The Polyphonic Spree will be performing a special Halloween show at Johnny D’s this coming Saturday, October 31.

By Blake Maddux

The Polyphonic Spree is a self-described “choral symphonic rock” group that has included as many as two dozen-plus members at a time. Regularly garbed in matching (if sometimes differently colored) attire, the unusually large number of musicians allows the traditional guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards sound to be augmented by assorted string, brass, and woodwind instruments.

Since forming the band in 2000, Dallas-born musician Tim DeLaughter has had his compositions used for television themes (the Showtime series United States of Tara), as film scores (the 2005 movie Thumbsucker), and in a record-setting ad campaign in the United Kingdom (the Polyphonic Spree’s Light and Day became the most frequently played song in a UK television advertising history when the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s featured it in commercials for several years).

DeLaughter is also the founder of the Dallas-based record store and music label Good Records.

The Polyphonic Spree is currently on its 15th anniversary tour, which is called The Trees Are Getting Harder to Climb. Its stop in Somerville is on Halloween night at Johnny D’s, and attendees are invited to don costumes for the chance to win prizes.

DeLaughter spoke to The Somerville Times by phone from a tour stop in Athens, Georgia.

Somerville Times: You are performing the whole of your 2003 debut album The Beginning Stages of… on this tour, right?

Tim DeLaughter: Yeah, we’ll be doing that first, in its entirety. So we’ll start off the show with that. It’s about 34 minutes, and then when that’s done, we’ll take a short break, come back out and do a full-blown set of various songs through the years, a couple of covers, and surprises.

ST: How many people who performed on that album are still in the band?

TD: Four, including myself.

ST: Who are the others?

TD: Mark Pirro, Jenny Kirtland, and Jennie Kelley.

ST: Does the band have more former than current members?

TD: Oh yeah, totally. We’ve had quite a few people, well over a hundred. But we’ve been going for 15 years. It’s not that bad for such a large group. At one point there was almost 30 people in the band, 28 on stage, and we toured like that for almost four years. Pretty crazy.

ST: How many are on this tour?

TD: 18 on stage, which is still a whole lot of people. But it’s totally worth it, man. It’s like 18 spirited human beings playing music and getting into it. At the price of a four-piece band, it’s not a bad deal.

ST: What was it like to have toured with David Bowie when your first album came out?

TD: It was a huge break. He’s been supportive of my band from the get-go. He was the first one to bring us to the UK, after which the band just kind of blew up. And then he got us on for his Reality tour, and another festival that he curated. We played with him there as well. He’s been a huge support, and it was an amazing time just to see him every night. To watch David Bowie on a nightly basis is a kind of cool thing!

ST: Had Learn to Love the Ride already been released when it was chosen as the theme to United States of Tara?

TD: No, I created that for that show. My agent had said that there was a call for an original theme song for this show about this girl who has multiple personalities. And for some reason I thought it was a kid who had the multiple personalities, not a woman. I wrote the song and got my nieces and my kids to sing the back-ups in it. I turned it in, and they liked it and they go, “This is really great, we’re really into this. We’re going to have a meeting with [executive producer] Steven Spielberg and we’ll see what he thinks about it and we’ll go from there.”

And then I’m flying back from Florida, and I pick up an Entertainment Weekly with a story on United States of Tara and I see Toni Collette is the woman, and it wasn’t a kid at all. I was like, “Holy s—! I am not gonna get this. Putting those kids on there, that was ridiculous. What am I thinking?” So the next day I talked to P.J. [Bloom, the music supervisor], and he said, “We had a meeting today and Steven loves the song. Everyone loves it and you got it.” He goes, “There’s only one thing. Steven said, ‘Why are kids singing the back-up like that’?”

I got up for an Emmy for that song. I didn’t win, I got beat by John Williams. But that was a really cool experience as well, because I cranked that song out in about five minutes.

ST: Would an episode of VH-1’s Behind The Music about The Polyphonic Spree contain as much drama and intrigue as it would for any other band?

TD: We’ve been asked by them to do the show, and we declined. This is back in the day. We just thought we’d tell our own story later, and there will be a documentary made about The Polyphonic Spree. But I’ve been on both sides. I was a in a four-piece rock band in the 90s, Tripping Daisy, and I’ve seen it all with that band and I’ve seen it with this band. This band socially is like really civilized (laughs). It is usually our least problem, navigating socially within ourselves.

I think people would be surprised on what it costs to be able to do what we do, and how we do on so little. We’re really frugal, and there’s a lot of moving parts that we’re all a part of. It’s real efficient and there’s not much drama, just occasional drama. Like I said, it’s pretty civilized and just really amazing musicianship. We’ve only had probably three instances in 15 years where we’ve had to ask someone to leave, so we’ve been pretty lucky.

ST: How are things at Good Records?

TD: Good Records is doing fantastic. We just had Alice Cooper in there with his original band play an in-store, which is pretty amazing. It’s doing really good. Vinyl sales are going through the roof. CD are now upstairs, the vinyl’s downstairs. Kids are buying records again, so that’s kind of cool.

It’s kind of an institution for Dallas. We started that the same year we started Polyphonic Spree.

ST: Does the band have uniforms for this tour?

TD: Yeah. We’re in the robes for the first part because it’s The Beginning Stages of…, and then the second part is tunics. You’ll just have to see it. They’ve changed. They’re not the ones you’ve seen before. New look.

ST: Is dry cleaning a big item in the group’s budget?

TD: You know what? The robes can be washed in a washer and dryer, so it’s really not that bad. About three or four loads, and it’s all white.

The Polyphonic Spree with Telegraph Canyon and Party Bois. Johnny D’s. Saturday, October 31, 7 p.m./Doors at 5:30 p.m. $35.