Make What You Want To Make - Backlash Be Damned

Polica, fronted by Channy Leaneagh, was hailed as the most alt of alt-R&B acts in 2012. Yet, when the Minneapolis band hit 2013's Laneway, they stunned audiences with a slamming post-rock set - amplified by dual drummers. Now they're headed to Vivid LIVE 2016 on the back of a third album, United Crushers, which reveals a compelling socio-political dimension.

"We've been performing the album almost in its entirety, so it's a very fluid, mapped-out set," says bassist Chris Bierden. "We've spent a lot of time getting the live show really tight and kinda working out certain stage movements that we do. So hopefully it looks pretty well put together at this point!" Polica will likely also play "a smattering of old songs."

Leaneagh was in the folk outfit Roma Di Luna with husband Alexei Moon Casselle, only they separated personally and professionally. Meanwhile, the singer-songwriter provided backing vocals for Ryan Olson's collective Gayngs. Olsen proposed a side-project, the pair expanding Polica with Bierden and drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu. Though Olson declined to tour, he remains primary producer (he and Leaneagh have since wed).

"It didn't feel like a real band until we played our first show and then all of a sudden we were starting to tour." 

Polica's debut, Give You The Ghost, was drenched in heartbreak. They were classed as alt-R&B alongside Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, Leaneagh using effects pedals on her soulful voice. Polica promptly followed with the harder, feminist-themed Shulamith, superfan Justin Vernon of Bon Iver cameoing. Today Bierden suggests that, for Polica, genre is "obsolete".

Polica still tends to be perceived as Leaneagh's vehicle with Olson, but all members have input. "It's always been very collaborative in that everyone is trying to bring their own style and put it into the song and hopefully have it all make sense together." Bierden himself has a solo project, Invisible Boy, and gigs in Har Mar Superstar's band.

Leaneagh dramatically told DIY that she approached United Crushers as her "last chance", imagining "a 'final paper' feel" - quotes repeated in reviews. "I would like to think that it's a certain refinement process that we went through," Bierden responds. "The [band's] success happened without any of us really expecting it. It was very pieced together. It didn't feel like a real band until we played our first show and then all of a sudden we were starting to tour." United Crushers is their most considered LP. "We took a year, we wrote the record, we got the songs ready to perform live, and then we went into the studio." In fact, Polica decamped to an isolated complex in Texas.

The single Wedding — actually about the link between street drugs and police militarisation - has a strikingly topical video. Inspired by Sesame Street, Leaneagh and puppets teach children about police brutality. Few US artists beyond the urban scene have addressed concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement - and Bierden reckons that they fear "a backlash" for being political. "I guess we just don't really think about it that way. It's never been a band that is trying to aim for a certain level of success - we just wanna make the stuff that we wanna make. That's always been a pretty evident mission statement from the very beginning of the band - that we don't wanna be fettered by commercial expectations. We just wanna say what we have to say and kinda let it be at that."