It’s often said about music that there’s nothing new any more – everything that can be done has been done. Well, evidently no one told Tim DeLaughter. After his post-grunge band Tripping Daisy went belly-up, he got together with 27 of his closest friends to form The Polyphonic Spree, a band which throws together elements of indie rock, orchestral and choir music to form a joyous celebration of life. With the band visiting Australia for the Splendour In The Grass festival, ITM spoke to DeLaughter about their new darker outlook, writing songs with 28 people, and why all rock music is like being in a cult.
It might sound illogical to start a music interview talking about the weather, but when I tell DeLaughter that it’s cold here, he instantly wants to know why. Of course, it’s winter here, but where he is, in the middle of Texas, it’s 100 degrees (presumably Fahrenheit). He asks if it will still be cold when his band comes out for Splendour In The Grass, and my mind flashes to camping in Belongil Fields, huddled together for body warmth, rugged up under three layers of clothes. I tell him yes, it will still be cold. “Shit, we were all planning on bringing shorts and shirts. I’d better tell the band.” Yes, you better.
When the Spree first arrived on the scene, they all wore full length robes of varying colours – both in press photos and when playing live. This, and their uplifting, exciting music, led some to believe they were a religious band. But DeLaughter says this didn’t really worry him. “Sure, we got mistaken for a religious band a lot. After all we were some wacky Texans coming out and playing that music, people thought we were a cult. It was such a spectacle.
“And of course, the press had a field day,” he continues. “It really came out of left field, so that was all they had to write about. But it was kinda fun, not a hindrance. And when you think about it, any kind of popular rock band can be considered a cult, worshipping a leader – I can definitely see a parallel there.”
The Polyphonic Spree might instantly grab the attention of most onlookers, but even a 28-piece orchestra band needs to get a start somewhere. I asked DeLaughter how tough it was getting gigs in the beginning. “Sure, it was tough; a lot of promoters couldn’t get their heads around it. There were not really any big bands out there at the time, so when you’re saying to the promoter, ‘We have 28 members, with 28 inputs, and a really complicated stage set-up’, then it’s no real surprise that they might baulk.
“So we decided to record a demo, so we could show them what we were doing. Then we played South By Southwest, and David Bowie had heard of us, so he invited us to London to play the Meltdown festival. And everywhere we went, people were asking for an album, but all we had was the demo, so that demo became our first album, it became The Beginning Stages Of… ”
And of course, a 28-piece band must have come up against its fair share of naysayers, at least in the beginning. “Yeah, that’s how it was, going in,” agrees DeLaughter. “But I wasn’t really thinking about it. It was more or less an experiment for me, and then it started to take off, but I never really thought of us as a group, as something that would still be going eight years later, it inadvertently took off.”
For their third album, the band has cast off their coloured robes for matching black outfits. They look a bit like an army, which is intentional – after all, the name of the album is The Fragile Army. And the music on the album is a little darker too, but DeLaughter says they’re not in any danger of being a permanently foreboding outfit. “It’s kinda the theme of the record, the fragile army. We’ve been in some dark times in this country, and this is kinda a reaction to that. It’s certainly our most political album, and the most urgent.
“On the other hand, the progression felt really natural for us. And we’d definitely change the look again, we can kind of be what we want as far as the clothing, and we can evolve with the music as well. It’s an awesome thing to have that freedom.”
With 28 members in the band, it seems like songwriting must be a democratic process, and DeLaughter says it is…sort of. “It’s democratic after the song is written. I’ll write the song on piano or guitar, and bring it to the band, and we start working on placement of instruments and stuff. But most of all, I implore them to improvise. They kind of choose the direction they want to go, and we put it all in.”
The Polyphonic Spree were last in Australia for the Big Day Out festivals in 2005 (possibly one of the reasons they assumed it would be hot here in Australia), and I asked DeLaughter whether he preferred playing festivals or individual house shows. “Well, I like them both for different reasons, but we do tend to flourish in festivals. It’s outdoors, there are lots more people, and we can really pack ‘em in there. I like festivals for the sheer number of people.”
And what is in the future for the Polyphonic Spree? “We just finished covering a Danny Elfman song, from The Night Before Christmas. It’s from the Town Hall Meeting. We re-wrote the music but kept the lyrics, and that should be out in the next few months. And we also finished a score for a new film coming out called Visioneers. And after that, we’ll be starting work on a new record.”
Get swept up by the Polyphonic Spree at the following shows:
Tuesday 29 July – Metro Theatre, Sydney
Wednesday 30 July – Hi Fi Bar, Melbourne
Thursday 31 July – Tivoli, Brisbane
Saturday 2 August – Splendour In The Grass, Belongil Fields
