Chan Poling

Chandler Hall "Chan" Poling (born October 3, 1957) is an American musician and composer. He is best known as the leader of Minneapolis punk/New Wave group The Suburbs.

Chandler Hall Poling was born in 1957 in Evanston, Illinois. He moved to Minnesota with his family in 1961.

He studied composition at MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis. He graduated from The Blake School, and met future Suburbs bandmate Beej Chaney while in high school. He went on to study composition and performance at the California Institute of the Arts from 1975 to 1977 under the tutelage of his mentor, composer Harold Budd.

Poling has written and performed music in a variety of musical genres, including dance, theater, film, and rock. He founded, and continues to perform in the band The Suburbs. He has been influenced by jazz, music for the theater, punk and new wave pop music, film music, Harold Budd, musician, director and composer Meredith Monk, and composers such as Terry Riley and Philip Glass.

After returning to Minneapolis after attending CalArts, Poling consulted with his friend Chris Osgood of The Suicide Commandos and started the band The Suburbs with his friend Beej Chaney and new acquaintances Bruce Allen, Michael Halliday and Hugo Klaers. The Suburbs got their first recording contract with Twin/Tone Records and went on to record music for PolyGram Records, A&M Records, Universal Music, Restless Records. The Suburbs were voted among the "100 Most Influential Minnesota Musical Entities of the Twentieth Century" by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

In the 1990s Poling made two solo albums: one a record of his score for Theatre de la Jeune Lune's Children Of Paradise, and a record of off-kilter pop songs, Calling All Stars, for Manifesto Records. Reviewing Calling All Stars, Ira Robbins of Trouser Press called it "an ambitious affair, extrapolating the dark jazz noir subcurrent in the Suburbs’ tightly wound rock into a smart, moody and ironic character study."

In 2005 Poling formed The New Standards with John Munson of Semisonic and Trip Shakespeare and released a CD, The New Standards, which is composed of interpretations of a diverse collection of songwriters with Poling on grand piano, Munson on stand-up bass, and Steve Roehm on vibraphone. Trouser Press' Robbins wrote that the album "has an off-kilter charm that is both shocking and sublime."

Poling's contributions to musical theater include several scores and songs for Theatre de la Jeune Lune. He has also contributed songs to the musical "Heaven", created with Joe Chvala and continues to develop new works with Hatcher.