It’s been a couple of weeks now since Parkville dropped their latest single Rooks, and for that entire time, we’ve had it spinning on repeat.
So fresh off the track’s release, we caught up with the band to chat about how the song came about, disregarding the boundaries of genre, and what the future holds.
Fresh off the release of their incredible latest single Rooks, we caught up with Melbourne-based three-piece Parkville for a chat.
HAPPY: Hey, how’s it going? What are you up to at the moment?
PARKVILLE: Hey! We’re having the time of our lives playing Settlers of Catan, Dylan is losing.
HAPPY: We’re loving Rooks! Could you tell us a bit about the song?
PARKVILLE: Rooks is our latest single, produced by Sean Kenihan (of Northeast Party House). It’s a really sinister protest song and the craziest piece of music we’ve ever written by a long shot. We played it live for the first time about a year ago and people went absolutely wild for it, so we knew straight away we had to release it as soon as we could.
HAPPY: When you emerged in 2017 with Brando, you seemed to have a really concrete vision of your sound. How long had this project been in the works for before you released that track? And how did it all come together?
PARKVILLE: We’ve been playing as a trio since late 2014. We used to play under a different name, arranging a lot of very polite acoustic covers for wineries and cafes – our signature technique was adding really unconventional three-part vocal harmonies to all the songs (and Dylan’s party trick of being able to sing and play violin at the same time).
We did find some fans with the polite covers, but we were also writing all these stadium-sized pop songs like Brando – not at all winery material! This shift in style happened to coincide with us having to find a new band name (hence Parkville) so we thought that our fanbase would probably decide we had changed for the worse and leave.
We were wrong though! People loved the new direction, which really gave us the confidence to ditch the covers altogether and play our own music, and now, here we are – Rooks.
HAPPY: How do you see Rooks as being different from the material from the tracks on The Peculiar Aftermath? If at all…
PARKVILLE: Rooks is definitely us taking charge of our music! The Peculiar Aftermath EP was a step towards the bolder sound that we could hear in our heads, but it still stayed fairly clearly within the realm of “folk.” We’re just not interested in those kinds of boundaries any more – if we write a song that works well as a gentle folk song, we play it like that, and if we write a song that is screaming for 80’s power chords devolving into a manic latin breakdown then we aren’t going to tone it down for the sake of genre labels.
HAPPY: The video for Rooks is awesome too! Could you walk us through how the clip came together? Who was involved?
PARKVILLE: The wonderful Adam Reed (of Understated Media) made that for us – he put us in front of a camera in a warehouse in 40-degree heat and told us to go wild. We had to drink a lot of water that day, but Adam managed to capture us at our most animalistic (bizarre dance moves and all), which is definitely what the song needed.
HAPPY: Are there any particular bands you’re all really enjoying at the moment?
PARKVILLE: Melbourne is full of all of the best bands we know, and it’s an absolute marvel that they all fit into one city, and such a blessing that they are playing shows ALL THE TIME.
We’ve been lucky enough to have shared the stage with some of them! The Hunter Express and Eaglemont are both incredible acts, and they supported us at our recent single launch. We also love our fellow 123 Agency friends Creature Fear and Rya Park – there’s a lot of hype around them right now, and believe us, it’s well deserved.
We can’t go past Didirri and Ro, whose recent releases get played on repeat on our drives to and from gigs (and whom, incidentally, it would be a DREAM to support). Finally, we have to mention The Mamas and Back Pocket – if you like funk and soul as much as we do, you’d do well to get down to see both of these bands live before people catch on to how good they are.
HAPPY: What’s next for Parkville? Any other exciting plans in the works?
PARKVILLE: You’ll certainly be hearing some more singles from us this year, we’re already in the studio recording the next one. We’ve learned a lot from Rooks so expect the follow up to be even better! We’ll be touring Rooks around regional Victoria over the next few months, and also heading up to Sydney in April, headlining the Golden Age Cinema Bar with support from Harry Heart – we’ve never played interstate before so we’re extremely excited!
HAPPY: Cheers for the chat!
PARKVILLE: *In staggered 3 part harmony*
Thankyouuuuu
…..Thankyouuuuu
……….Thankyouuuuu
Rooks is available now. Watch the new video clip above.
