Starsailor consists of Barry Westhead (keyboards), Ben Byrne (drums), James Stelfox (bass guitar), James Walsh (vocals, guitar).
Starsailor are a British rock band from Chorley in England. As of 2006, they have had three charting albums and ten Top 40 singles in the UK since 2001.
The band met and played at St. Michael's CE High School in Chorley, Lancashire.
Bassist James Stelfox and drummer Ben Byrne had been playing together in the north of England for a number of years. When their regular singer fell ill, they recruited young singer and songwriter James Walsh from a school choir. He was influenced by Jeff Buckley and his 1994 album Grace in his singing style. The band then named Waterface had tried a number of guitarists before they asked long time friend Barry Westhead to join the band in 2000 on keyboards and Walsh also taking up the guitar. The band started to build up a reputation. The band name changed to Starsailor after the 1970 album Starsailor by Tim Buckley.
A journalist from NME saw a gig in 2000 and gave the band a glowing review. "One live encounter was enough to convince many sceptics that here was a band who were genuinely special, blessed with a singer whose voice thrummed like an emotional telegraph wire, that swerved the pitfalls of indie melancholia and were clearly in love with rock’n’roll and all its possibilities." Their performance at the Glastonbury Festival added to the bands reputation and led to a bidding war amongst UK record companies. The band signed with EMI in 2000.
After selling out a UK tour in March 2001, they released their second single, "Good Souls" in April. As the single entered the Top 20, the band were recording their debut album in Wales, before supporting Doves on their North American tour, and appearing at several festival appearances. Also in that year they won the "Brightest New Hope" award at the NME Awards. Their album Love Is Here reached number 2 in the UK album charts in October 2001.