Ken Stringfellow: Ambigious Pop

by Jennifer Kelly

Ken Stringfellow has one of the best resumes in pop music. As a founding member of the Posies, with Jon Auer, he resurrected the sweet-sour hooks and joyous energy of power pop. Then, in the early 1990s, he began a long-term partnership with the band that many people credit with inventing power pop, appearing on the live Big Star reunion album and touring with the band sporadically ever since. He’s also worked with REM on Reveal and their upcoming album, and has contributed to the work of a long list of lesser known artists, most recently Michael Cerveris, Jill Sobule and the Senegalese band WaFlash. And, perhaps best of all, he has written, performed and produced three excellent solo albums, each with the kind of eccentric, intelligent and many-sided songs whose impact deepens on repeat listens.

I talked to Ken recently as he was driving from one venue to another on his one-man tour in support of Soft Commands. Like his songs, our conversation was filled with sudden topical leaps, interesting sidelights and the occasional acerbic pause — but it was always interesting. Here’s what Ken had to say about AAA radio, self-pitying singer songwriters, Senegalese Mbalax music and his amazing new album.

Splendid: I love this album. It’s really beautiful — but what does Soft Commands mean?

Ken Stringfellow: It arose out of a kind of joke, really. I was trying to figure out what to name my record, and at some point, we were talking about … we were trying to put the artwork together for it. I was making an observation about my potential for being adult contemporary…which I’m really not, actually. I’ve discovered that I’m far too eccentric for that category.

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The Posies’ Ken Stringfellow shares a full life with you via his music

by Adam McKibbin

Ken Stringfellow gets around. When he’s not touring and playing as a sometime-member of R.E.M. or Big Star or the Minus 5, and when he’s not resurrecting the Posies with fellow founding member Jon Auer, Stringfellow also has made time for a vibrant solo career. More recently, he’s also made time to become a husband, then a father. And, oh yes, in his spare time, he likes to travel.

Fittingly, the liner notes for Stringfellow’s new album, Soft Commands, include not just where each track was recorded, but where each track was written. We get visions, then, of the singer holed up in the Roosevelt Hotel here in Hollywood (“Known Diamond”) and inspired in Athens, in Senegal, and at his dual homes (Seattle and Paris).

“I wanted to give a little bit of glimpse as to how much movement there has been in my life,” Stringfellow says. “I think that gives me the ability to look at my life and other people’s lives from a number of different perspectives.”

“Being in Africa was really enlightening,” he continues. “We’re the same but different, different but the same. Especially among musicians, there’s so much common ground that the cultural differences between the States and Senegal didn’t really matter. They had a lot of the same reasons for writing and a lot of the same dreams about music and dreams about what they wanted to accomplish as people as I did.”

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