Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana
Parquet Courts
With seven records over the course of the last decade, indie rockers Parquet Courts have had their fair share of recording and touring experiences. For their most recent record, 2021’s Sympathy For Life, the band mixed things up, taking their sound into a new, livelier direction. That’s translated not only into a different sounding record, but an added dimension to their live shows. Ahead of Friday night’s tour stop at Turner Hall Ballroom, catching up with bassist Sean Yeaton gave us some insight to the album and returning to touring.
Let’s talk about the new record that is out. It came out back in October, and it's a party record. How did this album get made? Because it's a turn for you guys in terms of sound.
You know, it's like the next evolution. I think it's like a really cool document of all of the different approaches to recording the band has dipped our toes in over the course of our short but impactful time on this planet of earth. We’ve been really lucky over the last ten or so years to record in every way, from recording ourselves on a four-track at a practice space to working with respectable producers that you’ve wanted to work with, or maybe never thought we'd have the opportunity to work with. So as a result, we've kind of picked up a lot of cool strategies and whatnot, but ultimately Parquet Courts has always been like a band at its best when it’s the four of us being able to play together in a room.
From early on, we've always just sort of been jamming. Oh my god, I'm using the jamming word here. But there's certainly a very specific place for it and bands that are really good at it, and are able to have recordings of those jams that are incredible. I think that we’ve always been kind of like a punk band, but we are really interested in all types of music, and I think that getting to the point that we're at now has involved a punk mentality to more dynamic sound structures. So this album is, I think, a really good example of that because it's almost like we were like DJing ourselves when we came up with these songs. Almost all of them, if not all of them, are stitched together through various improvised jam sessions, and kind of us really getting into the nitty gritty and approaching the structures of the song with the willingness to let them flow freely.
Is that normally the process for you guys? Is there a principal songwriter or does everyone put their part in to the record?
We all come up with ideas, and all of our ideas are probably at different stages of completion. The thing is, even when we come to band practice, we have a fully figured out song by the end of it. By the time we're either recording it or playing a lot, it has some of everybody’s personality in it. If I’m bringing a song that’s a contender to be on a record, it's usually like some stream of consciousness, vibe-based, Montessori school type shit. Whereas you've got Andrew (Savage), who’s got a much more logical, Excel spreadsheet, reference guide sort of thing. Both approaches to writing a song with other people have their differences, but the thing that I think maybe my favorite thing about playing in this band is that whether a song is practically finished or literally just like references to photographs from, like, a picture in a magazine from 1971, they both will allow for every member to add their own voice to it.
Have you guys gotten to play a show yet at this point in the pandemic? Or is this tour the first real stretch back on the road?
We've done some shows, and you obviously keep trying to do things and be responsible. It’s so weird, because it's one thing having not been able to play music live for as long as we did, and like any musician that you might talk to, it's such a bizarre sensation when you’ve created your identity so firmly in being a live musician. I remember the first time we went out and played a show and it’s something like 1,000 people, my initial reaction was like ‘Oh my God is this the right thing to do?’ But lately I feel like I'm almost trying to get back to being myself on stage. It's like studying for the role of Sean from Parquet Courts or something. But it’s a lot better now.
Is there anything that you didn’t realize that you missed about playing live?
I never realized how incredible the opportunity is to share such an intimate experience with people who genuinely want to be there with you. I admit that I took a lot of it for granted, because it became such a part of our grind for me, but I’ve always been appreciative of any opportunity to connect with people. I always try to offer whatever insight that people might want about the band, even though I know I ramble on and on. I think I didn't even realize how like natural it was for me to want to have that level of communication. I think that just being and connecting with so many people in venue full of excitable humans is something that I didn't realize was so therapeutic and essential for me. So, the short answer is, all of it.
Parquet Courts play Turner Hall Ballroom with Mdou Moctar on Friday night. Get more information about the show here, and read about Mdou Moctar in this week's This Week In Milwaukee.
