Parquet Courts

The latest offering from the New York four-piece, Human Performance,sees Parquet Courts get back to their punkier roots after their predominately instrumental 2015 EP Monastic Living. Singer/guitarist Andrew Savage reflects on the more familiar nature of the new album.

“One of the unique qualities of Parquet Courts records is that they’re all different from one another and are all very specific in their own way,” he says. “In that way, Human Performance doesn’t really differ from our other releases, but it’s different from a record like Content Nausea or Light Up Gold, which came from quick bursts of creativity. Human Performance was a bit more considered – it took around a year to make and maybe it feels different because we’ve been in the band for six years now and a lot has changed in that time, naturally.

“Human Performance was a very creative time for all of us,” Savage continues. “We recorded it in this old studio, which used to be a church, called Dreamland in Upstate New York. We lived there for three weeks and there was an attitude at that time that there were no taboos – everyone was encouraged to explore their ideas to the fullest. It was a great environment for making an album and everyone was really respectful if someone went off on a musical tangent.”

One of the standout tracks from the new record is ‘Two Dead Cops’ – a song that tells the story of two Brooklyn police officers who were shot at point blank range as they sat in their patrol car. The lyrics are a bold statement regarding racial inequalities and gun violence in America, both tackled in the one song: “Protect you is what they say / But point and shoot is what they do”.

“‘Two Dead Cops’ was something that I had to get out of me,” says Savage. “I think you can make a personal, emotional expression and it also be a statement. For me as an American and someone that has to bear witness to the extreme amount of violence in this country, ‘Two Dead Cops’ was a way of me reacting emotionally to that.

“It was very upsetting. The whole city was very upset by it, and it got me thinking about how as a country we mourn the death of two police officers as we should, but at the same time we don’t mourn the deaths of countless young people – countless people of colour – that are killed every day by guns. It becomes so commonplace that it becomes a hard thing to mourn, and emotions become harder to purge. In that way ‘Two Dead Cops’ was a much-needed purge for me.

“I would say almost all of the songs on the album are some kind of purge. Catharsis is a big part of my creative process and any art that I do tends to be based on something that needs to come out of me.”

The discovery process of art in the 21st century is far different to what it was in the previous generation, and a band like Parquet Courts has found many fans through platforms like Spotify and Pandora (including this writer). However, Savage sees music streaming as a double-edged sword.

“You’re not the first person that has mentioned they found out about us through a streaming service,” he says. “I have mixed feelings about those streaming services, and as someone who cares about labour rights, they really are a blatant exploitation of labour – the labourer being the artist. It’s kind of the antithesis of a lot of things I stand for, but on the other hand I know that times are changing and this is the way that people are listening to music now. It does bring people out for shows and it gets people out there that might not have otherwise heard of the band.

“It’s a similar kind of double-edged sword that the record industry in general is – I’d like to say that all of these things are bad, and why can’t we go back to the good old days? – but the reality is that the good old days weren’t that great. It’s really just the same thing, because the music industry has a long history of worker exploitation and fucking artists out of getting paid. It’s not a drastically new evil, it’s just a different facet.”

Parquet Courts have their own way of upsetting the status quo, and while the title track of Human Performance will have its film clip released in the near future, Savage isn’t willing to offer up a date, keeping it as a surprise for fans.

“It’s kind of been put on ice for the moment but it’s going to be great. We made it with a friend of mine who is a renowned filmmaker, but I’m going to leave the rest as a surprise for the release date.”

Savage is also keen to maintain the mystery around a forthcoming Parquet Courts tour of Australia. The New Yorkers are no strangers to an Australian summer, having most recently been here on the 2015 Golden Plains bill. Savage can’t confirm any plans for the band to tour the new album south of the equator this year, but seems optimistic that it will happen at some stage.

“We’ve been down there at least once a year for the past three years, so I would say it’s not an unreasonable thing to hope for.”