Colorado. A 24 track Otari from the early 90’s. Brought it home. Built everything around it. A Neve console at the center.
It didn’t need to be perfect. It just needed to feel right.
That’s always been the point.
Not perfection. Arriving at something that feels honest enough to leave it alone.
Fever Marlene was never really about being a rock band. At least not for me. We toured. Slept in parking lots. Recorded in hotel rooms. Loaded gear in and out of places that didn’t care if we were there or not. It got old quickly.
I never loved performing. The anxiety I experience from performing on stage had it’s consequences. Most nights, I’d lean on gin and tonics. Hoping it would quiet things down.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
What I cared about was the process. Writing, recording, mixing. As an artist and a designer, I have an immediate need for control from beginning to end. There’s a real sense of satisfaction that comes along with having an idea and seeing it through every step of the way.
Finishing something. Not perfectly – but in a way that feels complete enough for that moment.
We never officially ended the band. There was no last show, no statement. Life just moved.
Kevin and I stayed in touch. I’d send him songs every once in a while.
Nothing ever felt like a reason to come back.
Until now.
Since last July, I’ve worked through around thirty songs. Twelve of them stayed.
“Still In My Blood” became the center of it. Not because it was the best one. But because it said the thing I couldn’t quite say anywhere else.
I’m still hers.
I’m still here.
I’m still doing this.
For a long time, I didn’t know if I had an identity inside of music anymore.
Now I think maybe it’s always been this – a collection of moments, people, losses, and sounds that shape themselves into something over time.
Something you don’t fully understand until you’re already inside of it.
I can’t really explain it.
But for the first time in a long time, it feels like enough.
You can connect with and listen to Scott Starr and Fever Marlene in the author box links below
Scott Starr
Contributor
Scott Starr is a singer, songwriter and musician based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and one-half of Fever Marlene. He also runs graphics company Rev Pop.
