A Hopeful Noise

The Polyphonic Spree post-ironic revolution

Andrew Lee
Published: Monday, July 28, 2003

By Andrew Lee

dB MAGAZINE Senior Staff

alee@media.ucla.edu

When singer/songwriter Tim DeLaughter was a teenager, he played in his obligatory rock bands, groups not too sonically distanced from Tripping Daisy – his act of eight years that made some noise during the height of 90s alternative. But the music that really inspired him was the stuff of Disney movies and Top 40 radio, the stuff that won’t score many points with the bespectacled hipster crowd.

But the fact that it shouldn’t appeal to those crowds in a traditional way is the very reason why DeLaughter makes music today. His latest group, which performs at the El Rey on Wednesday, is a 24-member ensemble of robed, starry-eyed Texans who sing acid-gospel at the symphonic level. It has novelty written all over it, but if novelty is a label given to anything unique, the Polyphonic Spree is fine with it.

“What we’re doing – it’s different, man. There’s nothing like it, and that’s the whole point of putting something like this together,” DeLaughter said from his Dallas home. “It’s openly spirited and hopeful. It’s always open and so it’s susceptible to people’s doubts. But I’m totally ready for it because what we have is so solid to the core.”

DeLaughter’s Tripping Daisy didn’t just hop off the alt-rock bandwagon on whim, it was cut short in 1999 after friend and bandmate Wes Berggren’s sudden death from a drug overdose. After the group’s tragic end, DeLaughter bounced around to different jobs to support his family – until that is, his friend Chris Penn – now the manager of the Polyphonic Spree – booked a gig for the musician at the behest of DeLaughter’s wife. DeLaughter had just two weeks to scrap together a group to play the music he’s heard in his head since childhood.

“I’ve always played music,” he said. “But it seems I’ve always been working my way to get to this point. I didn’t start to hear it all until Tripping Daisy, but that started to become a wish list band – I started to say to myself, ‘I wish I had this instrument,’ or ‘I wish I had a choir singing that.’”

He wanted things like a French horn, a theremin, a digital harpischord and a timpani. He didn’t know where to find them (let alone how to play them), but after the idea of the project was out there, the rest happened on its own.

“(After the first show) people came up to me and just offered to be in the group,” DeLaughter said. “It came together, and I didn’t really have to do anything but play a show.”

The group’s first record, “The Beginning Stages Of...” was recorded in just two days, intended as a demo to score gigs around Texas. It got so much attention from papers and radio stations that the group has now released the record on a major label. For many acts, optimism is an easy selling point that rarely forces bands out of the standard rock ’n’ roll formula. For the Polyphonic Spree, the optimism makes way for a completely different approach to music. It swells and calms at an almost languid pace, and “The Beginning Stages Of...” sounds more like a piece of several movements than an actual album of songs. Not that it’s hard to get into, especially in a live setting.

“There’s something about 24 individuals exhausting themselves that tends to be overwhelming and contagious,” DeLaughter said. “I wasn’t thinking about creating this wonderful spirited vibe, I was just more into the group’s sound. But something beautiful happened, and songs became a kind of spirited and unorthodox musical. I just watch it happen from the stage, and it’s like the audience is a part of the band.”

The Polyphonic Spree is taking advantage of the attention placed upon them. A new album is awaiting release in early 2004, and according to DeLaughter, it sounds bigger, bolder and more dramatic.

It’s hard to believe that any positive thinking just emanates from the ether, but that’s not the kind of stuff that bothers DeLaughter, nor the couple hundred fans who see the group perform night after night. Novelty or not, this approach to the every day is something to admire.

“I’m not sure what the whole package is what’s making this thing work,” he said. “I just know it’s extremely special. And I hope I’ll never figure it out because I don’t want to fuck it up.”

The Polyphonic Spree play at the El Rey on July 30. Call the box office at (323) 936-6400 or go to www.theelrey.com for ticket information.