On Risky, Impulsive Moves Paying Off

Since 2011 Parquet Courts have toured the world relentlessly and made five albums and two EPs. Their brand of punk-inspired rock has seen them work at breakneck speed in the studio to make raw and rough albums that have struck a chord with punters.

New album, Human Performance, is a different beast by design as Parquet Courts took a year to make the album as they took stock of what they had achieved to date.

“When we sat down to write Human Performance we all knew how to write and record a Parquet Courts song as we had done it for four records by that point,” suggests guitarist/vocalist, Austin Brown on the band's mindset towards the album. “To do something different meant understanding what we had already done. We wanted to take some time to really put something together that felt like an evolution of the group that was riskier and wasn't just kicking the can down the road. It was important to us to make an album that was unique to the time that we made it. Taking the amount of time that we did was key to that process.”

During the same period, Parquet Courts also recorded the Monastic Living EP, released late last year. Even when the prolific musicians were trying to take space and time between records, they still managed to record two. Monastic Living is the sound of Parquet Courts refiguring out where we are as a group, and improvising with each other, switching instruments and getting back to the mode of recording and shaking off the dust and dirt of touring.

“It was us being impulsive with the music that we were making and figuring out how to use the studio as an instrument again,” Brown summarises about Monastic Living. “Making improvised or noisy music wasn't a major leap for us as it is how we started as a band. In that way, Monastic Living was a return to our roots. The first Parquet Courts shows weren't too dissimilar to Monastic Living as we would improvise and turn up to play with no songs and just did different jams we were doing at rehearsals. At that time, no one would have released that crap, but lucky we have a label that isn't afraid to put out our different sounding records.”

Monastic Living was important for Parquet Courts as it allowed them to wipe the slate clean and cleanse the palate. Human Performance found the band in the headspace where they shouldn't be expected to write a certain kind of song or sound a certain type of way. There was a focus on evolving and not just making what was a comfortable album. Human Performance is the first Parquet Courts release where all members contribute to the writing.

“I think that a lot of the songs on previous records are very immediate and very up front, and contain a lot of repetition and are really lyrically heavy. The music and the melody can sometimes take a backseat to the immediacy of up front loud guitars and the lyrics - which is great and is a sound that we worked on crafting. Human Performance is about doing something different and spending more time on the melody and the music and getting them in sync with the lyrics so as the songs sounded like what we were talking about in the song. It was more about feeling the emotion tied in with the lyrics. By giving more space to elaborate on more things musically, gave everyone in the band more of an opportunity to collaborate on the sounds.”

Parquet Courts bass player Sean Yeaton is quoted as saying that the band ‘made it through the shit, solved the problem, had the chuckle, took the piss, made up with the other guy, and got home in one piece’ when asked about Human Performance. Brown suggests the band went through a long period of personal development in the making of this, their best album to date.

“There is a lot of pressure put on staying ignorant and being just an entertainer and having an ego. I think that when you lose that ego and you lose that immaturity you have a choice to make about how you want to go on. Do you want to be taken seriously or do you want to be an ignorant musician?”

Originally published in X-Press Magazine