A conversation with Louie Swain from Parcels

A conversation with Louie Swain from Parcels

festnoise
#INTERVIEWS

With a sound described as a "unique blend of contemporary electronica and matured funk disco, where wide synth soundscapes and an electronic rhythm section meet spirited guitars and five-part vocal harmony", everyone seems to go crazy trying to find the most accurate music reference, or the adjective that best defines Parcels, a band that maybe we should stop classifying because they have their own outstanding personality.

So instead of naming past references, I would rather describe the passion, honesty, fun, elegance, attitude, style and many good vibes that these guys convey. But if that is not enough, they have an exquisite sound, produce amazing videos and have an impeccable aesthetics. Parcels are genuine and simply cool.

Recently arrived from a long tour throughout America that had a magnificent finale with their two concerts at Coachella, Parcels are back in town to recharge the batteries before the European festival season that will start in less than a month.

Some days ago, a fortuitous meeting on a plane headed to Berlin, led to a future conversation with Louie Swain (Keyboards), perfect opportunity to have a beer and look back to these last years of short but intense career.

Louie Swain at Rock en Seine 2018. Photo by Cat Photography

Louie Swain at Rock en Seine 2018. Photo by Cat Photography

What have you been up to these first days after the long gig?

Louie: “We did this funny thing yesterday! A few days ago, we started like a fan group for the pop shop and the first hundred members me and Patrick called them on Skype, just like to interview all of them and recorded it all for a podcast. Im gonna edit it just like voices from random world Parcel fans talking to themselves”

But it's been a long journey since a very young Louie Swain, Jules Crommelin, Noah Hill, Patrick Hetherington and Anatole "Toto" Serret landed in Berlin in 2015, where very soon they were going to receive their first opportunity to perform. Back then, I was lucky to see them in the Summer of 2015 in a very unique location.

Do you remember the concert in Badeschiff?

Louie: “The Straend festival? That was one of our very first gigs in Berlin I reckon, probably we had been here for just a few months, that was a weird festival, that literally had a beach with sand, which is pretty chill, I was into it.”

In their beginnings they spent many hours in the rehearsal room and tried to play wherever they had the chance to do it, and luckily for them despite the increasingly regulated scene and the icy temperatures of the Winter, here in Berlin there is a culturally rich street performance scene. From Alice Phoebe Lou, a symbol of the city's busking scene playing often in Warschauer Str to all the different musicians performing on Sundays in Mauer Park, Parcels were also no strangers to playing in the streets.

Louie: “That's how we made all the money to come here actually, we bought our flights from busking doing bluegrass songs in the markets in Byron Bay. We were pretty serious about it! It was kind of our only jobs for a long time for a few years apart from finishing school. We played everything that we can, like 5 or 6 hour a day on the street.”

When they were turning 18 (except Jules, which is 2 years older than the others) all members of the band left behind Byron Bay (New South Wales, Australia), their hometown and a world famous surf spot, heading to Europe, looking for new opportunities and a better location to pursue their dream of succeeding as a band.

Louie: “Berlin was kind of a random choice, we decided to go somewhere in Europe and we were just like looking around places on maps like, shall we go to Prague? Or like, could we move to Budapest? We were just trying to think of the most exciting cities for us and I think we talked about Berlin pretty early.”

Blessed by Daft Punk, many live shows after and a legion of fans over the world described by Louie as: “young, open minded and cool” , Parcels seem to be touched by a magic wand. Four years ago they bet everything on one card and now it seems pretty obvious that it was a winning one.

However, everything seems easy now, but back in 2015, how were the beginnings in the city, did you know anyone?

Louie: “We were really lucky that we had a few good contacts when we landed! But yeah, I don't know what it was but that was pretty lucky. We met our manager (Birger Luedemann), he was a booking agent from a very good company here and he really helped us out.”

“He was introduced through this pretty big Australian rock band called “The Living End” because the bassist (Scott Owen) used to hang out at my parents house in Byron Bay . He only knew one person in Berlin and it was Birger. He just kind of connected us so we hung out a few times. Birger knows everyone and has an insane connections all throughout Germany. And yeah, thank god he liked us! He was really supportive and now he is our Manager.”

Parcels band. From left to right Patrick Hetherington, Anatole "Toto" Serret, Jules Crommelin, Louie Swain and Noah Hill. Photo by Antoine Henault

Parcels band. From left to right Patrick Hetherington, Anatole "Toto" Serret, Jules Crommelin, Louie Swain and Noah Hill. Photo by Antoine Henault

Usually in life, no matter what you do there is always hard work, a bit of faith and constancy needed to succeed, but it is also necessary to have at certain times some doses of good luck or the ability of being in the right place in the right moment. It seems to me that there is a little bit of all those ingredients in your career.

When you look back, which are those important moments that might have changed the course of your career taking the band where it is now?

Louie: “Moving to Berlin; meeting our Manager, that was a big deal! I guess we signed..., like we met the Kitsuné record label and flew to Paris a few times to meet all of them, and through that we met Daft Punk and that did that whole thing.“

“The guy who runs Kitsuné is like best friends with them so he shows them bands all the time. Everyone signed he shows them, and then they did not have an interest in anyone until they saw our demos. Then they invited us to the studio and I mean, that was a massive moment!“

“And then (another key moment) I would say our first festival in Hamburg, Dockville Festival. We were somehow going in the opening spot on the main stage, which was the biggest stage we ́ve had ever played. That was kind of cool, I really liked that! And the most are keep coming, there has been like a crazy few years!”

After seeing the number of fans constantly increasing, and a band all the time touring and releasing cool material both musical and visual, it is probably very easy for the people outside the industry to forget how much hard work there is behind, and how complicated the music business is.

So when did you actually start feeling secure about making a living out of the music?:

Louie: “I was not really secured until probably a few months ago. We all had little jobs when we came here like cleaning jobs, bar works and stuff like that but we stopped pretty early cause we were touring so hard. I stopped asking my parents for money less than a year ago. But we are like setup now, like we really made like a plan for the next few years.”

Parcels seems to be a pretty democratic band, with no leaders or big egos in sight. But I guess within the band everything is very different, so how is it the relationship between all of you guys?

Louie: “It really is, it really is! We run a pretty communist regime! its like no one is more than any other I think. We are friends from school, I mean we started our first band ten years ago (“Lifeline”) when we were 12 years old and that was just Patrick, “Toto” (Anatole) and me. But yeah, we ́re good friends and after a big tour we always come back together.”

And when it comes to making new music, how does the creative process work for Parcels?:

Louie: “I'm not quite sure yet. I mean, every session or release of everything's been totally different so far, so there is no real process yet. To the album we are really going to a paddling loose like one person kind of crafting a song, is like a sing a songwriter kind of thing, usually Patrick or Jules, or Noah kind of, and then we work on it all together in the rehearsal room or practice room and play through the stuff and change it until it sounds completely different. And then, record all things together. Pretty much from that point forward its just all together and that's the point where one person sits there with the guitar and goes through it.”

How about these days back in Berlin, do you still see each other, rehearse or maybe create new music?:

Louie: “I went to Jules a few days ago and listened to some things he was making. We just bought a bunch of things, just spent so much money on this random gear just to play with! We could find this Minimoog that recreates this old seventies keyboard that would cost like 3 grand or something, and if you actually find one would be very hard to play, and we rebuild it from a setting of 300 box, and it's exactly the same mechanism and it sounds great. We were just freaking out in our room!”

“It's kind of weird this right now. Before we just made music because this is what we liked doing, and now we got this expectations, we need to be making music because that is what we do as a job now.”

Despite having signed to a major label (Kitsuné), back in time Parcels fired the Producer assigned by the company to produce the entire album themselves. Something risky and very unusual but very representative of their personality. They made clear they have their own way of doing things and how protective they are willing to be with their work.

But after the first album, it always comes the feared second one. Expectations are around the corner, so how about the pressure for that second album, do you feel it?:

Louie: “Yeah, kind of! I mean we are putting it on ourselves. Im sure if we would be like we don't feel like making music there wouldn't be consequences from outside but we need to do a pressure. I think once you get out with the second album it all maybe fall into more like a path on how we work, but right now its all kind of up in the air in this weird zone.”

Is there any deadline to release more songs?:

Louie: “No, no deadlines. We feel quite free at the moment, which is good and bad because we got to really set are in what we are doing.”

Bad news for us, it looks like we'll have to be patient to have more songs from Parcels but in the meantime, after an initial concert at Governors Ball Music Festival in New York (USA), they will be back in Europe for the Summer festival season. That will be after this short spring break they are having after the long America gig, that got them performing in many clubs in the US, but also in some major festivals like Lollapalooza Buenos Aires and Lollapalooza Santiago, Ceremonia (MX) and the most relevant of their shows, Coachella (USA).

And precisely about the iconic Californian festival, Louie went through:

Louie: “It was great! It was super overwhelming actually! When you are playing for a while, if we were gonna play one festival we really wanted to play Coachella, like everyone does I think. We just signed to a booking agent in America last year and we got confident he could get us in cause he is friends with the guy and he ended up getting us a really good spot. It was late at night in one of the smaller tents. We were kind of real scared that we were gonna be in one of those crazy big stages early in the day, we did not think that we had the show for it, but within like a medium size tent, like something we had played before, I think it was the perfect spot for us,  it was really good! The Coachella booker seems to be very clever, he's been doing it for like for like 20 years and he knows exactly how to run a festival.”

“(At Coachella) We saw amazing bands, the first day we saw Childish Gambino and it was like really cool! It felt like a movie the whole thing. It was like beyond…, I mean, there is this whole stigma around the Coachella headline spot that you got to…, I mean, after Beyonce did that crazy thing last year you just can't come around and play a set, you got to make a statement and the first night Childish really did that, like he had this all beautifully film going, amazing gospel band with thirty gospel singers and yeah, it was amazing!”

“What else did we see...? Hmm, we saw Blood Orange, it was very cool but the one that really stands out to me was Kanye's Sunday Service thing. (...) He is like a demigod! I mean, he has killed it consistently since the start of his career, every album has been great, even if you are not that into his music every album has been and very influential in the sound of hip hop, and he has already headlined Coachella a few times.”

After many festivals, you will be doing your last show at Lollapalooza Berlin that booked a good spot for you (Parcels will be playing on Saturday 7th September at 9:30pm in the Alternative Stage).

Louie: “Yeah, that's amazing! But that is a weird lineup that one, don't you think so? (...) Lolla is a big show for us cause its our last one of the Summer, it's gonna be the last one for a while. We told our booking agent to stop booking anything for as long as possible. We are doing like 30 festivals this Summer, we are going to be away pretty much every weekend. We ́ll have our track ready to go in Berlin, we just have to drive out on Friday morning and then come back on Monday. I like to start touring like that, I mean when you do it for a while its really shit but its a cool change from being always on the road or like doing all the club shows.”

Take note of all the dates below and do not miss Parcels this next Summer!

Parcels Summer Tour 2019:



Cover photograph by Cai Leplaw

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Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres @ Astra in Berlin
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