Interview: The Postelles’ Daniel Balk talks about the band; what to expect from their first visit to Kansas City
Bethany, Midcoast Station: You guys are getting ready to tour–well, you already are on tour…it seems like you never stop touring, but you’re getting ready to tour through Kansas City where I’m based out of. You’ll be here November 2. For people in Kansas City who may not have heard you guys before, how would you describe your sound and why should they check out the show?
Daniel Balk, The Postelles: Well, particularly for the live show, it is very rock and roll. Definitely house party vibe; get everyone dancing, hopefully. It doesn’t always work out that way, but we try to give off that vibe: care-free, have a good time. I don’t like when people go to shows and just stand there. What’s the point? We’re excited about Kansas City. For a band that’s always on tour, Kansas City is one of just a handful of cities that we haven’t been to and played. So we’re excited. It will be cool.
MC: There’s a good buzz and the Wombats have a following here with some radio play. So it should have a good crowd. So how did you guys meet and form The Postelles?
DB: We all went to high school together in Manhattan, New York. So we’ve just known each other forever…a long time.
MC: Where does the band name come from?
DB: We went through a lot of band names and I was just sitting alone one night. I guess I was listening to a lot of motown records at the time – The Shirelles, bands with ‘elles,’ that type of stuff. They’re all girl bands, right? I sort of just said, you know no one really has a band name like that anymore. Why not just make a little play on that? I think the biggest thing is to be unique. There’s no other ‘elles’ now. It’s not like “The Killers.” It’s unique and different and I sort of like that.
MC: Another thing that you have in NYC that we don’t really have in KC are residencies. I know at the beginning you were doing a lot of residencies. How do those compare to touring shows and how do you keep something like that fresh – where you’re playing at the same place for a week?
DB: With residencies, I really like them a lot, in New York, you sort of make a venue your home for a month or three weeks or whatever. It’s nice to show up at the same place and say hey, how you doing and just play. In terms of being fresh, all of our live shows are a little bit different. We don’t play the same set list every night or anything. We always change it, keep it unique, so we’ve never had any problems with it being too much the same. We also do a lot of cover. We really love doing them. I know a lot of bands don’t like doing that. In terms of rock and roll, we’ve always done covers, The Beatles or Rolling Stones, we love putting our own spin on that. It also keeps it fresh.
MC: You guys did just put out a covers EP.
DB: That was more of a thank you to fans. It was a free EP, so it was a thank you to all our fans that have to wait so long for things.
MC: When you choose a cover, are you choosing songs that influence you or just something you like listening to..?
DB: The covers EP came about – I think all those bands were sort of from the same era-The Smiths, The Ramones–all the same time period late 70s or early 80s. We wanted to give sort of a beach vibe to those songs and it worked out – all those songs have summer lyrics too. They were just great songs that we really loved. We sort of did it really quickly, so it didn’t hurt that all those songs only had a few chord changes.
MC: Well, it is a fun EP. Speaking of other bands, you guys have worked with Albert Hammond, Jr. of The Strokes, which is a group that’s a huge inspiration for a lot of bands. What was it like to work with him?
DB: Albert is great. He’s been helping us from the beginning since he saw us play in high school. He’s been our friend for a long time, so it was nice to work with a friend. We know a lot of other producers that our label at the time wanted us to work with, but we didn’t know them or felt uncomfortable or whatever, so we ended up going with Albert because we trusted and knew him. It was definitely good vibes going into it and he knew the music and was really good. He’s a perfectionist, which is something we strive for, but being young we can use his help. Some things we’d get carried away with and he’d say, ‘no, take your time.’ So it was good.
MC: Now I just read an article, I think it was on msnbc.com, about your involvement with Music Unites. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and your involvement.
DB: Yeah! Music Unites is an organization that I think is based out of New York, but they sort of work everywhere. Their goal is to help schools fund their music programs. It’s just a few friends who work with them and we always try to help them out. They put on a lot of events around the country, but mostly in New York, to raise funds. So they have all these events and they invite us in to play a few of them and it is just a really fun idea: help our friends to help other people out.
MC: Very cool. We love hearing about bands that are involved. Now, you guys were at the infamous Kings of Leon pigeon show in our sister city of St. Louis. Is that the craziest thing you’ve had happen on tour or is there something that tops it?
DB: Is that the craziest that’s ever happened? Yes, it has to be one of the craziest things that has ever happened. There are a lot of crazy things that happen on tour. We were playing Montreal once at like a house party and we were the first band out of four bands or something like that and the cops shut it down after our set because the crowd was so crazy. And all these bands that had traveled into Montreal from other countries and around Canada and the US could not play because of the cops. We had to apologize. It was a little awkward. So that was a pretty crazy set. With St. Louis, I remember people being really angry when Kings of Leon walked off. We did make it through our set, but we were so excited to just be playing for that many people that I think that people could have been shooting at us with guns and we probably would have made it through our set. But with KOL’s lighting show and how loud they play, they got hit way worse.
MC: Well, fortunately when you return to Missouri to play Kansas City, you’ll be in a covered venue. So nothing too wild. Now after you tour with The Wombats and then The Kooks, what’s next for your band?
DB: We’re recording a lot. We’ve already gotten 12 songs done for a second album and maybe even for another release of some sort. We’ve been spending a lot of time working on new songs and recording them. That’s pretty much what we’ve been focusing on. When we’re done with touring, we do another headline show in LA and they’re we’re coming back and really just focusing on recording. Being in a band nowadays, especially with where we’re at, you never really know when you’re going to get a call, “Oh, in two weeks you’re going here.” That always happens.
MC: Do you do most of your writing on the road then? It seems like you’re always on tour.
DB: Yes and no. There are a lot of late night hotel writing sessions where it will be me and like a drink or two and I’ll work on a new song. At sound check, before a show, it is really nice because as a band we can all work together and write a new song too.
MC: Cool. Is there anything else you want to add or include that maybe I didn’t cover?
DB: I just hope everyone comes out to the show and checks out our record that came out in June.
MC: Sounds great! I’ll see you at your show. Thank you.
DB: Yeah, sounds great. Thanks.
Be sure to check The Postelles out live on tour. Tickets for the Kansas City show are still available here and you can find out more about The Postelles at thepostelles.com.
