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| 1996-02-12 | — | Pollstar |  | Hot Star of The Week
"Poe is me!" declares the gracefully lanky blond when asked if the new Modern / Atlantic recording artist is a band or a person. As the product of what's been described as a Bohemian or Kerouac-ian childhood. Poe adapted her moniker at age 10 when she went to a costume party dressed as her favorite character from an Edgar Alen Poe story. "I was really obsessed with Edgar Allen Poe's `The Masque of the Red Death,' which is about a costume party where someone dresses as the plague and the emperor ends up dying." Poe said. "So I came dressed as death and I named myself Poe to give everyone a hint. They all thought it was hysterical but I was so serious. People were laughing and I was like, 'This is serious performance art!'"
Today, Poe can mean either Peace on Earth or Plenty of Evil, depending on the singer/songwriter's mood. Originally from New York City, Poe's life has alternated from peaceful settings to what some would describe as evil situations. Her mother is an actress and her Polish-born father was a renowned film director whose documentaries about controversial topics occasionally got the family booted from entire countries. After living in Europe, India and Africa, the family moved to Utah where Poe was chastised for wearing her Sex Pistols T-shirt. When her parents split up, Poe left the conservative state and moved to NYC and squatted in a building on the Lower East Side. She would sing on the street and make cash by bootlegging subway tokens and selling them for a quarter. Eventually, however, Poe ended up a Princeton co-ed on a scholarship. She said the various living situations throughout her life has given her a "split identity complex."
The split identity manifests itself today in her art and in the way she leads her life. Poe loves sharing her eclectic music and is honored she has the opportunity to work as a recording artist, but she's a bit frenzied at the lightning speed pace needed to promote her debut album, Hello.
Poe had just signed to CAA when she landed the "cool" opening slot for Lenny Kravitz' recent North American outing. She was thrilled her new agent, Mike Piranian, had managed to pull it off, especially since it was going to be her first national tour. Poe said she found out she got the gig, literally, the day before Christmas. She told her family and friends, "You can put your presents away. Save your money. I'm happy."
In between the time the tour was booked and it kicked off, Poe's schedule was brimming with promotional radio gigs in the U.S. and a jet set, "If this is Tuesday it must be Madrid" tour of Europe. Poe said, "We did a city a day. It was an adventure. They canceled all the flights from Rome one day, so we took this tiny van, like half the size of a VW bus, for 9 hours with a crazy Italian driver who ended up getting arrested by the French police. So the whole thing was quite an adventure. We were just in hysterics for days over it. The guy was out of his mind."
Poe said moving from being a relative unknown to a person who attracts radio play and media coverage brings both benefits and burdens. "On one level, it's giving me opportunities I didn't have. The fact that I can pay my band because I have a song on the radio [is great]. On another level, there's this whole other side of the business that you don't really think about when you're making music in your garage and waiting tables. We did four performances in one day in San Francisco after we had flown in from Rome. That's the job. It takes a lot of stamina."
But if someone told Poe money was not a problem. it wouldn't persuade her to quit her job as a recording artist. She'd just take advantage of the added bucks to make interesting media like a CD- ROM for example. In fact, Poe already uses a lot of technology making and promoting her music. She's on Atlantic's web site and thinks it's convenient to communicate with fans through e-mail.
Poe actually got signed to Modern Records off of demo tapes she had made by herself with a synthesizer-sequencer. She was heartbroken and miserable when the band she was in broke up and she felt she had no other option if she wanted to continue working. She said. "It was totally practical. There were songs that I wanted to hear and I didn't have a band. I [thought], 'Wow, I want to keep writing anyway and it's going to take me awhile to put together another band, so why don't I get into this shit?'"
Though she used a lot of technology in writing her current songs, Poe presents her music with additional instruments. She said, "My bottom line in making the record was that if I couldn't play the song on an acoustic guitar and have it feel like a good song then the production was taking over."
Because of that, translating Poe's techno filled tunes into a live performance isn't difficult. "I almost like the versions that the band is doing now better than some of the stuff on the record. It gets a little more aggressive It's more spontaneous." Poe said her touring band "kicks" and will probably stay with her for a long time, both on the road and hopefully, in the studio. Following the Kravitz dates, Poe and her band join the Seven Mary Three tour. Modern Records chief Paul Fishkin handles most management responsibilities for Poe in conjunction with manager Joey Grossman. Poe is grateful Fishkin is on her team. "He`s a total artist's ally in every way. I'm so thankful that he had 15 years of experience with someone like Stevie Nicks who's probably a billion times more difficult to deal with than me. If he can put up with her and stand by that project, he has an enormous amount of patients when the shit hits the fan."
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