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= Izzy Starr = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Isabelle Jayne Aster (born June 16, 1963), known professionally as Izzy Starr, is an English guitarist, bassist and songwriter. She came to prominence in the late 1970s as a member of Free Agent. She later played with the Cherry Bombz and as a solo artist.

Early life and career
Starr was born Isabelle Jayne Aster in Westcoates, Leicester, England, the second child of Marianne Aster (née James, 1939–2015), a nurse who was of French and Norwegian descent, and Demitrios Aster (1934–2002), a financial executive that was an immigrant from Pyrgos, Greece. Starr has an older brother, Jonathan (b. 1960) and a younger sister Angelina (b. 1966). She received her first guitar as a present when she was six years old, a hand-me-down Les Paul from her cousin, Michael. When Starr was thirteen, she moved to New York City to stay with her father's brother and his wife in East Williamsburg.

Starr attended high school in East Williamsburg, where she formed the band Rebel Rebel in 1977 at age fourteen as the guitarist, the band named for the David Bowie song, with classmate James Wolk on bass and neighbor Pete Rich on drums, with Starr also singing lead, which she disliked. The band gained some popularity in local clubs as a teen novelty, though Starr actively met everyone in the business she could, looking to work her way up in the scene.

In 1978, Starr was introduced to Stacey Wright and Johnny Allen of the band Electric Sky, who were looking for a guitarist and had been given her name as a recommendation. Wright and Allen came to see Aster play and after speaking to her after the show, convinced her to join them. Starr agreed to join them while splitting her time with Rebel Rebel, with the ultimatum that she would play with Electric Sky for only one year unless they obtained a record deal. The band frequented famous clubs like Max's Kansas City and CBGB, and at this time, changed the name of the band to Free Agent. At one of the band's shows in late 1978 was Malcolm McLaren, the British manager of the Sex Pistols and former manager of the New York Dolls. Free Agent hired McLaren as their manager and signed with Mercury Records in December 1978, with Starr agreeing to stay on with the band and finally leaving Rebel Rebel for good.

Free Agent (1978–1991)
Aster, taking the stage name Izzy Starr as the band rose to prominence, was introduced to Johnny Thunders by her uncle, who was a friend of Thunders' family, in late 1978. She and Thunders became lifelong friends, with Thunders producing Free Agent's first record. Written entirely by Aster and Wright, their debut album, Born to Raise Hell, was released in June 1979. Starr was popular in the press following the album, given the success of the album and praise for her playing style, as she was only sixteen years old at the time of the release.

Riding the success, the band went on a three month tour to perform their first shows outside of New York City. Returning to their hometown, Starr and Wright continued to write music together in anticipation of a second album, titled Wild Talk, which was released in 1980. The album peaked on the U.S. charts at number 14, ultimately becoming their most popular album. The second single from the album, entitled "Smackdown", was written by Starr, the lyrics a blatant ode to the band members' growing struggles with heroin addiction.

In 1983, the band released a single from the album in late April, titled "Dirty Money". The third album, titled Forever Free, was released May 1, 1983, and was received well in the U.S. and internationally.

Free Agent played the Electric Ballroom in London on May 4, 1983, where Starr met Nasty Suicide, guitarist for Finnish glam band Hanoi Rocks, who had played the club the night prior, and had seen Starr play with Free Agent in New York at an infamous show at CBGB the previous February. Johnny Thunders, who was planning a month-long run with his solo band the Heartbreakers opening for Hanoi Rocks on a UK leg of their tour, asked Starr to join him for the shows. Starr, already infatuated with Suicide, and he with her, agreed to the tour, and in September, following the end of Free Agent's tour, she joined up with the Heartbreakers. Starr and Suicide began dating during the tour, the relationship continuing on and off through the spring of 1985, which caused Starr to be more absent from the studio than the band would like.

In May 1985, following rough patches with all four members struggling with addiction, Santoro and then Allen both left the band. Starr and Wright tried to find a way to keep the band going without them, but mutually agreed to officially end the band in June, both Starr and Wright turning to other projects.

In December 1987, Wright, now borderline clean, approached Starr about restarting the band, and Starr, having just left the Cherry Bombz, agreed. The band reformed that year, minus Johnny Allen, who had died from an overdose the year prior. Starr reached out to her cousin, Michael Aster, whom she had lived with in New York City as a teenager, and he joined the band as their bassist, remaining with them until 1991.

The single "Fifteen / God Save the Queen" was released ahead of their fourth album in March 1988. "Fifteen" was a song collaboratively written by Starr and Johnny Thunders; the B-side "God Save the Queen" was a Sex Pistols cover. The fourth album, Lunatic Sky, was released April 18, 1988.

The single, "Borderline / Black Magic Girl" was released in April 1990, ahead of their fifth and final studio album. The self-titled Free Agent was scheduled to be released in May 1990, but production delays pushed the release back to August, with the album ultimately released on August 22, 1990.

Wright and Starr’s personalities often clashed, as evidenced by an eventual culmination in a physical fight backstage at a NYC show on September 12, 1990, where Wright, once again addicted to heroin and so high he couldn’t finish the show, and it devolved into an argument where Starr eventually struck Wright, breaking his nose. The incident led to the rest of the band agreeing to give Wright an ultimatum: either get clean in rehab, or be fired from the band. Unable to complete the former, Wright voluntarily quit. For several months, the band struggled to find a suitable replacement, and Wright, showing attempts to manage his addiction, rejoined the band in February 1991.

Following the death of Johnny Thunders in April 1991, Starr relapsed into alcoholism, adding yet another issue to the problems that plagued the band. After the arguments, management issues, and general lack of direction, the band officially broke up for good in May 1991.

The Heartbreakers (1984)
When New York Dolls alum Johnny Thunders reformed his solo band The Heartbreakers in the early 80s for various tours, he brought Starr in on bass, after she had joined him on a previous tour as a second guitar, replacing bassist Richard Hell. The band opened for Hanoi Rocks for a series of 14 shows in October 1984 in the UK.

The Cherry Bombz (1985–1987)
Starr was invited to a new project, the Cherry Bombz, by Andy McCoy in July 1985, following the breakup of Hanoi Rocks. The band consisted of Starr, McCoy, Nasty Suicide, the Clash's Terry Chimes, and Anita Chellamah. The Cherry Bombz made their recording debut in 1985 with a self-titled five-song EP, released by the Finnish Yahoo! label, featuring the tune "Hot Girls in Love," which was the basis for their first video. The EP was released in the U.K. and the U.S. in 1986 as Hot Girls In Love with the track "Pin Up Boy" omitted.

In 1986, the Cherry Bombz brought out another EP, The House of Ecstacy, material from the Hot Girls In Love and House of Ecstacy EPs was released in the United States on a collection called 100 Degrees in the Shade. In September 1986, they recorded a live album, Coming Down Slow, during a show at London's Marquee Club. The disc arrived in 1987; the show was also filmed, and appeared on home video under the titles Live in London and Hot Girls in Love. The Cherry Bombz toured the United States, playing shows on their own as well as opening a run of dates for Poison, but relationships within the group proved to be volatile, and by the end of 1987 the band had broken up.

Solo Work (1991– present)
After the breakup of Free Agent, Starr turned to writing a solo album, though it was temporarily shelved in 1992 with the birth of her first child. In 1993, she released her solo album, titled Starry Eyed, which featured a variety of guests, including a cover of Elvis' Can't Help Falling In Love that she recorded as a duet with Suicide, the first recording in which Starr would ever sing more than backing vocals. Starr would go on to collaborate with many of the stars of the 70’s and 80s, including Alice Cooper, the Dead Boys, and more, regularly guesting on songs well into the 1990s.

Nasty Suicide's solo album Vinegar Blood, released in 1996 under his real name, was successful and led to a series of appearances that Starr joined him on, returning again to playing bass as part of his live band.

Personal Life
During Starr’s October 1983 run with Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers opening for Hanoi Rocks, Starr and Hanoi guitarist Nasty Suicide began dating, a relationship that would last off and on for the next year. In 1985, Andy McCoy brought Starr in on collaborative project the Cherry Bombz, reuniting Starr and Suicide. The band would only last a year and a half, but Starr and Suicide remained together. They married in New York City in December 1987.

Starr gave birth to their first child, a daughter named Taimi, in London in May 1992. A second daughter, Tatiana, was born in 1995. Suicide retired from music in the late 90s and the couple moved from England to Helsinki, Finland, where Suicide went back to school and Starr continued with a series of smaller collaborative projects while they raised their daughters. Their third and last child, a son named Aleksej, was born in Helsinki in 1997.

Starr was close friends with Johnny Thunders from the time they met in 1979 until his death in 1991. The two collaborated on projects and often wrote music together, the majority of it unreleased, between 1978 and 1980. Thunders and Starr co-wrote the Free Agent single "Fifteen", which was about Starr and her introduction to the punk rock world. One verse was rumored to refer to a past sexual relationship between Thunders and Starr, though the theory remained unaddressed by either. Notoriously protective of Starr, whom Thunders often referred to as both his prodigy and his muse, Thunders' relationship with Starr was constantly in the press, likening Starr to notorious baby groupie Sable Starr and further jokes about the girls sharing a surname. Starr has pointedly refused to ever address any of the nature of her connection to Thunders, speaking only about their collaborative work. In an interview with Starr in 1993, comments by Starr seemed to indicate that Thunders was the origin of Starr's well-known heroin addiction, a theory that was corroborated later by Stacey Wright.

Starr became close friends with Caoimhe O'Donnell, the girlfriend of Razzle until his death in 1984, and the girlfriend and later wife of Guns n' Roses' Izzy Stradlin, whom was often jokingly referred to by both as "the second Izzy".

Starr has been longtime friends with shock rock legend Alice Cooper, guesting on several of his studio albums and occasionally taking the stage with him as a guest guitarist.

Starr found status as a sex symbol in the rock scene from as early as 1979, her image gaining popularity in the early 1980s. Starr was listed number 7 in the Top 10 Female Stars photographed in both 1981 and 1982. Often photographed for magazines scantily clad, she was frequently featured in every popular rock magazine of the decade, adorning magazine pinups for years. Starr was referenced by many rock musicians in the 1980s and 1990s as a driving influence, both in image and musical style.

Starr openly struggled with a heroin addiction for the entirety of her time in Free Agent, beginning in 1979, getting clean in the late 1980s. She later battled with bouts of alcoholism, though she has stated in interviews that the problem with alcohol wasn't nearly as serious as the drugs. Starr was often described by others as having an "addictive personality", with Andy McCoy describing her in his autobiography "Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks" as "dazzlingly intense, up for anything and holding her own with the boys but could handle more heroin in a day than most of us could in a week; she was slowly destroying herself but had such an infectious laugh and smile and a way about her that you'd fall over yourself to give her anything she wanted, no matter what it was."

With Free Agent

 * Born to Raise Hell (1979)
 * Wild Talk (1980)
 * Forever Free (1983)
 * Lunatic Sky (1988)
 * Free Agent (1990)

Solo Work

 * Starry Eyed (1993)

With Free Agent

 * "Give A Little Love / Rebel Boy" (1979)
 * "Hell City Strangers / Girlfriends" (1980)
 * "Smackdown / Paralyzed" (1980)
 * "Dirty Money / Gypsy" (1983)
 * "Fifteen / God Save the Queen" (1988)
 * "Borderline / Black Magic Girl" (1990)

With the Cherry Bombz

 * The Cherry Bombz EP (1985)
 * The House of Ecstacy EP (1986)

Collaborative Work

 * Alice Cooper: Raise Your Fist and Yell, 1987 - Starr guested on the track "Roses on White Lace"; Hey Stoopid, 1991 - Starr guested on the title song and appears in the music video alongside Slash, Ozzy Osbourne and Joe Satriani.
 * The 69 Eyes: Savage Garden, 1995 - Starr guested on the 69 Eyes' original version of the track "Velvet Touch". (The track was later re-recorded for their 2002 album Paris Kills with 69 Eyes guitarist Bazie Moilinen; Starr's former bandmate Andy McCoy also guested on the same album.)
 * Slash: Slash, 2010 - Starr guested on Slash's self-titled solo album on the track "Watch This", an instrumental, alongside Duff McKagan and Dave Grohl.

With Free Agent

 * Boardwalk Angel: Live From New York (1988)

A bootleg recording and video was unofficially released in 1996 of a Free Agent show on or around January 15, 1979 at CBGB in New York City, NY.

With the Cherry Bombz

 * Coming Down Slow (Recorded live at the Marquee Club, September 1986)
 * Live in London (film version of Coming Down Slow, released in 1987. Also released under the name Hot Girls in Love)

Other Media
In 1988, Starr and Nasty Suicide briefly appeared in Guns n' Roses music video for "Paradise City". The two are visible around the 4:20-4:23 mark.

In 2013, an American-made motion picture titled CBGB was released about the history of the club. Actress Phoebe Tonkin portrayed Starr, with actor Gavin Stenhouse portraying Stacey Wright.

In 2021, Starr began work on an autobiography, mentioned to recount in depth the early days of CBGB, the influence of Johnny Thunders, and the gritty glamour of both Free Agent and her association with Hanoi Rocks. Titled "From Helsinki, With Love", the book is expected to be released in 2022.