A high school production of Jesus Christ Superstar or annual Branch Davidian jamboree?

Polyphonic Spree Hallelujah Time

Everybody has voices in their head. Little angels and devils telling us to sing nice gospel tracks about God and videotape yourself having sex with your underage "goddaughter." For Tim DeLaughter, it wasn't a voice so much as a sound. The sound he heard made about as much logical sense as "If you build it, they will come" but has had nearly as magical effect on those who've witnessed his musical equivalent of a baseball diamond in a cornfield.

Like anyone who has had a song lodged in their head, no matter how much you like it, it becomes a nuisance after while—backseat driver to all the other things you'd rather think about. A soundtrack that fits on one side of a 45 and loops the last groove into itself. You'd do anything to get it out of your head. So, DeLaughter did something remarkable. He rounded up a posse, and gave birth to one of the more intriguing musical phenomena to hit the scene since Parliament.

This is the story of a troupe of 24 choir-robed freaks called . You might have seen them on the MTV Video Music Awards, introduced by Marilyn Manson who claimed the band was the love child spawned by him and co-presenter Mandy Moore. Maybe the news clip about the mic that was mistaken for a pipe bomb and shut down a major airport. Perhaps you caught them when they opened for on his recent tour. You might even have sampled the Kool-Aid, as they say, and come back for another frothy glass. But enlightened or not, come along for it's quite the ride.

Warning: Tim DeLaughter is going to sound like a crazy, psychedelic-poppin' hippie with no perspective on reality at points in this story. His joyous, hopeful naiveté seems to stem from the same place that it comes from for all who have seen the Spree, — that's really the most cultish thing of all. The Polyphonic Spree are a band that take jaded indie rock hipsters—people who have seen it all and are tired of having NME and CMJ tell them what the next big thing is—and turn them into massive-grinning, beaming, glossy-eyed freaks with no plausible explanation for why an admittedly cheesy at points concert, has left them feeling truly elated. But don't let it get to you. You've really got to try it for yourself before you're allowed to call these folks dorks.

We'll start this story four years ago. Someday, this will all become ancient history, a tale well- known and passed along through the generations. But with anything that is Biblical in proportions and spiritual in nature, it is best to begin at the Genesis. And as we are still close to the start of this great journey, we shall not presume to assume that you know this story already.

Polyphonic Spree's founder/leader/singer/conductor, Mr. DeLaughter, is sitting in the second seat of one of the three generic white 15-person touring vans that move this carnival from place to place as he tries to shed some light on the this band for CREEM. He speaks with exuberance that almost, but doesn't entirely mask the fatigue of someone trying to paddle an aircraft carrier of a band in a sea of corporately polished hip-hop crap.

Thanks to the tinted windows, we are not disturbed by the fans gathering for the second of Spree's two nights in Chicago. We are only interrupted by percussionist Mike Dillon poking his head in to grab his robe for the night, but we'll come back to the robes later.

As is the nature of things, this story begins with an ending. DeLaughter's band, , had just disintegrated. The group had hit its stride and stumbled, reeling from any number of factors, but chiefly from the OD-death of guitarist Wes Berggren.

"We'd done [Jesus Hits the] Atom Bomb," DeLaughter said. "We'd done our last record. [the self-titled final ]. Wes didn't get to finish one of those songs, his dad really finished it on the Rhodes.

"The band was kind of deteriorating at that time. It was either going to blow up or we were going to change directions and just go completely to a new direction which may have been the Polyphonic Spree, I don't know, but something had to happened. I think Wes made that choice for everybody in the band. When he left, that literally was it. I shut down and said 'I'm not doing this anymore,' I didn't want to do it without Wes."

DeLaughter dances around the subject of Berggren's "leaving," never quite coming out and saying the word "died." Death and birth so often go hand-in-hand, and the beginning stages of the Polyphonic Spree are no exception.

"[His death] just took the life out of us as well — we were wiped out by that whole incident. The birth of my second child was happening. It was a crazy time, kind of a coming of age, the start of the next stage of my life. It was a weird time. It wasn't the time to start a 25-piece band, that's for sure, but it turned out to be the most perfect time to start it.

"Wes is responsible basically for everything that's happened."

DeLaughter looks around at where the Tripping Daisy folks have wound up. Drummer Ben Curtis is in the Reprise-signed buzz band . Phil Karnats has just put out his first solo album. And of course, Delaughter, and Bryan Wakeland are less than 1/8th of the Spree. He gushes excitement about the present and the past.

"There's a lot of people who didn't really realize what a contributor [Tripping Daisy] was and what we were actually doing..." He trails off... "I miss it terribly."

So he did what any right-minded Texan would do. He started a cult. "The first parts were friends and family. I just spoke to a few close friends. Mark and Bryan were in Tripping Daisy. Then I went to some family members and put the word out and I was able to get 13 people. After that, I basically just said I'm looking for these instruments and people started coming up and showing up and saying 'hey, I'd like to sing in your choir.,' or 'hey, I play this, I play that' and it just came together really quickly. It was the easiest thing I ever put together.

"It took me almost four years to put Tripping Daisy together. That was with four people. Because you're trying to find this certain person …You have got to have that musical connection. That thing that works. And there's this personality that's morphed within that. And when it's there, it's strong.

"But with this band, I never even looked at that. I put a blind eye to all of that. I just said, do you play this instrument and do you improvise on that instrument thoroughly. There's a lot of people who play these instruments who can't do what [Spree] do today. They don't understand what you mean when you say 'improvise'," he said. And if you think a 25-person band can't improvise, you should sneak into a sound check some day and see that these kids can really cook with no more guidance than DeLaughter telling them all to play in "G."

When they're not on stage, they break off and enjoy the various cities alone or in small groups. DeLaughter himself spends some time with his family. His wife, Julia, sings in Spree's nine- person choir. Their three children are on the road as well and can be seen running around backstage in their mini robes. By not instilling a GroupThink to hold it together, Spree formed factions and communities within the community.

"I think that the fact that I didn't put so much emphasis on that is why it works for itself," he said of the band's vibe. "It lubricates itself like a classroom. You don't choose the kids you're going to be in school with. You just show up and you're stuck with them for a year. You might hate the teacher but you don't hate the class, the kids and everything in there. They're little sub- groups that are made in there, and it works. Musically, we all landed on the same page, so it works. Our classroom has become so extraordinary. We're making a new class, that's what we're doing!"

The Polyphonic Spree defy description in many ways. Shows often begin or end with a harp solo. The and figure prominently, but so does the aforementioned choir. And the Theremin, can't forget that—especially as the percussionist comes across the stage, hands his drum to someone else picks the thing up over his head and starts to windmill through it like Townsend. Words like "Euphoric" and "Ecstatic" come to mind, which can't be said of, say, a Sonic Youth show. But mostly it leaves everyone at a blissfully ignorant loss of words.

"We tried to describe the band ourselves a couple years ago because we sensed something happening," said DeLaughter and as he talks, he gets more excited and heads off on his own tangent. "Where it was like, we'd talk about it literally riding with the band. 'What is it? Are we tapping into something? Is it religious?' And then we'd all look at each other and say, 'I'm not going to talk about this anymore.'"

"I think once we figure it out, it's over with. So we don't even talk about it anymore as a group. I kind of live vicariously through others. 'What does it mean to you?' so I can get some sort of insight because it's strange. I've had my moments, with Tripping Daisy. You know, those rocking moments... that bliss that would come over. It's not what I get with this group. It's that thing that's very spiritual but not... I don't' know what it is. It's something that just kind of happened on its own. There wasn't an agenda.

"We're in very jaded times, especially in . The satire is unbelievable in bands today. Everyone's so—I guess it's kind of always been there—but really kind of contrived . They're very aware of their being. To where they're afraid to kind of live a little bit through music. It's just me, I don't want to say this for everybody because a little bit of that rock attitude is appreciated and it goes along with the music. But there's just something about Spree that everyone decided to open up and kind of let it go in this group and I find that really refreshing with the way the climate is because I think that we stick out like a sore thumb, considering. To me, that these people feel comfortable doing that. I like that, that's really cool."

He speaks like a reluctant, or perhaps more like an accidental, free-wheeling messiah, who preaches this crazy notion that people don't need messiahs at all, but can think for themselves— as long as they're nice about it.

"This is nothing that I put on people. We just evolved into this "YEAH!" you know?"

"I never told them to be like that and everyone's just kind of done their own thing. I'm sure, even myself, we've all been kind of contrived and jaded thought the years and protective and maybe thought "ooh, that's not cool, I better not do it. But with this we can kind of let go, it doesn't matter." We don't worry about as you can probably see. We just kind of do what helps us facilitate our role in achieving what we want to do. It's a spirited bliss on a nightly basis if we're able to achieve it. It's a lot of compromise and a lot of work to do what we do so playing has to be a blast. I'm just glad we're able to play these shows."

At first, DeLaughter didn't even intend to be in the group.

"I just wanted to put it together and orchestrate it and watch it and be a part behind the scenes and that didn't happen be. In order to kind of help instigate the songs and be the and translate this idea I had to become a huge tool and a big component for it so I kind of wrote myself in without knowing."

Instead, he is the absolute centerpiece. His singing, cheerleading, conducting and wild gesticulating serve not only to keep the ship on course, but also to give the audience something to cling to and focus on.

It's an absolute marvel to behold. And a wonder that it got signed to a major label, though almost fitting that it's one owned by Disney (Hollywood Records.) Granted, the Spree would be ideal musical guests for the Muppet show, more than the Mickey Mouse show. The music comes easy, the people come easy, but the logistics are an utter nightmare of DIY sentiment, independent spirit, and completely insane economics.

"The hardest thing is keeping it together," said DeLaughter and the smile and enthusiasm fades for a moment and a hint of a tired, tired man comes through. A man who has seen many miles in a cramped little van piled high with all he loves in life.

"It's exhausting to do this band financially. That's why we've started hinting that we're doing residency touring. We want to get to where we can come to town and stay here and play three hopefully four nights in a row and go to another major city and do the same thing. Because it's really difficult for us to tour like a traditional rock band. This is so much easier on us and its less expensive. So this is what we're ultimately trying to get to. The more popular the band gets, the more we can sell records and ticket sales and be a part of that marketplace, then hopefully it'll work itself out.

Thirty people on two standard-issue rock tour busses would sound like hell to most people. But for Spree, it's a luxury they miss. "It's gotten worse. Ever since we got off tour with David Bowie we've had to had to say goodbye to the buses. David Bowie was kind enough to pay us enough to where we could afford to do the busses. Now we're kind of on our own so we have three 15-passenger vans with two trailers."

Ah yes, David Bowie. You know him, right? If nothing else, the man has unimpeachable taste in just about everything. OK, so the dress he was sporting on "Man who Sold the World," didn't do his figure justice. But besides that…

Anyway, he's a big fan of Polyphonic Spree and brought them to Europe when he was organizing the Meltdown Festival to play their first non- gigs. In 2004, he had them open two different legs of his massive tour.

"That was probably the best show that ever happened to us," DeLaughter says of Bowie. "He always has been immensely supportive of our group. Very giving and gracious. He's a wonderful man.

Here's one of those hippie-sounding quotes. Get over it, and listen.

"I marvel at being able to be mobile and go from place to place. We broke down on the side of the road and everyone was just kind of scattered in the middle of the desert and the bus is being worked on and I was just kind of sitting on a rock and just looking at everybody and looking at the bus and looking where we're at and just going whoa… I mean, look what I started, look what I've instigated. Look at this thing.

"I get overwhelmed by this thing sometimes. We've gone all over the world basically in the Spree and a lot of these people had never been outside of Texas before. Some of them had never flown on an airplane before. The experiences we've already had in the last four years is mind-boggling. It's pretty amazing that it all came from just an idea of wanting to try to create a sound."

These qualities, and the soaring, hopeful music are part of what leads to all the comparisons to cults. That, and being a 24-person band from Texas. Texas, you might recall, is where Waco is …

"I love Texas. Even though there's a big idiot that came from there, There's a lot of goodness that comes from that state," said DeLaughter of his home stomping grounds.

When asked about the cult status, he pauses and think, although this is a question he gets in every interview.

"I think maybe we are becoming a cult. I don't think 'cult' is necessarily A negative thing…I don't think we're there yet, but we certainly have the ingredients to be a cult.

"We are a unified group that seems to wind up on the same page on a nightly basis. We all agree on something and that seems to be kind of a musical tone. And it is a spirited event, and there's a lot of us and we tend to travel around and have people who want to join us. Everyone who's ever asked to be in the group I've let in the group. And if we don't have room, I take their name and number and maybe I'll give them a call some day.

"So I don't know. We could be a nice cult. A hopeful cult."

The Robes don't help the cult image at all. Initially, the band performed in white robes with different colored bands along the bottom. Now, with their second album (the first recording that was actually intended to be released) they've switched over to a rainbow of colors.

"We decided to be like the pixels of a television. The Technicolor Polyphonic Spree!"

This leaves the band with a security problem. We're living now in the world post-E2, post 9/11, post-Great White (and by that we mean the fire, not the crest of their wave which would set us back many, many years in our timeline.) Security at venues is a concern. And yet, anyone can show up in a Technicolor robe at a Polyphonic Spree show and be instantly mistaken for a member of the band.

This in itself is not a bad thing, and is even encouraged by the band. The band sells white robes at the merch table, and included Technicolor robes in a bonus package with pre-orders of the new record, "Together We're Heavy." DeLaughter gave a big thumbs up to some white-robed fans waiting in line outside the venue when we walked by them on the way to our discreet interview location.

But the robes are really the center of the band's power. First, if you wear one to the show, people respect you. You can get chicks (or guys if you like) with a robe. Just tell folks you play keyboards and they'll believe you. There are 24 freakin' people on the stage, like they know the difference. You can get a lot of people coming up to you and telling you how great you and your band are. All for standing there looking for all intents and purposes like a dork.

And there's the power.

Uniforms do two things. They give the wearer the sense of unity—you are one with those who wear the uniform and have worn it proudly before you. Whether that's your naval dress whites or your IBM programmer short-sleeve blue oxford doesn't matter. You are what you wear.

The other thing uniforms do is remove any sense of individuality from the wearer. If all who wear the uniform are one, then one isn't noticeably different from the other, right?

Somehow for members and fans of the Spree the robe uniform seems to have the opposite effect. Because once you look foolish, it really doesn't matter what else you do. Which allows each member of this enclave to develop their own personality and really let loose on stage. Rather than a rigid identity being dressed head-to-toe in, say, periwinkle allows you to unleash your inner geek. Long hair swinging, infectious grin wearing, some dancing, some leaping, some running around the stage with each other, each member of the Polyphonic Spree is a show unto themselves. Put it together all on one stage and you have a spectacle that is unmatched anywhere in the "ironic" and "jaded" music world. It's almost easy to forget the music itself is great, lyrical, melodic and worth it on its own merits.

So when that voice in your head, maybe it's Boy Howdy! himself whispering, tells you to don the robe yourself and check out the Spree the best thing you can do for yourself is listen and go with it. (Note: No actual robe required. You can wear whatever you like to their shows, or in the comfort of your living room, etc. But should you feel inclined, you might get some if you try it…)

—Matt Carmichael September 2004 Photo by Matt Carmichael