Photo By Just Bill
When talking with Post Modern Authors, there’s really just one place to start: read anything good lately?
Yes, says Andrew Sullivan, who provides vocals/banjo/guitar for the Somerville-based folk rock quintet, though he can’t quite explain what the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, means. Despite that, there is significance to the band’s name.
“We like the idea of us writing our own script, of being authors,” says Sullivan. “It’s our way of looking to the future and writing how we see it coming. We are basically philosophers, is how we look at it.”
The band’s story begins when Sullivan, originally from Worcester, quickly bonded with bandmates Dominic Dellaquila, Michelle Amirault and Meghan and Emily Seeberg when they met two summers ago. The same night, they had their first song — a “too catchy, too poppy” cut that Sullivan now describes an embarrassing. But a first song nonetheless.
“We brought all our own likes and tastes to the table,” says Sullivan, who lives with Dellaquila and Seeberg (the others are in Winchester). “Now we are at the point where we mixed and matched and we are really happy right now how with how we collectively have come together to form this one sound.”
Sullivan likens the sound to an edgier version of The Decemberists, but it’s a bit broader than that. “Wash Away” is a dusty highway rambler, while “Silent Pressure” has Meghan Seeberg singing over a speakeasy stomp rhythm.
After a memorable first show in a friend’s attic space (they bought 20 bottles of champagne for guests to guzzle), the band started steadily gigging around town for the past year. Though one show at the Armory was recorded and released on Bandcamp, Sullivan and crew will get their first opportunity to record in-studio when they begin work on their Kickstarter-funded first EP later this fall.
Of the EP, Sullivan says: “It’s a combination of songs we feel are our most powerful and most fine-tuned and that we have collectively worked on together. Lyrically we want to be relevant, to talk about stuff that resonates with people. We want to portray how our live shows are, to bring our songs to that level of intensity. We’re excited about having something that we’ve put a lot of work into and that we can really show people.”
POST MODERN AUTHORS W/ ROADSIDE DOLLS + DEAD ELECT. STORE 54, 16 HARVARD AVE., ALLSTON. SAT 10.25. 8PM/$10. POSTMODERNAUTHORS.COM
