Starset is an American rock band from Columbus, Ohio, formed by Dustin Bates in 2013. They released their debut album, Transmissions, in 2014 and their second album, Vessels, on January 20, 2017. The band has found success in expanding the ideas of their concept albums through social media and YouTube, with the band generating over $230,000 in revenue from views from the latter as of November 2016. Their single "My Demons" had accumulated over 280 million YouTube views in the same time period. Their most commercially successful song, "Monster", peaked at number 2 on the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart in May 2017. A third studio album, Divisions, was released on September 13, 2019, with their fourth studio album, Horizons, released on October 22, 2021.
Starset was formed in 2013 by Downplay vocalist Dustin Bates, who is also the band's lead singer, songwriter, and keyboardist. Bates' interest in astronomy was first fueled when acquiring his master's in electrical engineering as he studied at Ohio University. He completed research for the US Air Force and also taught at the International Space University. Bates created the fictional backstory for the band that forms the thematic basis for their music and multimedia. In the backstory, Starset was formed as part of a public outreach initiative by The Starset Society. The Society's aims were to alert the public about the contents of "the Message" the society obtained from a mysterious signal from space. Starset treats their backstory and The Starset Society as real in interviews, with few exceptions.
The band released their debut album Transmissions on July 8, 2014. The release debuted at number 49 on the US Billboard 200 charts, making it one of the highest debut albums for a rock band in 2014, and as of 2016, had sold over 79,000 copies. Three singles were released in promotion of the album; "My Demons", "Carnivore", and "Halo." They also performed well in the charts, reaching fifth, sixteenth, and sixteenth respectively on the Billboard US Mainstream Rock charts. The band later released an accompanying novel, The Prox Transmissions, further detailing Bates' fictional back-history of the Starset Society story.

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