The Polyphonic Spree - London, UK, Spring 2002
By: Toby L
A message from above; an epiphany for the world around us; a chance for all current wrongs to turn on themselves..?
The most hotly-talked-about sensation of 2002 has, bizarrely, not been one clad in leather and a mane of hair which recalls a reclining street-dog, but, instead, a 25-piece 'choral symphonic pop band'. Naturally.
Led by Tim DeLaughter, The Polyphonic Spree are an unlikely coalition. Donning white robes, bashing instruments of all backgrounds and conjuring a euphoric racket that's akin to be touched by the higher spirits beyond our mere, mortal existence, it's their brandishing of indie-cum-classical fun 'n' frolics that have stolen the thunder from garage-rock, and triumphantly made the essence of 'performing live' a fiercely demanding prospect (even their T-shirts reveal the taxing stage-plots for every member of their team). Distinctly impossible to categorise, and more unashamedly tuneful than Brian Wilson sharing song-writing duties with
The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne (now, that'd be a fruitful collaboration...), The PS are an already-spoilt, alt-music reveller's fantasy.
Yet, to date, little has been raised just about their coming about, the history in their development; people seem more interested in who actually washes all the band's garments and which person picks up their restaurant-bill. So, as we meet DeLaughter, the man responsible for this glorious proposition, at the band's London hotel, we search for the intrinsic truth behind the enterprise, bringing with us a relic from the past to aid us in our endeavours...
'They're all interested in the same kind of things I'd wanna know, I guess, like how it started, and all that,' sighs Tim gently, on the matter of journalists' lack of creativity. 'I've been interviewed a lot,' he notes, pausing to ask himself, 'but what have people missed...?'
How about an actual depiction of the music you're making?
'Yeah,' he beams, 'They're not really talking about that! They talk about the sheer size of the group, but not the music - and that's where it all started from in the first place. It was fulfilling a sonic idea, and it was trying to fulfil a certain sound I had in my head after spending so many years in other bands...'
At this point, we reveal our hidden-weapon; an impenetrably rare copy of Tripping Daisy's 'Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb' - his former guise's lost album.
Tim is visibly marked. 'Oh my God - yeah, during that period! Wow...'
So, even when working within this stated incarnation, The PS was always a long-term vision?
'Yes; I knew in a way, because I kept telling myself I was going to do something like this, but it was always, 'Ah, I'll do it later on,' because I'd been having these ideas to explore this type of music and this sound even when I was in Tripping Daisy. But, this (pointing at CD) wasn't the environment for it and I kept telling myself, 'When I've got time in my life, I'm going to fulfil that, but it's just not time yet.'
He continues, but sombrely. 'Tripping Daisy tragically ended, and taking those two years off really set the tone. I didn't make a sound for a couple of years and, twisted as life is, the whole thing gave me the opportunity to think about, 'If I'm going to re-approach music again, I totally want to explore those inspirations I've had in my whole life and progress that idea I've always had.' The demise of Tripping Daisy gave me the opportunity to go for it.'
'Tragically' is the word that best describes the premature ending of DeLaughter's last band; Wes Berggren, chief-guitarist in the ensemble, died from an overdose. As today's character reveals, not only was the band's future cut short, but DeLaughter was prompted into hibernation for a considerable period, distraught by the incident.
When you look back at those days - do you view them in a rose-tinted nostalgia or bitter disappointment?
'Both of those,' he ponders. 'When I was in Tripping Daisy, I thought it was going to last forever, I really did, and that ideas I had would just exist as side-projects because the band was such a force of its own. Not many people know about the band, and virtually nobody knows about this record ('Jesus...'); we were dropped off the label before this record really came out - they released it, and then a month later they let us go because the label was bought by someone else and they started dropping everyone. It was the highlight of our career - but no-one knows about it. It'd be such a travesty for this record to slip by... I mean, I say that, and I may be in the group, but it just reinvents itself every time I hear it.'
Considering what you presently do, does the 'Spree suggest something completely new, or is it possessive of traces of your past?
'Tripping Daisy gave me an opportunity to explore inner music ideas and then rejoice in the fact, 'Oh wow, I can do that,' or, 'You can go that way with it,' and that gave me the confidence to embrace music in every way: get in it, twist it around and not be afraid of it, and not be afraid to try all sorts of things. I think that's a very valid point in that Tripping Daisy gave me the right and the passage to explore music, and to revel in that, or give me the confidence to go for The Polyphonic Spree.
'A lot of people around me originally, when I was talking about what I wanted to do, saw it as almost impossible and said, 'Why would you wanna do that; that's just such an absurd idea!' Everybody around me had such a negative idea around me wanting to attempt this, and - you have to remember - I made my living from playing music; at the time, I had one kid, so - financially - to create The Polyphonic Spree was even more of an absurd idea; where I have to make a livelihood, this was the worst possible thing I could ever do if I'm choosing music as my career! Oh my God! My family was just like, 'Are you going crazy?!' My friends were similar and saying, 'Just go and put another four-piece band together...'
'But I thought if I was going to approach music and it was so a part of myself and what I have to do, then you don't think about anything else, you just think about what you have to do to fulfil yourself, and nothing else matters. It's what you want. I've learnt that too with that band and life itself - you always get what you want in life, always. And you always get what you didn't know you wanted. Because what you wanted evolves into something so much more. If you see it in your head, it's completely yours. As that's my philosophy, The Polyphonic Spree didn't seem like a big deal to me. I saw it, I completed it. Someone may be inspired by what we're doing - and come out with a 100-piece band, thinking, 'Well, if they did it with 25, what's 75 more?!'
'I saw Tripping Daisy as a musical idea in my head,' he continues, impressively, 'and - everything I saw in my head - totally played itself out. Then I started thinking back to being a kid; you always get what you want: when you're younger, manipulating your parents to get a cookie, you do this, you do that; if you really want something, and you put it out there, and maybe your parents say, 'Well, you can't have that, unless you do this,' then you go and do that and you get it - but the point is that you've got what you wanted. No matter what it was.
'I'm not gonna say that I'm gonna create a spaceship on my own and fly off to the moon - there may be people out there that can do that, but I don't have the capacity to put something like that together. But the things you can put together in your head, you tend to get. It may seem overwhelming to other people, but if you can wrap your thoughts around it, and you can see it, it's there. I played that role with that. I've listened to people that've been asked that question, 'How did you do that; you only had a sixth-grade education, and you managed to build this billion-dollar company,' and they always come back and say, 'I just decided to do it, and did it.' It's just that simple and flippant. They already had their minds set around it, and I think it's so wonderful when you know that, because it means that anything is wide open - you can do whatever you want.'
He rustles in his upright seat, and makes a final, conclusive point on the matter. 'The Polyphonic Spree plays the whole role out. Inadvertently, our lyrical-content is leaking out the fact that I've realised all this, and that's why you may get life-connotations, and spiritual connotations about the group through what we do. I think that's where people from the outside see what we're doing and ask, 'Why is it so full of life, and joyful?' and it's advertently from what our music is about...'
Having just absorbed such an intoxicating and vivid response, fittingly, we are compelled. Tim is, too.
'That's something I've never talked about before, something that I've never even thought about before - until now,' he laughs.
As if it wasn't enough, however, despite his current exhaustion of only arriving into the UK today after flying in from the band's native home of Texas with a gruelling tour and promo-schedule ahead over the next couple of weeks, he charges himself up for further commentary.
'I got accustomed to everything through that band (points at CD, again); once I experienced the early stages of Tripping Daisy, once I had the idea and went out and accomplished it, I was like, 'How am I going to get this band to the next level?' A couple of years after, it was realised, 'This is exactly how it works,' and I approached everything like that... I did have that time where Wes died which was a really, really difficult time; I'd never had anyone close to me die before. I lost not only one of my best friends and one of the most special human-beings... That's a whole other thing - why is it the special ones that get taken..? But he was an unbelievable human-being, and you could be in the worst mood, then he'd walk in the room... I'm getting chills just thinking about him. He was truly an amazing individual, in all senses of the word, amazing. The loss of him, the loss of this group who I'd basically lost my virginity to, musically and mentally in discovering the way things are, it was tough.
'Two years off, slowly getting myself back together again... You can persevere - this is life: life is fragile, and it has changes, twists, it has turns, and we apply ourselves to these situations; if there's a bump in the road, we go around it, or if we want to experience it, then - what the hell - we go for it, and we bump! I slowly but surely started coming out of this thing with the help of my family and my friends and the people that cared about me - they offered me this incentive.
'So I started putting this idea together, I saw it, and I had no fear - despite the fact that everybody around me was petrified.'
We remark on the story's inspiring nature.
'Right,' he nods, 'and all that's the God's honest truth. I have a platform to be able to talk it, but I'm sure there's millions of people who have situations the same, but you don't hear about it, you know, and they may write a book because they feel compelled to. It's interesting...'
But, really - the logistical formation of this act; it's hardly a walk in the park...
'I think the sheer size has helped the group work itself out,' DeLaughter surprisingly notes. 'They take on the role of their size. When you're a three or four-piece, you rest upon the size. I know that sounds backwards, but when I was in a four-piece band, it ran a lot sloppier, sluggish, than this 25-piece band does. As people feel the weight of the group, they act accordingly; like, 'You've got 24 people waiting for you - so you better not be the last one on the bus!' Or, 'I've got to make rehearsal, because there's not three other guys to let down - but 24 others!' You're out-numbered, man!'
Have you ever featured people in the group that aren't team-players, and you've had to sack them?
'One person. And he also used to be in Tripping Daisy, and I had to let him go back then, too! So, we re-lived the experience again, and I said, 'I do not want to do this, but...' He's an extremely talented individual, and I hope one day it works out for him...'
It must be the poor guy's loss; since the Polyphonics have emerged with such infectious blasts of all-out, feel-good pop as debut-single 'Soldier Girl' and the top-40 'Hanging Around', even featuring a fan video-director in the bespectacled shape of Jarvis Cocker no less, their album 'The Beginning Stages Of...' has even been heralded a classic in the making. What with the future hinting towards a musical of all potentials, goodness knows what these guys will stride towards next.
'I didn't really know what was going to happen with The Polyphonic Spree,' DeLaughter remarks. 'I just wanted to put together a sound, a group that could play shows. What's happened now - the reactions, the feelings people are getting - there's a movement going on with this group that I didn't think anything about. I'm experiencing it all the same way everyone else is. But, what the result is, is that I'm inspired by the evolution of this group, and I do see it becoming a musical.
'Then again, if I think about my thoughts of it being a musical and why I feel it should become this... Well, lyrically - I don't sit down and work the words out: I simply improvise them off the top of my head, and they're inspired by the music and a story... So, from that, if you're learning a story and hearing music - well, that's a musical! It's just blatantly obvious that this is the next step, even to the layman looking at it, but - to me - I now have validation that, of course, I'm just playing this natural role that I've already been doing for years of incorporating these ideas to more of a visual front.'
Would you need to take any steps to avoid it from being too traditional, cliché, or, erm, frankly, cheesy?
Tim considers this for a private moment. 'I think that, clearly, there's no musical like it; why can't you go to a show and actually watch a musical in its place. The very idea of having this 25-piece group that comes out of nowhere, the whole story of that, and the fact that it's playing live - that is a story in itself to watch it played. Now, if you can hear the music and the lyrics, that would make it even more special. As far as having actors and all that... Not really - I kinda, more or less, see this forming into its own unorthodox musical... I don't really know what it's going to be, but I feel it's going to have a really natural element to it.'
It sounds a promising prospect, and one enjoyed all the more to envisage due to DeLaughter's build-up. Indeed, we touch upon this as a parting-shot; most notable for anyone that's fortunate to be within Tim's undeniably charismatic presence, aside from his vortex, aqua-marine eyes and lank, dark hair, is his energy, the vigour with which he enthuses over everything he utters. The presumption is that he must be hideously young; well - he ain't: try 37 year's old. How does he get away with it?
He grins, all too knowledgeable of how he presents himself, also willing to pass on his trade-secret. 'People that love what they're doing always look young. It's cool when you get older, because when you see your old high-school friends, they're gonna look so much older than you do! I've seen some of my friends five or ten years after high-school, and - my God! - they looked five or ten years older than me, and they go, 'You look exactly the same!'
With the way events are ensuing, expect Tim to look identical for decades more; he certainly shows no signs of halting this unit for some time yet. Much to his and our fortunate benefit.
Artists in this article: The Polyphonic Spree