TMN Radio New Artist: The Pollies

The Pollies appeared on music radar in 2012 with the release of “Where The Lies Begin”.  On September 25, 2015, the Florence, AL-based quintet The Pollies is set to release its new album, Not Here.  The album shows the band shedding their alt-country skin in favor of experimental noise and unadulterated risk. Not a surprise from a band that is known for defying genres and leaping over boundaries.

“When you write a song, you have a million different things you can do with that song,” lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Jay Burgess says. “On our records, we always try to shake up the landscape. On this one, we incorporated a lot of elements that we normally wouldn’t think about using. It changed the atmosphere of the music and pushed it in a different direction.”

Burgess hits on all the familiar topics—love, loss, regret and triumph—with an edge and ferocity that shows up on tracks like “Lost” and “Jackson.” Simply put, these are compelling stories—and Burgess has stepped into his own as a gifted storyteller. “Love lost is what drives the record lyrically,” Burgess says. “Some of these songs started as musical ideas—where I’d record something on my phone and then go back three or four times and make sense of the words—and other songs were just there without a lot of work.” Throughout the record, the subject matter changes, but the themes remain: love, loss, regret and triumph. “The record isn’t just about losing love,” Burgess says. “It’s about surviving the aftermath of that.”

The title of the album comes from the way Burgess felt when he wrote most of the album, like he was watching his life unfold from afar. “I was almost living parallel to myself,” he explains. “I watched myself react to what some people probably view as ‘normal life occurrences,’ but for me, someone who’s never been through these kinds of things, it was very difficult.”

The Pollies are now playing on TMN Radio.