29 August 2006 -

EXCLUSIVE Interview: Parachutes
Chuck Norton, DeadJournalist.com

In July 2006, I received a MySpace.com friend request from a band. This is hardly news in-and-of itself, as this seemingly happens on an hourly basis. However, on that day I decided to listen to a few of the bands that had most recently requested my friendship.

The second band I listened to was Parachutes. Their logo, which happens to be similar to the current DeadJournalist.com logo, was eye-catching. So were several of their songs. I listened to the single, "Plastic Surgery" six or seven times in a row while repeating to myself, "this is actually really good." The song was a delightful mix of haunting vocals and dream-pop similar to something Blur might have put together in the early 1990's.

I decided to contact Parachutes for an interview. Fortunately for DeadJournalist.com and its readers, the band accepted.

The Los Angeles-based band includes Aron Brent (vocals, guitar, piano), Kyle Warner (guitar, piano), Ian Bishop (bass, synth) and Laura Jennings (drums). The band recently released Metropolis, their debut EP and are playing a limited number of shows in Southern California.

For more information on Parachutes, visit their MySpace.com page: www.myspace.com/parachutesforever.

DeadJournalist.com is proud to bring you this exclusive interview with Parachutes.

What is the background of the band? How long have you been together?

AB: It started out as something to do after hours while we studied at Chapman University. In fact, we rehearsed in a building between all the dormitories, so oftentimes people living in the dorms would come down to listen. It really helped to get us an audience right away.

As of last May, we've officially been together a year.

For someone who hasn't heard the band, how would you describe your sound?

AB: It's becoming harder to say what our "sound" is as our style has changed a lot from our earlier demos to the Metropolis EP. We've been compared to everything from the Cars to thePixies to Radiohead. I come from a blues background and I brought that to Parachutes and we kind of modernized it into a blues for the 21st century sort of thing. At least, that's how I see it. I still think of myself as a Sunnyland Slim blues shouter.

KW: Every time we are asked this question we all look around at one another going, "hmmm." I always start off by saying that you will be taken on a musical journey when you listen to our material. The sound is very different from song to song and it's done on purpose. We don't want to bore our listeners, and I think that the aural landscape keeps your attention.

LJ: I think of it as a blend of Radiohead, Coldplay, and Ladytron with vocal stylings like Elliot Smith.

AB: Really? So Sunnyland Slim's out the window?

How has the response been to Metropolis?

KW: The word that comes out of every person's mouth is "diverse" - it has been very positive feedback so far.

LJ: Our audience relates to the lyrics. Songs like "Which Way To Turn" and "Plastic Surgery" talk about feeling like an outcast in the eyes of society.

AB: We got this group of college-age philosophy types coming to the shows, and they take it all real seriously and dig our message. We see the same people over and over again and we love them for it.

I mean, we wrote and recorded the songs in a real light-hearted way, and you get that in songs like "White Collar." But they also come off as twisted and dark, so we didn't know what people would think. "Worship the Machine" is especially dark and touched on a lot of things going on right now, like mass Machiavellian protesting against the government and war over religion and how futile the common man is right now in the face of a society functioning on capitalism over democracy.

Are you working on a new album?

AB: We're working on a complete album, and the first song we wrote for it, funny enough, is "Metropolis". We felt that the Metropolis EP had a lot of images about the struggle of life in the city, but needed a song to bring it all together.

IB: Our live show is so different, though, that I feel who we are on the EP isn't who we are now, and that's not a bad thing; it just means that we are improving the material and maturing as a unit.

Do you have plans for an upcoming tour?

KW: Not at the moment, we would love to do a tour up to San Francisco this fall, but right now we still have plenty of work to do in Southern California. We'll see what happens.

At least a show in my hometown on Catalina Island would be nice; there's nothing like playing your hometown.

AB: We're getting popular in the UK and get lots of letters from there daily, so it would be great to do a small tour through there to see what the English are thinking.

We have a few gigs planned in Los Angeles, but we're open to taking on the union in a big national tour if the chance came.

What do you feel most connects you with your audience?

AB: We share the same plight as the audience right now, and that connects us all together. Life for teens and 20-somes is hard right now because it's difficult for us to find our place in current society.

We've been raised in a way that makes us very numb and apathetic. I mean, did you go to any of the last few Coachellas? The fans just stood in front of all those great bands and were so quiet. They didn't scream or do much of anything.

Our songs talk about fear and anxiety, which are the hallmarks of a lot of people lately, just anyone who turns on the radio or opens up a newspaper.

We had this old sound guy at House of Blues who goes by BigLittle Dave say after a show we did that he really understood our message and was tired of all the bands that refuse to sing about real content right now.

KW: People relate to the music, they relate to the lyrics, but they are looking for community. Our fans often meet each other before we ever meet them; we still have that unsigned, undiscovered mysteriousness to us. People are often very possessive and protective of independent/underground music like that - once it becomes popular they loose interest. I think our fans have a lot of those feelings, but I think they are here to stay.

As a performer, what is your favorite part of playing live shows?

LJ: I love getting to know the fans that come and see us. After a show at BB King's, two kids and their parents tracked us down and asked us for our autograph and a copy of our CD.

KW: Playing music is a very spiritual experience for me. When a group of people come together and create art, express their minds, hearts, and souls and connect musically - you loose yourself to the music and time seems to fade away.

You either know what I'm talking about or you don't - you don't have to be a musician to get off on good music, but man, when you're playing - what a high. Sharing that with people, an audience, other musicians; that is powerful.

IB: Yeah, I love being out there and hearing this great music and then realizing that I'm a part of it. It's definitely a spiritual kind of undertaking.

AB: The best part of the live shows is showing that we can actually play our instruments, and that we're not using the Britney Spears voice-a-lator on all of our songs. It's really us singing, and live shows give us a chance to showcase what we can do.

Usually the fans tell us they prefer us live than on record, which we're not sure if that's a good or bad thing … yet.

Is it true that the band has had some issues with copy-cat bands popping up with the same or similar names?

AB: Yeah, it's true. We don't really know what to make of it. Some of the bands tell us that they're fans who are inspired by what we've done with MySpace, and others just copy us, titling every song something with the word "machine" in it and trying similar sounds.

LJ: We get e-mails from some of these bands telling us how much they love our music. Even in Germany a metal band e-mailed us saying that they loved our music and guess what their band name was?

AB: Mostly, it's just teenagers fooling with Casio keyboards, trying to do some sort of techno thing. Two rock bands on the East coast formed up and e-mailed us to say they got their name from us and "it's okay" since they live in New York.

Another band is doing it down in Orange County and they're annoying because they're trying to get shows using our name. Part of it is fun and part of it is the dog-eat-dog attitude of local bands who feel they're in a competition to get famous. We hate the idea that someone would try to cash in on our hard work. But I guess a lot of it is part of the phenomenon of MySpace.

It's going to be interesting how musical history will fit MySpace into the tapestry of rock-and-roll.

What's been the biggest challenge for the band over the last year?

AB: Staying together, I think. Bands live in each other's pockets, and most indie bands don't make it over the one year hump due to sheer laziness of the members. It's easy for a guy in a band to get a girlfriend out of it, shack up with her and quit because they got what they wanted.

Do you know how often that happens?

I think we've gotten past that because we truly love music and art and we're dedicated to it. We're still in college and that eats up a lot of our social time, but it keeps us focused. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

KW: The biggest challenge for me, personally, has been defining my role in the band. I work at a small organic fair-trade coffee shop in the summer time and one of our regulars often starts up some conversation concerning one aspect of music or another and he said one day, "A good band is like a stew, it needs time for all the ingredients to cook together."

Some time after that I was watching "That Thing You Do" and there is a line in the film very similar to that, so it may not be an original thought, but it makes you wonder … what ingredient am I?

What were you listening to 10 years ago?

AB: God, that's a funny question. I was already a serious music listener as a kid, which is funny. My dad had a great vinyl collection and I would listen to all the stuff he had. I loved Cream, Muddy Waters and Wes Montgomery a lot. I really loved Howard Roberts, too.

It's because of Howard Roberts that I first wanted to play the guitar. This one album cover had this kid graffiti a wall with "Howard Roberts is a DIRTY guitar player", and I wanted to be a dirty guitar player, too.

LJ: Offspring's Smash album, Oasis, Bush, The Beatles, The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, the Beach Boys, Madonna, No Doubt, Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, and Dr Dre.

IB: Beatles, Beatles and more Beatles. I loved blues music that my dad would play, too.

KW: My earliest musical memories are listening to albums by Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Leo Kottke, Duane Alman, and Joni Mitchell as I sat on the living room floor playing with Legos as my mother cleaned the house or my father relaxed after a long day at work.

For my thirteenth birthday a friend gave me the Beatles Help! and everything changed. Soon after that I collected Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, Cat Steven's Tea For The Tillerman, U2's Joshua Tree and the Beatles' Abbey Road.

I slowly emerged more into the contemporary music scene throughout my high school years, and my musical journey continues both forward and back in time - but that is another question for another time.

 

Parachutes