There's a rumour that you are a cult leader who brainwashes all the members of the band and makes them take part in orgies...
Tim: (laughing) Recently someone asked me, 'What do you put in the Kool-Aid?' I said, 'I don't serve Kool-Aid but how about a nice Hawaiian punch?' I'm just kinda amazed at how people have taken this project. Once you incorporate the robes, people read into it a lot more. All the robes were for was to keep people from being distracted by 24 people up there in street clothes. I thought white robes would unify the band. But it's turned into a lot more than that with the content of the uplifting music it's working in a way that's kinda surprising everyone. But no, we are not a cult.
When I saw you play you in London the band were all grinning and smiling like you'd brainwashed them...
It was a big deal. Half the band have never been outside of Texas, much less come over there. I was just kinda thrilled to get up there and share what we do with everybody on that side of the water. This is something I've been wanting to do for I guess, my whole life. It's a wishlist band, if I could have anything I wanted, musically, to put together, this was it.
I heard a rumour you were setting up robe-wearing Polyphonic Spree groups all around the world...
I can totally see that happening. Eventually it'll become a musical and it'll travel round, going to different places. I hope to see The Polyphonic Spree go for quite some time.
A musical?
Lyrically it's already there. That's how I've always written. I improvise the lyrics. I play the music first and then I just kind of see a vision in my head and I sing what I see. I've done it mah whole life, but now these visions are going to want to come out, they're getting more and more and they're just playin' themselves out, especially in the new material that's going on.
I'm building it up all gradually. There's something truly amazing going on with the Polyphonic Spree and the way that it's affecting everyone in the group and the people who see it. I've never seen anything like the response we're getting from people.
We just went to New York for a week and it was way over the top. It was unbelievable. We were playing clubs where people usually just cross their arms and clap in between songs. We had these people jumping up and down, screaming and singing the songs. The deal is, we come to a city, we stay for a week and we play every single night, so you have people there from the night before, by the third night, they're learning the lyrics and singing them and it's just OVER THE TOP! It's truly amazing the spirit that's being thrown back and forth with this band. I never counted on that, I just wanted to create a sound but what's come out of it has been much more.
Your music sounds like Prozac music, like it's made by people who have had a breakdown.
I can see that. I've generally been a happy person my whole life. I've always made happy music and I think that goes back to the first single I ever bought by the band called First Class and the song was called Beach Baby. That's the first song I ever bought and that pretty much sums up where I'm at right now. I'm 36. It shows musically where I was as a kid and where I'm at right now. I listened to that song today and I was like 'golly that sounds like Polyphonic Spree'. I've always been a fan of sunny music. I'm drawn to sunny music. I guess I've become a product of my environment.
Are there any drugs involved in your constantly sunny disposition?
No, believe it or not. I'm drug free except I drink alcohol every now and then. I've done drugs in the past but I'm drug free in this band.
Come on it's a cult isn't it? You're going to start it all over the world and make everybody wear robes.
We sell our own robes at the gigs. One night in Texas we were all singing and I was looking at the crowd and they were belting the lyrics and I just thought 'wow, these guys are part of the choir, they should have their own robes'. The next day we decided to have some robes made and sell them at the show. Eventually when all the people come to see the Polyphonic Spree they'll go in the closet and get their own robe and head down to the show.
What if it got out of control and all your fans started following you as they would a cult leader?
I'd be flattered. At the end of the day I play music and it's pop music but it's got something else with it that I don't think is out there and that was the whole point of starting this, out of necessity for myself. That I could make something that I wasn't getting out there.
September 2002
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