Poliça

Poliça
Poliça playing live in Vancouver in 2012
Background information
Origin	Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Genres	Synthpop, indietronica, R&B, trip hop, alternative rock
Years active	2011–present
Labels	Totally Gross National Product Memphis Industries Inertia Mom + Pop Music
Associated acts	Gayngs, Bon Iver, Doomtree, Solid Gold, Marijuana Deathsquads, Digitata
Website	thisispolica.com
Members	Channy Leaneagh Chris Bierden Ben Ivascu Drew Christopherson Ryan Olson

Poliça (often written as Polica) is an American synthpop band from Minneapolis, formed in 2011. The band consists of Channy Leaneagh (vocals, synth), Chris Bierden (bass), Drew Christopherson (drums) and Ben Ivascu (drums), with Ryan Olson joining the band in a studio context as its producer.

To date, the band have released three studio albums, Give You the Ghost (2012), Shulamith (2013) and United Crushers (2016) through Mom + Pop Music and tour internationally.

According to Channy Leaneagh, Poliça is Polish for "policy", and she sees it as a reference to an unwritten code that guides the members when they play together, as well as its work ethic. Despite this explanation, 'poliça' is not an actual Polish word. There is a word "polisa" in Polish, but it only stands for insurance policy.

In another interview, lead singer Channy Leaneagh claimed that they wanted something unique, and she had a file on her computer which, following a corruption during a computer crash, had come back as "Poliça".

From a musical family, Leaneagh attended the Ramsey Fine Arts school where she learned to dance, play violin and participated in theatre. She graduated from South High School where she met Alexei Casselle and formed an acoustic duo. Casselle had previously been a member of hiphop group Oddjobs, but sent Leaneagh tapes of his acoustic songs while she was in Cambodia teaching art for a year. In June 2005, Leaneagh and Casselle were married. As a member of the folk-rock duo Roma di Luna, Leaneagh played violin and performed on the three self-released albums by the band. In November 2008, Leaneagh gave birth to a daughter, Pelagia.

After a marital and professional break-up, the singer was looking for a 'creative release' that eventually became Poliça. The origins of the band were found in Ryan Olson's Gayngs project, where Leaneagh featured as a backing singer. After working together on some musical and lyrical ideas, Olson convinced Leaneagh to record the songs over the summer of 2011 with an R&B sound. Experimenting with various vocal effects, the duo drafted in Chris Bierden (bass/vocals), Drew Christopherson (drums) and Ben Ivascu (drums) to complete the sessions that also featured a guest-appearance by Mike Noyce (Bon Iver). Olson declined to be part of a live set-up and Bierden, Christopherson and Ivascu together with Leaneagh became the Poliça touring outfit. They made their live-debut on September 4, 2011 at Nick and Eddie, Minneapolis and made two songs, 'Dark Star' and 'Lay Your Cards Out (feat. Mike Noyce)', available on their website. For the rest of the year, the band toured, partly as support to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The band also received support from Bon Iver founder Justin Vernon who told Rolling Stone, "They're the best band I've ever heard."