NYC-based band the Postelles

This week we've got an interview with a band Albert Hammond, Jr., likes so much he has agreed to produce their first album. He's got good taste: the Postelles are retro pop-rock like you haven't heard since... well... since retro was modern. All four band members hail from New York City; they went to high school together in Manhattan, where they formed the Postelles, and half the band is still too young to legally drink! In this interview we chatter on, joke around, and have great fun. Enjoy.

So you guys are based here in New York.
DAVID DARGAHI: Yes.
BILLY CADDEN: Yeah, in Manhattan.
DANIEL BALK: In New York, yeah.

Born and raised?
JOHN SPEYER: Yeah. We were all born in the city. And we raised each other like a pack of wolves.
DB: You were raised by wolves.
DD: Speak for yourself. I’m a panda bear guy.
BC: I like koala bears.
DB: Oh, really? That’s a really cute upbringing.
BC: So David was raised by panda bears! That’s it. Officially.
JS: He was raised by dolphins.
BC: [laughs] Dolphins!

Three-fourths of the band had already been formed in high school… I know the all-ages music scene these days is really well-developed. Was that going on when you guys were in school?
DD: I don’t think we were as aware of it. It’s kind of hard to go and check out shows in New York City because everything’s over 21, and now that we’re playing the shows we can check out more bands because they’ll be opening us or we’re opening for them. But in high school I think it’s hard to check out the real up-and-coming things.
JS: But it was because we were playing shows that we got to—other people in our high school and other high schools weren’t plugged into the scene.
BC: We also weren’t allowed to stay in the clubs after certain times.
DD: Also, I think the blog scene is obviously getting better and better. Every year—like, I don’t think we went to Stereogum when we were in high school.
BC: Nah.
DB: No, not at all.
DD: I don’t think anyone went to Stereogum when we were in 9th grade.
JS: Which makes it easier to hear about shows too, now.

Right. Well, for example, among my friends I know a lot of the bands at different high schools know each other and there are far more all-ages shows now than there used to be.
DB: Yeah. It’s definitely—
JS: But a couple years ago it was a rare thing. It was really lucky—like if you got to play an all-ages gig that was really good.
BC: And the main place for that was the Mercury Lounge.

So how did you end up joining the band, Billy?
BC: I was in another band at that school. I was a year younger, and—

So you guys poached him.
JS: Yeah, pretty much.
BC: They kidnapped me.

You guys have a very… retro pop-rock sort of sound. What drew you guys in that direction?
BC: I think just our love and our passion for that kind of music.
DB: I don’t even think we realized we had it until we started writing it. We didn’t know we had it in common yet. Like, we didn’t know we had it in common and when we started writing the songs it just came out.
DD: I remember talking about it, though.
DB: No, yeah, we knew, but we’d never written it before, you know?
BC: That’s true.
DB: We started writing as the Postelles two years ago and that’s just what happened.
DD: After three or four songs it just kind of clicked.
BC: I think when we were in high school our band’s sound was more… we didn’t know what we wanted. We wanted to sound like all these other bands, and then when the Postelles started we left college and it was like— “This is it. Let’s do the music that we love, you know? Let’s not try to be like all these other bands out there.”

Yeah. I mean, it’s not really a prevalent sound, that throwback sort of retro-pop sound. You mentioned that a lot of your influences were the Beatles… Motown…
JS: Buddy Holly.
DB: Oh, Buddy Holly, yeah.
JS: All that stuff. For sure.

The Monkees?
BC: The Monkees? Well…
DB: ‘Last Train to Clarksville’ is a good song.
JS: Yeah. But overall I don’t know… they didn’t write their own songs.

Yeah, they did, after the first two—I’m a Monkees apologist.
DB: Ah. Yeah, well. [laughter]

No, but starting with the third album they did write their own stuff.
BC: I heard that Neil Diamond wrote a lot of songs for them.
JS: Yeah, he wrote a bunch of them.

Yeah. Neil Diamond, Boyce and Hart,—they had the best songwriters. The producers knew what they were doing.
DB: Yeah, for sure.

Well, now that you’re twenty-one and you can go to 21+ shows—
BC: Two of us are still twenty.

…Oh. Wow, really?
BC: Yeah, but we find ways.
DD: Now we know the bouncers because they know that we’ve played there, so they tend to say, “Oh, just go in!”
DB: You shouldn’t have said that. The cops are gonna come now.

I know there’s this one singer, Laura Marling—
DB: Oh, yeah, we love her. Laura Marling is so good.

Oh, yeah, she’s great. And when she was 16 she tried to play a gig at an 18+ venue and they wouldn’t let her in so she played her set on the sidewalk.
BC: Really! That’s really cool.
JS: Yeah, we’ve never had to do that.
DB: We almost played on a sidewalk, though. Technically it was a sidewalk café, but…

[laughs] That doesn’t count. Sorry. Nice try.
JS: [laughter] Zzzzzinger!

If you wanna give the Postelles a listen you can check out their MySpace.