Actor and musician Jackson Rathbone has launched STARMOTHER, a new Austin-based disco punk band formed with his wife, Sheila Rathbone, marking his first musical project in six years. Unlike his previous work fronting bands himself, Rathbone plays guitar and provides backing vocals while Sheila takes the lead vocal role for the first time, something he says he had wanted to happen for around 15 years. The band's debut single and accompanying music video, tied to their album Disco Punk is Dead, sees Rathbone taking on a sinister, serial-killer-style persona on screen.

The album, written over roughly five years, draws directly on Rathbone's sobriety journey, with songs exploring addiction, temptation, self-destruction, love and survival. The couple met years earlier through music while Rathbone was touring with his former band 100 Monkeys, and although he originally envisioned a rockabilly sound inspired by Wanda Jackson for Sheila, it wasn't a style that appealed to her. It was only as he kept writing the new material that Rathbone realised the songs were suited to her voice, prompting him to shape STARMOTHER's sound around what would finally persuade her to become a lead singer.