With a recent video release for single Sleeping In Water, in which guitaristSimon Boyd is drowned by his bandmates, frontman Jack Parsons talks about the experience of shooting a video nothing like the band had previously done. “It’s pretty heavy going. Morey, (Alex Moore) the guy that makes all the videos, he’s always done them, he’s a really good friend of ours. I think he wanted to try something half serious for once. It was freezing cold and the idea was really dark, we were going to do two goes at it with two different ideas but after we were in the creek once we were kind like ‘That’ll do, we’ll run with that one.’ It was pretty fun but pretty heavy, we killed Boydy,” says Parsons.
For a band that’s so comfortable with each other, and who’ve obviously set natural rhythms and approaches to their songwriting over time, Parsons reflects on his own personal developments in the band’s third LP Soft Rock For The Anxious, and the band’s overall feeling towards the record. “I think we’re all proud of it. I think that’s the first time that’s happened, we got the vinyls for it the other day which we’ve never had before. It’s only been out for a couple of months, at the time you think it’s real good but then you listen a couple of years later and you’re like what the fuck.”
Soft Rock takes a more honest approach to its storytelling, with Parsons opening up more than in the band’s previous work. “You can do it honestly or bury it all in metaphors, you can pick either one. With the writing on these songs it wasn’t like burying meaning in them so I forget what they were about in the first place, it was more obvious and honest, so that was a change.”
When reminiscing about the band’s perpetuity, Parsons laughs. “We’re starting to get a bit old now, I think people feel a bit sorry for us, they’re like ‘Oh are they still going? Yeah throw ’em on the bill,’ we get the coach’s award for participation.” Parsons does however, gives insight into why he thinks the band has been able to get through it all, “The band’s a hobby and everyone’s got other shit going on, and I think that’s why we’re probably still playing, and I think that’s why we’ll probably keep playing for as long as we can because it’s such a fun hobby to have. I think when we all realised that and we were on that page, it started meaning a lot more to us.”
As it turns out, Parsons is currently finishing a law degree, and has a final exam in the middle of their current tour. “The boys are all driving to Adelaide on the morning of the 11th and I have my exam and then I get to fly and meet them there. I’ve been at uni for 15 years so I’m ready to move on, I don’t know if I want to do law, it seems pretty grim, but who knows maybe there might be some cool things that come from it.”
Outside of the band Parsons also has his own personal projects, one of his most recent endeavours was putting together Up The Guts Festival earlier this year. “It was this crazy trip where we took five bands up from Hobart to Darwin and everyone was on a bus and we camped and played a gig every night in a different town, so we did that for the first time this year and we’re going to do that again next year.”
Looking towards the end of tour, summer and 2017, Parsons admits, “I’ll be wanting to do some party time. I might be wrong but I have a feeling we won’t get around to the next CD as quickly as we normally have been. We’ve been pumping them out for the last four years, maybe we’ll have some time off, it’s been a bit of a big year.”
By Jess Zanoni
