BY JOHN
BACCIGALUPPI
I met Stella Mozgawa a decade or so ago at Panoramic, the studio I co-own, when she played drums on Cate Le Bon's Crab Day LP, produced by Noah Georgeson and Josiah Steinbrick and engineered by Samur Khouja. Over the years, I'd see more of this crew, especially Stella and Cate. Stella may be best known as the drummer for Warpaint, but she is also a very busy and in-demand session drummer and producer as well. One of the last sessions we did before the pandemic was in the fall of 2019, for Kurt Vile with Cate producing, Stella drumming, and Gabe Wax engineering. These tracks ended up on Kurt's Back to Moon Beach record a few years later. Cate and Stella stuck around for a few days after the session, and I enjoyed their company and having them around the studio. They have both kept busy these past few years, and Stella and I have recently reconnected a few times, including one memorable surf session where the incoming tide pulled us into the lagoon at our local break and we had to paddle to the boat docks to get out of the water. In April of 2025, I was in L.A. and stopped by her Los Feliz home studio to chat with her. I caught her in the morning before she was heading out to a session with Courtney Barnett, who she is co-producing a new album with.
