The Starlings—a band that started with Joy Mills and her husband Tomm but has since grown into a solid foursome—have spent the last couple of years forging their way through the local music scene, touring now and then. This Saturday, they'll celebrate the release of their second independent release, Marvelling the While—a wonderful collection of country-pop-and-blues-infused Americana that further solidifies their rootsy sound.

The party's at the Tractor, where all rootsy CD releases tend to take place, and kicks off at 6 p.m. with opener Zoe Muth ($8 cover). We met up with Mills yesterday at Cafe Septieme for a little ham and eggs, and a little chat about the local singer/songwriter scene, their new album, and the six-month tour that'll follow this Saturday's show.

Do you think…there’s not really a community of musicians in Seattle, it’s more of a scene?

Right, I think it’s more that there’s lots and lots of tiny communities, it seems. So maybe that translates into some lack of cohesion in the bigger sense. I have certain friends that I run around with and bands that I go see and they come see us. But it comes and goes. There’s something a little bit missing. I think it also comes down to not being represented in the media at all, which is such a struggle.

Maybe because it’s more of….Seattle’s more obsessed with its rock history than what singer/songwriters do?

Yeah, and also it seems to be more of a growing hub with the indie rock thing. That’s such a huge force nationally now that I don’t know what begets what. There’s just so many bands. Sometimes I walk around the city and I’m like where are they all living and working, and what are they doing? Because they’re just everywhere, especially when they have the pull-out section (in The Stranger).

Do you think it’s also a little about venues?

Oh yeah, oh man. It’s Ballard or bust, pretty much, sometimes. It’s not necessarily. There are other venues that are kind of hidden out, or there are venues that feature more of the roots/Americana on nights or special occasions. But we rarely play outside of Ballard. Even in Ballard, it’s one or two places. But that’s okay. Over the years, I’ve sort of unlearned that you make it in your hometown. I started out thinking that very strongly and it was a shock when it was like pulling teeth for me to get people to come out to a show. I don’t take it personally, but you’ve got to think, Hey, I need to get fans not friends, sometimes, to come out to shows. You can’t play 3-4 times a month, which is such a bummer because you want to play all the time. So we play less shows and better shows, and it works out.

photo courtesy of Joy Mills

Do you guys tour a lot?

We’ve done a couple tours, but they were small. Three weeks was the longest. I’ve been, for the last five months, booking a six month tour. I have a large percentage of it done. As it nears, I’ll be able to fill in some dates at the end. We’ve got like 70 shows. We’re going all the way across to the East Coast, which might as well be Japan from here, in our little short school bus. We’re going to stay on the East Coast for three months. We have a friend there who’s very kind to have us stay while we tour the region, so we’ll be able to hit a lot of spots once or twice. Then we’ll be going down to the southeast and back up through Iowa, where I’m from, then down to the southwest to play the Joshua Tree Roots Music Festival, which was kind of an anchor date for me. That’s when we started thinking well, if we’re going to go over there, and then we have to be down there, we may as well make it a huge adventure. So, we’re getting rid of our rental and selling a majority of everything we have. It’s scary, and it’s awesome.

So you’re booking it all, just you?

Yeah, it’s huge. But you know, I guess I have the ability to sit in front of a computer for hours on end. I’ve never been able to do anything this much [at one time], or at least do the work it takes to get out there.

Yeah, I used to do that too. And it’s surprising that, once you get into it…I don’t want to say it’s easy, but it’s not as big of a task as you would think it would be. Well, six months is a big task…

Yeah, there is a kind of an ease to it. The more I do it, the easier it gets, in terms of the motions. But I get that a lot where people are completely amazed. It’s a lot of work, yeah, but it’s not like it’s a marathon, it doesn’t take a lot of training. It’s been interesting to get to a point where I can say that I have booked this much. It’s almost like a massive crossword puzzle, that’s how I see it. It’s like, do I actually understand that I’m going to go to these places and actually show up and set up and play? For two hours at a time? Each time? For days on end? I don’t think I’ve actually understood that part yet. It’s like a game right now—I have to fill in these dates.

Yeah, but by the time you get to Joshua Tree, you guys are going to kick ass.

I hope. Or we’ll be completely miserable and be like, oh this was a great idea. [laughs] We’re going to have a different line-up for different parts of the trip. Like it’ll be a full band when we leave, for the first month or so, and then our producer’s going to be with us for two weeks and then it’ll be just Tom and I back east. And then another friend is going to come play bass with us for the last month. So it’ll be a good mix of…nobody’s going to have to be with each other for too long.

That’s nice to have the variety because you can get to a point where you want to kill each other.

You can. And it’s a good challenge, musically, because the full band is awesome and I would opt for that probably nine times out of ten, just because it’s so much more effective in production and sound. But there’s something to be said for a real stripped-down set, too—whether it’s just the duo, or I have a real fondness for a broken down trio, just adding a bass and two guitars or a banjo….so I’m excited about that, too.

When you go out, are you pulling from the records you’ve made, or are you going to be doing a lot of new stuff?

We’ll definitely be doing a lot of the album stuff. I’ve been really slacking in finding new covers. We never really did a ton, since the band has been around. We did a few, but we ran those a little dry. At one point, it was the second tour…we were on the way back, the last morning, from Portland. I said I think it’s time to officially retire this one particular tune by Patty Griffin. Because, I was reading the journal from [the tour] we just finished and the tour the year before and we were talking about the same song in both [journals], and I was like, wow there are so many songs to cover. Why are we still doing this one? It’s just something I never seem to get to.

Do you write a lot on the road?

I mostly write in books. I don’t really write music. I’m usually scrambling to finish the promo for the end of the tour. Or I get really sucked into just being in the car going down the road. My mind is out there and experiencing…I love that part. So sometimes that’s my rest from all of it.

So this record comes out Saturday, or you’re having the release party Saturday. When did you finish it? How long did it take?

A lot longer than we thought. We started it January ’07. We had hoped to be done by that summer. But things just happen that way, you can’t control the timelines. The producer was moving to Portland, and then our other engineer…it was just a lot of coordinating schedules and nobody could do it this time or this time. Then, the next thing you know, it’s two months later. It was a lot of file management for our producer, because we had four-plus different studios and the ProTools session was different every time. I think it was more of a headache ….I don’t think he told me the half of it, really. There were times when I was like I don’t think this album is going to be cohesive at all. But, we finished recording in October [2007] and then we received the finished product in March.

How did you find Chad [the producer]?

We were friends, we met in the [music]scene years ago. He’s worked on both of our records. The first one came out great and then, on the second one, it was more in-depth approach. He’s going to come out and play with us on Saturday and then in Portland. He probably knows these songs better than I do at this point [laughs]. I can’t imagine how ma