|
|
 |
The Polyphonic Spree.
 It's
a rare opportunity for Tim DeLaughter to be at his Dallas home
after spending much of his time touring overseas or interstate,
or promoting the world's biggest group; at least in terms of
numbers (at last count, The Polyphonic Spree was twenty-six
strong).
He's not wasting his time at home either. During our interview, DeLaughter occasionally stops to play with his giggling four year old son Oscar. Oscar and his siblings Julius and Stella are credited as an inspiration in the liner notes for the 'Spree's first proper album, 'Together We're Heavy.'
"Well, my kids have grown up in the midst of all this," DeLaughter explains. "They go out on tour with us, they're completely involved with everything I've done, and it's all they've ever known their entire life. It's been a really crazy experience to try to juggle having a family and having a band. We also have a record label, and we also have a record store here in town. We've kind of set ourselves up for this chaotic lifestyle, but it's kind of all my wife [Julie, also in the band] and I have ever known.
"When we first were a band, I only had thirteen people," says DeLaughter. Unable to note the raising of my eyebrows at his use of the word 'only', he continues. "I was still in the process of putting the band together, hence the name, 'The Beginning Stages Of...'. And what you're actually listening to on the first record is the very first set we ever played as a group. That's what we played at our very first show, that's all we knew musically, and that's in the order that we knew it. So when we went in to record, I pulled a lot of people that weren't necessarily part of the band, but eventually became a part of the band. I wasn't really going in to make a record, I was going in to try to put something on tape that I could use to represent the band, to show that what we're doing is not chaos, and that it is musical, and so I could get some shows out of it."
While he's happy with its subsequent commercial release, it meant that a change in approach was inevitable when it came to recording 'Together We're Heavy'. "It was completely different," he says.
Despite the changes that had occurred between recordings, any follow up was always planned as a continuation of the first recording. The tracks of 'Together We're Heavy' are numbered sections 11 through 20. "Yeah, that was from the get-go," acknowledges DeLaughter. "I knew that once this was becoming a reality, that I was going to have it read as a well-documented piece, from the very beginning of Polyphonic Spree to the end, they would all have this connection from one process to another. To watch this thing grow, and to ultimately become a sound: that has always been my agenda, to create a sound that is pretty much unparalleled to anything else going on. I haven't quite hit it yet, we're not in our stride, but you will have these records to kind of show you the process of it becoming a reality. I've had this sound in my head for quite some time. I'd been thinking about The Polyphonic Spree for years before I started it."
One thing that seems to set the band apart from the rest is an extreme sense of positivity which seems to be missing from pretty much all of pop music today. "I didn't really set out to write happy music and be this poster child of 'the smiley face.'" DeLaughter says in his Texan drawl. "That's what's kind of been projected on the band, but I'm not going to say it's not something that we don't deserve. I just think I'm finally at a point where the music has become kind of a beautiful and much more romantic soundtrack to something I've been singing about my whole life, it's just taken me a long time to get to this point."
Earlier on, DeLaughter had said that the group hadn't hit its stride yet. "We've touched on it, we've had moments of like 'wow that was cool,' but we've yet to hone in to what the agenda is, which is to create a sound that's called The Polyphonic Spree. And in my opinion, once that happens, I think the world will know about it - and then my head will explode and then the band will be done."
Eddie Chan
 |
'Together We're Heavy' is out now through FMR. The Polyphonic Spree are coming for Big Day Out, but missing Adelaide. Dammit.
|
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
