Interestingly however,
I have yet to see anyone else claim that 'Frosting On The Beater' is a near
masterpiece, or even a Velcro space-suit, the Posies included. I therefore
determined to ask them, these now-famous Geffen Records major label
recording stars, for their thoughts on the subject. Unfortunately, because
time is basically circular and space is just an extension of one's mind, all
attempts at personal communication seemed to be foiled. I missed them in
Seattle by a couple of days, was in Europe when they were in London and vice
versa, and eventually handed the entire job over to the far more capable and
slightly more presentable man-on-the-spot, Mr. Michael Piper. With a free
hand to ask whatever questions sprang to mind, the following potted history
of The Posies was wrung from the charming messrs. Auer and Stringfellow.
Hereafter Jon Auer does most of the taking, except where it's obvious that
Ken's speaking.
One thing I've always
been curious about is the name of the band. I notice in the dictionary that
'posie' is defined as 'the art of poetry'.
Is it really? We
certainly didn't have that in mind. It's one of those names we picked out,
not really trying to have a heck of a lot of significance or meaning behind
it, but it does serve to annoy or disturb people because it's so fey or
whatever. It's not the most important thing about us.
What would you say
are your earliest or most meaningful musical influences?
Obviously the Beatles
were huge at first, to my parents they were at least. They were into folk
music and stuff too. That and the early Who and Jimi Hendrix. I liked Cheap
Trick a lot when I was about eight or nine. There's so much more we picked
up on after the fact. We have voracious appetites for collecting music.
How did you guys get
together?
We met by being in a
band together. Jon was drafted into a band that I was already in which
didn't last very long, but at least we met. Eventually Jon was going to the
same school as I and we used to play in bands together. That's all we've
ever done. All we've ever done is play in bands.
How did the home
recording come about?
By necessity. It was an
after-school hobby, we used to go over to my house and use the eight track
studios that my father and I set up there. We never made a big deal out of
it, we just started recording songs, eventually finished them and put them
into an order, got a little package together and had a whole new album.
That's where the
'Failure' cassette came from?
Totally. One of the
earliest tangible goals we had was to open for the Young Fresh Fellows, who
were on PopLlama Records. About a year after 'Failure' had come out,
PopLlama put an LP of it out. It then took a while for it to become a CD.
One step at a time... get the record out, then more money went into the
manufacture of the cassette, then the CD came out in 1990.
Around the same time
if memory serves me 'The Sky Cries Mary' project began?
Well, that came to pass
about the same time as Jon and I were recording 'Failure'. I was living in
Seattle and met Roderick who was the singer/instigator behind Sky Cries Mary
and I helped him out doing their projects, recording on a 4 track and just
helping him to do his thing. Then we got Jon involved and we decided that
we'd go up and record some songs for him. So we just did a couple of songs.
It's not like Jon and I were involved in it as a band or anything. We even
played some shows, Jon was on drums and I was on bass and he sang and... we
were just trying to be noisy. We were trying the whole time to be the
Posies, but we just did this thing for a year or so. I would say that The
Sky Cries Mary now is more "normal" and the Posies are weirder; we're not as
straightforward, and they're a lot more straightforward now.
Then the Geffen
Records deal came through. Was that because of the positive press generated
by 'Failure'?
As far as I can tell
'Failure' was the main reason we got signed to Geffen. We played live shows
and stuff, but I don't think anyone payed any attention to them, not as far
as A&R people anyway.
You then went into the
studio with John Leckie, a pretty accomplished producer who certainly
brought a lot of his own flavour to the band. How was that experience?
We took a long time. We
were adamant about not doing it with John. Looking back on it I can remember
some enjoyable things, but it took so long... Our first major label record,
so we spent a lot of time working on it and planning it out, and what
actually came out of it wasn't a real band record. Everything was played
separately, pretty much.
So the album 'Dear
23' comes out and the critical acclaim starts pouring in; how did that
affect you? All those very favourable comparisons to Badfinger and Big Star?
"Aaaah, neato" we said.
Then we sold no records.
Did the reviews set
up expectations which were hard to meet, or was it just the "critics
darlings syndrome"?
I think we really had no
idea what we were doing at the time. That whole experience served to teach
us what the real world was like out there. Our existence was fairly ideal
when we were making 'Failure'. We were going to college, living on our
parents' money and recording in a home studio. We didn't have any pressure
or anyone looking at us, or any of those kind of things. The reality of
doing a record that goes out to the public immediately is that there's a lot
of intrusions. Intrusions by people who are interested in the business side
of things, like record companies and managers and what-not. It's a little
bit different. But I think we learned to control those things... we went
from total isolation to whatever the opposite of isolation is; immersion.
Immersion in the big music world.
Around the time you
went into the studio to do the follow-up album you had bass player troubles
and also decided to go in for a new manager.
We spent three weeks in
a studio that cost almost nothing and it didn't sound very good. It had a
bad mood to it, and some of the songs... looking back, there's a couple of
songs that sound alright, but I don't know if they'd have been alright to
the point of putting them out as a representative record. Really I guess
some of the problem was that we recorded some of Rick's songs that to us
didn't fit in at all. The end result is something that sounds a little bit
limp, a bit lifeless. The manager was gone by the time we were on the road
for 'Dear 23'. We found we had someone who was a little less qualified for
the job than he claimed to be. And we found that the hard way.
There's a big
difference between playing around Seattle and playing around the world.
Working with a big label
means that you've really got to have someone who's on top of it, who can
direct what's going on rather than being directed by it. I think our manager
at the time was steamrollered by it all and didn't know what to do.
So now it's on to
'Frosting On The Beater', a new producer [Don Fleming] and a much harder
edge to it. How did that go?
Really, we spent all of
1992 either working on the record or wanting to continue working on the
record. It was December by the time we were done mixing it. It was more fun
making that record though, which is another difference between that and
'Dear 23' which wasn't really a lot of fun to make; it was more like hard
work. It was fun to be quick and dirty about it instead of being precious,
not to have to go over and repeat doing things.
Do you think you'll
work with Don as a producer again?
I don't think we would,
not as a reflection on him but because we like to work with different
people. I think Don really did good for this record, but some of the things
we wanted to do we missed out on being involved with him.
You did a UK tour
with Teenage Fanclub, who Don Fleming had previously worked with. You also
did a Big Star reunion show over there; how did that come about?
Well, there was
originally one spot available for a bass player and I got a call asking if I
wanted to do it. I said it didn't make much sense to do it if you only got
one of us, because who were you going to get to fill the other spot anyway?
And names were mentioned like Chris Stamey and Paul Westerburg, people of
that ilk. And we were saying well that's cool, but don't you think it'd make
more sense to have two guys who have been singing together for as long as we
have? We know the songs and we'd also be a little more anonymous I think,
their names would interfere y'know, it'd be like "Paul Westerburg of the
Replacements joins Big Star!" "Chris Stamey, formerly of the dB's..." And we
were just two guys who obviously cared a lot. It was a lot of fun, we had a
good time. It wasn't that hard to do honestly because that stuff was second
nature to us. We actually ended up doing probably four or five shows. A
couple of the ones in Britain were special. One of them was pretty magical,
and the one that's on the record is like the first time people got back
together. I kinda wish the later shows had been recorded because by that
time we were cooking. It was definitely worth doing. There's probably more
in the works, so hopefully we'll be out and about although I don't think
anybody wants to tour, us included. It's not like 3 Dog Night is getting
back together or something.
I understand you did
a few of the British festivals.
Only really two. We
played a lot over there with Teenage Fanclub. We found England very
receptive and very on top of it. I think there's more appreciation for the
style of music we play over there than there is in America. America seems to
be so driven by hard rock and MTV. As far as the radio is concerned the
Posies always seems to fall right on the edge of being one thing or another,
neither rock or pop. In England it seems a little more eclectic. They don't
mind throwing a lot of things together.
You did some
recording over there as well?
Well actually while we
were on tour in England we had a request for a song for a film called
'Reality Bites'. We recorded a number called 'Going Going Gone' at this
place called The Manor, which was really cool. It was unreal, the kind of
place you don't want to leave. We took a day and a half, and that was our
first taste of recording for a while. There's not been a lot going on in the
recording department since 'Frosting'. We did some covers and demos, but
nothing of real note.
Will any of those
covers see the light of day?
There's an 5 song extra
CD coming out with the Australian version of 'Frosting' which has 'Song of a
Baker', 'Ooh Child', 'Every Christian Lionhearted Man Will Show You' by the
Bee Gees, 'I Am The Cosmos' and our legendary version of 'Beck's Bolero'.
I'm looking forward to that.
A lot of your lyrics
are a bit on the depressive, slightly dysfunctional side. Where does that
come from?
Well, you say that, but
also people have told me how good they make them feel. A lot of it has to do
with the fact that we all go through similar things psychologically and
emotionally as people and we just write about our experiences. Plus we
listened to a lot of depressed people like Paul Westerburg while we were
growing up, and it's kind of cathartic to hear somebody like that. We had to
rely a lot on our feelings and our minds rather than our aggressions when we
were growing up — our parents have both been divorced — and I think those
were our defences.
On a completely
different tack, how did you feel when you heard Ringo Starr had done a cover
of 'Golden Blunders'?
We were like, "Oh my
God!", y'know. It looks good on the resume. Andrew Gold played guitar, and
Waddy Wachtel played rhythm.
And you popped up on
Maria McKee's last album.
Popped up and mixed out.
Well, a lot of it was mixed out — a lot of the good stuff. I'd like to pop
her one. Right on the nose. Boink! Next question?
Actually, there
aren't any.
Interview: Michael
Piper
Written & directed
by: Phil McMullen
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