“It’s sort of a project or experiment of just hanging out together and then it kind of became a band.”
This is how Channy Leaneagh describes the beginnings of Poliça, which after coming out of virtually nowhere, proved to be one of the great success stories of 2012.
Only forming last year, the Minneapolis-based quartet released their debut, electronic-infused album Give You The Ghost, and they’ve been making waves worldwide ever since, including garnering high praise from various influential sources including Bon Iver and even Jay-Z.
Leaneagh still seems positively grounded and humbled though, and chats freely about forming the band, their imminent Australian tour, the battle for auto-tune, and that Justin Vernon quote.
Poliça’s story began with Gayngs, a long-running Midwest band founded by Ryan Olson, that featured over 25 musicians in various forms, and it was through these collaborations that Leaneagh and Olson began to spend time together.
“I was in a band called Gayngs, and it was more of a project in the sense that there were lots of people in the band, it brought a lot of different musicians together,” Leaneagh explains. “We (her and producer, Olson) started talking to each other when I was on tour with that band and we just started hanging out, the same way that Gayngs was made”.
The majority of the tracks from the band’s debut record also came from these times spent at Olson’s house, some created over only a few nights. “We would just go and hang out at Ryan’s house and he’d put on a beat and I’d sing over it, and we got 11 of those songs from a couple of nights of hanging out,” she explains.“I’m never at home anymore… but at the same time life kind of just goes on without you and you just feel like you’re living in a different world.”
The ethereal-voiced songstress describes her hometown of Minneapolis as having a big influence on the band’s initial recordings, saying “it’s very vibrant and really bursting with lots of bands and people working with each other,” and her outfit “was just one of many that are happening here.”
Poliça became an internationally recognised band in a very short space of time, immediately surrounded by hype and expectations, something that was at times difficult to deal with, although very rewarding.
“It’s made me really happy, I’m really grateful for it,” she continues. “It kind of makes you unfamiliar with yourself and where you came from, I’m never at home anymore. I’m just so happy to be here but at the same time life kind of just goes on without you and you just feel like you’re living in a different world.”
Their debut record received rave reviews from American tastemakers like Pitchfork, NPR, and even Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, who labelled them the “best band [he’d] ever heard.”
“I think we all took it with a really large grain of salt,” Leaneagh says regarding Vernon’s praise. “It’s awesome, and we’re really grateful. It helped, lots of people heard of us through that. I don’t think any of us truly believe that we are sincerely the best thing he’s ever heard, and I’m sure he’s found something else by now.”
Poliça’s unique sound has proved to be somewhat of a reviewer’s nightmare, continually defying a specific genre, melding together delicately distorted vocals, RnB beats, and subtle bass lines. Even the frontwoman herself struggles to pin the band’s sound down.
“We usually just say electronic, like electro-pop, but that doesn’t really explain it very well,” she jokes. “It’s really percussive obviously, with a heavy rhythm section, and it’s poppy in the sense that there’s comfortable melodies, with a female singer.”
“Maybe percussive electro-pop? I have no idea really. It’s definitely music,” she says.
Leaneagh lists other musical influences, like Jai Paul’s ‘BTSTU’ (“on repeat everyday”), as well as the likes of Frank Ocean, James Blake, and The Weeknd. Whose influence on the the equally diverse and strange lyrical content on Give You The Ghost lingers, something that is compounded by the heavy distortion that is lovingly added to the mix by Leaneagh.
“I think that the songwriting is based in folk, and musically it’s very repetitive,” she explains. “A lot of it’s about the human condition, it’s kind of a metaphor for everything as opposed to being ironic or anything. It’s pretty simple human outcries I suppose. I’m usually just inspired by human situations.”
Poliça will be bringing their unique sounds to Australian shores for St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival in February, their first ever visit to the country, something that they are “very excited for” and “talked about a lot” during their other tours, saying “wow, that’s going to be amazing”.
On their recent European tour, Leaneagh has been accompanied by her young daughter, something that although at times is “a really big challenge”, was “really good” for her and the group as a whole.
“The band loved having her there and so did I,” she says. “She did a great job, and got to see lots of amazing things. I would love to bring her with me to Australia, but I don’t think she could handle the flight. I think maybe, hopefully, if we come again…”
While in the country, Leaneagh and co. will also be playing a pair of intimate sideshows in Melbourne and Sydney. “I think they’re enjoyable,” she says of a Poliça live show. “There’s a lot of energy, people usually say. People often tell me that it sounds a lot like the record. Usually people feel good when they leave.”
“A lot of it’s about the human condition, it’s kind of a metaphor for everything as opposed to being ironic or anything. It’s pretty simple human outcries…”Translating such a dense, eclectic mix of sounds to the live setting didn’t prove to be too difficult. “We became a band so quickly that we kind of just took everything that we used in the studio and took it on stage,” she explains. “It’s just four of us and we have our roles and guidelines and policies if you will, and we just play around in between those, with the framework of the band.”
“It’s a pretty simple set-up. We try and let the complexities come from the visual musicians and how they all meld together.”
The record has served to cast the much maligned auto-tune in a more positive light, being utilised in a distinctly unique manner by the band, although Leaneagh wants to distant herself from coming to represent the instrument.
“I think people will always reject technology, and everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” Leaneagh says. “It’s just a different sound for experimenting with, and there’s plenty of room for people not to listen to it. I think in general I’m not taking a stand on auto-tune, but if you don’t like it, you don’t have to listen to it.”
Not content to rest on their recent successes, Poliça are already hard at work on the follow-up to Give You The Ghost, with some vocals “already recorded”.
“Definitely in the beginning part of next year,” Leaneagh says on when we might get a taste of the new material, which Laneway Festival-goers may get to experience, set to play “about four” of them on the Australian tour.
In summing up the success that they’ve experienced thus far, Channy Leaneagh attributes a large majority of it to simply being good friends with her bandmates, and enjoying the long stretches of time spent on tour together.
“It’s nice that we have a band that gets along and we’re a good team. It’s been going well.”
Give You The Ghost is out now through Inertia, read the Tone Deaf review here.
Poliça play Laneway Festival in February, full details and set times here, tickets available from lanewayfestival.com.au – as well as two sideshows, see below for details.
Poliça 2013 Australian Tour
February 4th – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC
Tickets available here.
February 5th, Oxford Art Factory, Sydney NSW
Tickets available here.
