Strutting their stuff
RUMOURS of rock’n’roll’s demise are greatly exaggerated, says Morning Parade’s Steve Sparrow. If you know where to look, you will find ample evidence of its continued good health.
“Everyone is going on that ‘Oh, rock music is over, pop is in control’,” he says. “That’s a hangover from the X Factor generation, which is maybe starting to dwindle a little. It is silly to say rock is on the way out. Everywhere around the world people are still going to festivals, buying tickets for gigs. We were listening to the radio in the tour van earlier and they were playing band after band. People are always going to want to pick up guitars and start groups.”
He does, to be fair, have a dog in the fight. The Essex band are one of those old school outfits who, if certain commentators are to be believed, are about to go the way of the dinosaur. There’s a little Jeff Buckley and Radiohead in their sound, and a lot of Coldplay. In an era when pop and soul are in the ascendency, you’ve got to wonder what they had to do to persuade a major label to back them? Sparrow shakes his head. He’s not sure how it happened either.
“I know it sounds like a cliché, but we started out playing music for ourselves,” he explains. “Everyone of us had been in other bands and gone through the mill to an extent. We were a bit disillusioned. So we rented a rehearsal space every Saturday afternoon at four quid a man and wrote songs for our own amusement.
“There were no long term ambitions. It was only after a while that people persuaded us to do gigs. They were saying, ‘Well you’ve gone to all this effort. Why not share your music with everyone else?’ Then, after the 20th show or so, Parlophone came out of nowhere to offer us a deal. We said yes straight away.”
What did Parlophone see in Morning Parade? Honesty is a big part of the appeal, feels Sparrow. On stage and off, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. Perhaps, after years of bright, brash pop, audiences have started to crave something more authentic. That’s the sense he gets at their concerts.
“You can’t pick your moment,” he says. “We could have held onto this record in the hope that rock music would come back into the fashion.
“But that’s not how it should be. You shouldn’t strategise your music in that way. We’d like to think that people have latched onto us because we are candid and say what we feel. It’s coming straight from a very genuine place.”
They’ve certainly struck a chord in Britain. Their singles Under and Stars and A&E have received heavy airplay on the main pop station, BBC Radio 1, with the influential Zane Lowe in particular championing them.
Some groups are wary of excessive hype. Sparrow, in contrast, believes the attention can only be a good thing. “Obviously it’s daunting. At the same time we find it all very exciting. People ask if we feel under pressure. Not really. We certainly aren’t getting any from the label. The only pressure is the sort you put on yourself to write the best songs you can.”
For a mainstream rock album, there’s a lot happening on the group’s self-titled debut. Synthesisers cuddle up to chiming stadium guitars, straight forward rock songs sit alongside more experimental moments.
If the LP sounds as if it has a split personality, that’s probably down to the circumstances in which it was recorded, says Sparrow. “We made it in two different studios. The first was 13 in London, which is owned by Damon Albarn. The producer Jason Cox has done a lot of stuff with Blur and Gorillaz. The second sessions were with Dave Costin, who’s worked with Bat for Lashes and Everything Everything. We put two opposing worlds the mainstream and the tastemaker — together to see what would come of it. The result was our first album. We are happy with the results in so far as they sum up what we are about. The record captures both sides of our personality.”
Morning Parade are from Harlow in Essex, a distant outpost of the London commuter belt. They’ve known one another since school and, as Sparrow has intimated, mucked about for years in local bands. They have spent much of the past 18 months gaining their legs as a live outfit. It says something for the universality of their appeal that they’ve toured with acts as diverse as the Wombats and Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds To Mars without finding themselves bottled off stage.
“It’s true we’ve got a crossover following,” says Sparrow. “The Wombats are more a social commentary type group. 30 Seconds To Mars are a real heart on sleeve thing. It was a great experience to play to such different crowds in different countries. Of all the things we’ve done so far, I would say that touring was a highlight.”
He admits to being amazed that they have been picked up by a major label. Once the music industry equivalent of a lottery win, nowadays bands seldom get plucked from obscurity in such a manner. Sparrow appreciates Morning Parade have had a great deal of luck and that many other acts would kill to be in their situation.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? The thing that is destroying the music industry is also the thing that is saving it. The internet has had a big impact on sales. And yet it’s given people a way to get their music out. The downside is that there is so much out there now. It can reach saturation point. A lot of artists are vying for part of the same pie.
“You have to have faith in your songs and hope they find their audiences. That’s all you can do. The rest of it is out of your hands.”
* Morning Parade is released Friday
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