THE POSIES

Earthy nature



The Posies, by Julian Ochoa. 2010. L-R: Ken Stringfellow, Darius Minwalla, Matt Harris, Jon Auer



The Posies, the band from Bellingham, present the latest release Blood/Candy (Rykodisc, 2010) on tour across Europe. After performing in Austria and Germany, the time for Barcelona has arrived, next November 10. Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, the core members, founded the band in late 1986. Their debut album was Failure and it was released in 1988 on cassette only and reissued on vinyl and CD near the end of 1988. It was the time of the Seattle rock scene which was going to shock the world under the label of grunge music. Major labels noticed the band so they could produce their second album in a more professional way. In 1990 they released Dear 23 featuring the single Golden Blunders which reached number 17 on the charts being even covered by Ringo Starr on his 1992 album Time Takes Time. Then convulsion and confusion arrived and the band released just three albums along the nineties. They have worked also on solo projects but The Posies have never died at all and the latest Blood/Candy, their seventh studio album mainly recorded in Spain and the first new album release in five years, is a new proof of their great power pop. Here is the result of the interview with Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, The Posies.

How could you describe your evolution since the album Failure?

Ken Stringfellow:
My word…well, it's been 25 years since we released that album. I was 19 when it was released, barely an adult. Imagine my life experiences since then. When we released Failure we'd never even played live more than one or two acoustic shows. Touring changed everything, how we perform, what kind of songs we want to write…but, all the other things--marriages, children…the freaking internet for goodness sake…I mean….we are on another planet now from 1988.

Jon Auer:

Well, I think we've become more sophisticated for sure. And we've grown into adults instead of being basically kids like we were when we made FAILURE and have had a lot more time to learn more about ourselves and music along the way. That's a very simple answer to a question that could take very long to answer!

That album opened with the song Blind eyes open. Good description for the human being?

K: Perhaps, but it sounds more like a kitten. But it was about seeing someone I had been in a relationship with in a different way. Funny story--I wrote the song when I was off at University in Seattle; Jon & I had already been playing in bands together for years at that point, and when I moved to Seattle from our hometown, we decided a little break was in order. When I came back on holiday to show him what I'd been working on, I played him this song. He turned white and didn't make any comment when I was done, and proceeded to show me the song “he” was working on, at the same time, about the “same” girl-- and the song was called "Closed Eyes Open". Spooky!

Your latest album is Blood/Candy. This duality is something about the pleasure of violence?

K: No, Blood is more the earthy nature of life, the grit and pain and human-ness; Candy is the dream, the art, the creation…that's the duality.

J: In simple terms, it's the bitter and the sweet, light and dark...Yin and Yang. I think the title represents us well.

Could you tell us about the creation process of the album?

J: We began with a very quick recording session in the South of Spain that was then complimented by a long period of overdubbing and editing. It took much longer than we thought it was going to, it was a much more complex recording than we predicted.

K: I spent a little time writing these songs in late 2009, I set aside 4 days, and wrote 4 very good songs -- including one that ended up on my band The Disciplines' last album. The others, plus some songs from an earlier writing session (that also yielded some of the songs for my last solo album, Danzig in the Moonlight) were my contributions. We got together in early 2010 to learn what songs we had, as a band, in Seattle. Jon had a couple of songs I wasn't so sure about; I pushed him and he delivered, in this rehearsal, the stunning "Accidental Architecture". We played all the new songs in Seattle at the end of the week, and then flew to Spain (with some trouble from the Icelandic volcano, but nothing major) to record in El Puerto de Santa Maria, the studio of Paco Loco. We recorded all the major parts there. I added a few things at home and mixed some of the songs in Seattle; Jon did the same. I had a colleague in Paris mix a few songs. The writing is personal, and it came from different times and different inspirations, but I think these songs work very well as an album.

The opening track is Plastic Paperbacks. You sing Once I had money but now I’m so far from home. Still far?

K: Well, the song is not about me, of course. Don't confuse the book with the author. I think I am making a general comment on materialism vs. the 'real' things that matter.

What about Lisa Lobsinger?

K: We only met once, when the Posies and Broken Social Scene played at the same festival, which was after the sessions in Spain but we were still working on the album. She was really agreeable and charming. And I never saw her again! She recorded her parts in Canada, and sent them in, and that was that. We've never performed the song together live--we've had hundreds of guest singers sing it live with us.

Love is always present in your albums. There’s nothing else?

J: Yes, there are other things of course...but love is important to say the least. I think everyone wants it, needs it even. It's not always easy to figure out how to truly get or give or how to maintain it. Maybe why that's why it's so fascinating.

K: There's plenty more. Listen more carefully. Friendship, family, despair, death. Many things.

How do you take care of yourselves?

J: As best I can, sometimes not as well as I should! Better with time I have found…

K: If you are referring to the song, I don't have the answer. I had someone close to me who was in a lot of danger, self inflicted danger from drugs, he's tried suicide. It was a plea, not an order.

You will be on tour for a while. You work with new arrangements for the live shows?

J: This remains to be seen, to be known. I'd be better at answering this after rehearsals, but I'd like to think we'll do something surprising, at least one or two things.

K: The tour we are doing, is not that long. As you may have heard, we are performing two of our older albums with two of our former lineups. But, we will play some of the more recent songs, which of course these guys have never played.

One of your own questions: Which fire is the fire that turns you into a sharper eye?

K: I don't ask questions because I want to hear “my”answers.

Could you tell us a dream?

J: I need to wake up first...haha

K: I dreamt the other night that I'd somehow convinced my two sets of parents to live in the same part of the world, my hometown of Bellingham where my mom, but not my dad, actually lives. And then found out the property was all condemned (which is something happening to houses near where I spend my summers in France, it's considered unstable after a big storm changed the coastline). I don't know what that's all supposed to mean. But I think it at least partially means that the ground beneath me is not stable-- which is not to say anything other than I'm probably terrified because I have to change accountants this month, after 20 years of having my taxes done by the same people. You know…change. It's good. 

An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
The Posies website www.theposies.net
Photo by Julian Ochoa
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