Interview with The Parrots
We love some good garage-rock here, so of course we love The Parrots! Here's a recent interview we did with the band.
The Parrots are one of those classic cases of a band who'll probably (unfortunately!) never bother the top of the charts, but who'll find an ardent fan base wherever they go. It's easy to imagine that there are kids in Detroit, Liverpool, Sao Paulo or Madrid who think The Parrots are their favorite band, who've seen them live and think it was the best night of their lives. We saw them at the Festevol event at the Invisible Wind Factory in Liverpool, and we can testify they know how to really rock a venue...
The band are one of those groups which ooze energy and enthusiasm, and if you're into bands like early White Stripes, Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall, you'll like The Parrots. They're one of those bands who keep it simple, raw, loud and fun.
The trio from Madrid (Diego, Alex and Larry) are signed to two very cool labels (Heavenly Records in the UK and Burger Records in the U.S.).
It's great to see hot new bands playing our gear (Diego plays an Airline 59 2P) so we had a little chat with Alex.
YOU'VE ONCE SAID HOW NO ONE CARED ABOUT YOU IN THE BEGINNING, IN SPAIN. HOW HARD WAS IT TO GET YOUR BAND GOING, WHEN YOU STARTED?
When we started playing, there were not lots of rock'n'roll shows or promoters here in Madrid who wanted to do shows with young bands. It seemed that only if you were a big star from the outside that you could play rock'n'roll, so we had to promote our own shows, join other bands to make it possible to play. But it's great to see that now that has changed and there's more confidence in new bands and places to play music.
DO YOU FEEL ANY AFFINITY WITH OTHER LOCAL BANDS, OR DO YOU FEEL APART FROM THE CURRENT MUSIC SCENE THERE?
Yeah, it wasn't just us who had dfficulties here at the beggining and we had to join together to make ourselves heard. That made us bond together and become friends. Some of the bands that we love are Los Nastys, Hinds, Novedades Carminha, Trajano!, Lois, Sen Senra, The Zephyr Bones...
WHO WERE YOUR BIGGEST MUSICAL INSPIRATIONS?
Marc Bolan, Lou Reed and The Stooges have always been our favorites, but it was when we heard The White Stripes and The Strokes when we felt that rock'n'roll was still a present thing more than a revival scene, before that we were a lot into things like Hellacopters, Turbonegro and more punk rock bands like Pennywise
HOW DOES A GARAGE ROCK BAND SURVIVE IN 2017? ANY TIPS FOR NEW BANDS WHO MIGHT BE READING THIS?
We're very laid back people and easy to hang, so I guess that is our biggest tip, try to play as much as you can 'cause that's what we love to do, no matter the conditions and stuff like that, try to love everything you do and focus on it even when it seems that it's a dead end, it's very important to be confident on what you do
YOU'VE PLAYED SXSW BEFORE... HOW WAS IT LIKE FOR YOU GUYS & WHAT CAN PEOPLE EXPECT FROM YOUR NEXT VISIT?
We love SXSW, for us it was the chance to play with bands we love and make it to a completely different audience. Everyday is like a completely mental summer camp and this year we expect it to be wilder, people who come to our shows all of a sudden they forget civic conventions and get crazy for as long as the show goes on, so that's what you can expect, a crazy rampage and fun act.
YOU'RE SIGNED TO BRITISH LABEL HEAVENLY, AND HAVE TOURED WITH BANDS SUCH AS HOOTON TENNIS CLUB... IS THE BRITISH SCENE/ CROWDS DIFFERENT IN YOUR VIEW?
It's completely different, Spanish crowds are more like hard partying people who consider going to a show like getting crazy in a club, and we felt that our first shows in the UK where a little colder, but it was just that people where actually focusing on the details, listening the music and being very attentive with us, we think that now that has changed though, and dunno if it's us or them but everytime we go there it's getting wilder.
WHAT GEAR DO YOU GUYS CURRENTLY USE? FX PEDALS, AMPS ETC?
We love Eastwood/Airline and five years ago we got a 59 2P and that is gonna stick with us for the rest of our lives. For amps we love Fender clean and reverbery amps like the Hot Rod Deville and the Twin Reverb. For pedals we have some distortion and fuzz pedals like the Jeckyll and Hyde from Visual Sound and the [Electro-Harmonix] Big Muff, but we love what the people in Death By Audio are doing!
YOUR NEW ALBUM IS CALLED "LOS NINOS SIN MIEDO". THE FEARLESS KIDS. BUT... IF YOU COULD NAME ONE THING THAT ACTUALLY SCARES YOU - WHAT WOULD IT BE?
We've always been attracted and scared at the same time of vampires, we're sure that just because movies like the Lost Boys, if they were real we would give in and try to become one of them and live by night!