Photo by Jay Smiley
The Suburbs
Minnesota is known for lots of things: our beautiful accents, those 10,000 lakes, hot dish (or is it casserole?) and producing some of the most interesting music artists in the country. From Dylan to Doomtree, there’s rich history here, that would not be complete without the reign of The Suburbs.
Longtime frontman Chan Poling brought the guys together through Chris Osgood of the Suicide Commandos in the late 70s. They wanted to create something more unique than what DJs were spinning on air.
“At that point, there wasn’t such thing as punk-rock yet,” Poling said. “The alternative of those days was Bowie, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, all that great stuff. But it was artistic. The mainstream radio was very square—bands like Journey, Toto, that stuff. Yacht rock, real kinda slick. Then I came home to Minneapolis, and just really wanted to be in a band.”
The band, originally comprised of Bruce Allen, Poling himself, Michael Halliday, Hugo Klaers, and Blain John “Beej” Chaney, cut their teeth together at The Longhorn Bar in downtown. With a punk-rock scene starting to flourish, it was easy to find people to play with, and Poling reminisced on those beginning times of dance-focused punk-rock.
“We all just hit it off right away,” he said. “We worked well together and just loved it. So we’d go to the Longhorn together. The Police or Blondie would be playing in this tiny little room, so we played with them and then went on a tour with R.E.M. That’s the thing, we just got out and played. That’s what you have to do. We went to L.A., Boston, New York, Philly. . .we just kept hitting the road, trying to make it. Our first record came out when I was 19, and we never stopped.”
In the 10 years that followed, The Suburbs would release four studio albums and play hundreds of shows all around the country. Frustrated with trying to break out of the local scene, however, the group tried to call it quits in 1987.
“There was this thing called radio back then, and you had to break into that,” he said. “Bands like The Replacements, who used to open for us, started growing and becoming mainstream. They were playing stadiums all of the sudden. We had gotten to the point where we could taste those arena shows, but never fully got there,” Poling said thoughtfully.
Though heartbroken, the Twin Cities still loved these guys. The year after, the 'Burbs sold out four days of shows at First Ave. Apparently not much has changed. Thirty years later they played a sold-out show at the Turf Club on March 27, to officially release their single Hey Muse. It recently got traction on NPR's Heavy Rotation.
Reunion albums, shows, and tours seem to be the move to make nowadays, and The Suburbs aren’t alone in this venture. Other local groups like The Replacements, Babes in Toyland, and Soul Asylum have done the same, successfully. Poling said simply that life’s just too short to not play music.
“I think there’s this natural tendency to get tired of something, to take a rest,” Poling said. “But it’s also like, ‘Hey! This is our life, and we only have so much time!' You have to realize that if it’s what you’re good at, why wouldn’t you do what’s so natural? As you get older, the pet peeves and resentments and stuff start to drop away and you think, ‘Jeez, what was I so pissed off about? This is actually fun!'”
Their newest stuff, including Si Sauvage released in 2013, is more experienced, a little richer than their wild 80s new wave punk, but derives from that original sound, Poling said.
‘We’re actually good now. . .it’s not the nutty punk-rock of our teenage years. . .it’s still weird, though,” he made sure to add, laughingly.
They’re doing it all themselves, too. Rather than producing the record through traditional industry means, they’ve crowdsourced the entirety of the funds (a "funraiser," they called it) needed to make it happen from fans, who in turn, get a copy of the record before it’s widely released.
“People understand that the music business has changed,” Poling said. “I think everyone understand that. And people are like, ‘What can I do?’ Through this, you can go to our website and buy records directly from the artists, a t-shirt, backstage pass, or whatever. People want to be involved with that process, have that connection with the artist. It’s worked very well for us.”
Hey Muse is just one more stop on the long and winding road The Suburbs have taken. Set to drop on June 23, Hey Muse is "one of their better albums," according to Poling, and we can’t wait to devour it all. They’re not likely to stop anytime soon, either; though he writes for theater and is in another successful band, The New Standards, his first band has a special place in his heart.
“Life should be a rich tapestry, you know?” Poling said. “I have other things—travel, food, film, art—but I just can’t help but write rock songs. I’ll always be with The ‘Burbs."
