The Posies 'Every Kind of Light' album

The Posies are simply one of the most creative, resourceful, and influential bands to emerge from the American DIY underground in the last two decades. When the Posies’ core singer/songwriter partnership of Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer sundered in 1998, fans around the world mourned their breakup.

But now is the time for all Posies people to dry their tears and shed their black garments: This spring Rykodisc will release Every Kind of Light—the first full-strength new album by the Posies since their 1998 swan song Success.

Between then and now, “the Posies had everything that a band that runs the course of its career usually ends up having: a live album, a greatest hits, a box set,” explains Jon Auer. “Somewhere along the line of getting those things together with each other, we became an acoustic duo again—which is how we started playing, nearly 20 years ago. So in essence, we returned to our roots—to use a much-abused phrase—and things just grew exponentially from there.”

With this recording, both Jon and Ken have set aside their prolific solo careers (cf. Ken’s roadwork with R.E.M., Jon’s appearance on the William Shatner/Ben Folds album Has Been, their joint work with the revived Big Star, etc.) to rededicate themselves to the group they co-founded in 1987. Every Kind of Light is the work of a new quartet—with bassist Matt Harris and drummer Darius Minwalla—that is the closest thing to an equal creative partnership in the Posies’ long history. All twelve songs are credited to the four musicians, and the entire album was written—and all basic tracks cut—in three straight weeks of intensive effort at The Soundhouse in Seattle, WA.

“This record was created in a way totally different from any we’ve made before---which was a conscious decision on everyone’s part,” explains Jon Auer. “We wrote it in the studio as we went along, and were forced by circumstance to sink or swim.”

Ken Stringfellow notes: “The first song, 'Conversations,' was composed, arranged and recorded on February 1, 2004—and we managed to write a piece of music from scratch, every day for the next twelve days.”

In contrast to the painstaking production of previous Posies platters such as Dear 23 (1990) and Frosting On The Beater (1993), Every Kind Of Light is characterized by the immediacy and excitement of great live rock and roll. “We recorded the majority of this music as four people playing off each other in a room together,” says Jon, “and we tried to keep as much as possible of what we initially put down as a group.”

“Pretty much what you hear on this record is the first or second time we played the music all the way through,” Ken adds, “and it really shows. It's alive.”

Every Kind Of Light was created with the full participation of the Posies’ new rhythm section. Bassist Matt Harris was recruited from Bay Area band Oranger, and previously played with San Diego pop-punkers Overwhelming Colorfast (1994-99).

Drummer Darius Minwalla has toured and/or recorded with Preston School of Industry, Super Deluxe, Harvey Danger, and Jim Carroll. He joined the Posies in early 2001, when Ken and Jon resurrected the band for occasional live performances. “They gave me about 40 songs to learn in not very much time. It was do or die—a lot like the recording of Every Kind of Light, actually.”

As a long-time member of the REM touring band, Ken Stringfellow is “always amazed by how many people come up to me, at clubs and bars all over the world, to say how much they love those old Posies records. So we plan to tour as much as possible—my goal is to capitalize on all that we have built with our fans.

“Plus, we want to build relationships in countries we really didn't get to visit much before, and deliver a live show that many people who have not seen the band on stage should see. It’s a very different interpretation of our recorded work, with a nice hint of violence and raw power that...well...you’ll just have to see it!”

“It sounds like a cliché, but we’ve reached the point in our career where it’s more interesting to challenge ourselves, to be different, than to fall back into a comfortable groove or pander to any possible expectations based on our past,” says Jon Auer. “It truly amazes me that we have been around the proverbial block and still can come up with ways to surprise each other.

“The history between us is something that can’t be erased. It just so happened that, beyond the Posies’ history, we found we have a future together.”

www.theposies.net

June 2005

Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow Talk About The Songs of Every Kind of Light

“It’s Great to Be Here Again”
Jon: “One of the oddest things we’ve ever done. The title sounds like a celebration of the Posies’ return—but in fact, it’s my take on corporate/consumerist America, and getting a dig in at some of America’s more puritanical elements. In effect, the song is asking ‘well, how great is it to be here, in the USA today?’”

“Conversations”
Jon: ”From a certain point of view, this song may have set the tone for the Every Kind of Light sessions. On a personal level, it’s offered here as an open invitation to someone very close to me to keep sharing an intimate dialog for as long as we are both willing to listen.”

“Could He Treat You Better”
Ken: “An old-fashioned he-done-you-wrong song. Except the ‘he’ is our Dear Leader, George W., and the abused woman is our nation, or the nation I think we once lived in. I worry that they resemble each other less each day.”

Jon: “Again, a bid to try something we’d never done before. I’m sure that ‘Posies’ plus ‘12-bar blues’ equals ’big question mark’ in many people’s minds.”

“I Finally Found A Jungle I Like”
Jon: “The Posies’ first all-out party anthem, pure absurdist Fun Rock. It came about as fast as any Posies song ever done and was recorded in the blink of an eye. The horn riff on the coda was pilfered from John Entwistle’s song ‘My Wife,’ from Who’s Next—although instead of sampling it, we hired some proper horn players to execute this shameless lift…This must have been the first time we’ve ever taken our drummer’s suggestion for a lyric.”

“Last Crawl”
Jon: “Almost a “torch song”, Posies style. Initially, I declared this fiction but slowly realized the lyrics said more about a particular point in my life than I was willing to admit. I thought I was writing about the cumulative effect of personal heartbreak when in hindsight I had a certain someone in mind all along. But it does come from that situation when your heart’s been stomped on and perhaps the greatest solace you can find is in a

bottle at a womb-like neighborhood bar…Honestly, we did it so fast, I couldn’t tell you how it came out of me.”

“That Don’t Fly”
Ken: “A song that came from remembering the beauty and openness of the USA and its people that I recall—say, pre-2000—and wondering if I should just give up or not. The past can't be recreated, I know—but in the meantime, my wife and I mostly live in her native France (‘I wonder if you even notice I left you for another shore’). These are ‘breakup songs,’ in a sense, but the break-up is with my native country and culture.”

“Sweethearts of Rodeo Drive”
Ken: “Another song that references the ugly side of American consumer culture and the fact that said culture benefits a few rich white old men…the same ones prosecuting the current war in Iraq…which also benefits certain companies with certain rich white board members.”

Jon: “I felt a little strange, initially, recording Posies songs with these political subtexts. I’ve always been a fan of love songs, of songs about the finer points of relationships. But there is a relationship between each of us and our country, between our beliefs and ourselves, so ultimately it ended up making real sense to me. These songs were created during a pretty tense and pivotal time, as we were starting to wonder who was going to be the next President of the United States. Unfortunately, now we all know…

“This one began as a play on Sweethearts of the Rodeo, the Byrds album title and developed into this sweetly melodic diatribe against rampant, excessive consumerism. Why Adrian Brody and Shaquille O’Neal? Well, we needed the names of some famous Humvee drivers to fit in there and these two sounded pretty good to us.”

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The Posies - Every Kind of Light