Ep 101: Arlo Parks

I'm like nineteen years old.

I can't make I can't make to pimp Butterfalo my first album.

You know, Hello, Welcome to Loud and Quiet's Midnight Chats or Midnight Chats by Loud and Quiet Magazine, whichever way you like it. This is episode one hundred and one with tonight's guest Arlo Parks, who you may or may not know. She is a new artist. Her debut album is coming out in January. It's called Collapsed in Sunbeams. It's coming out on Transgressive Records, and it's just gonna work. It's just gonna be one of those records that next

I was shooting this, uh kind of. It's a collection of short films for for Gucci basically, and it was directed by Gus Vansant.

Yeah it was. It was pretty crazy. It was.

So this is like because the first one.

You directed the first yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

So this is a series called the Absolute Beginner.

Series, right, yeah, So I mean the so The absolute beginner series was the one that I did by myself, and that was just getting like artists and actors to kind of get behind the camera and honestly just make a film about whatever they wanted. And I was always super inspired by like Where's Anderson, you know, Grand Bede, Pest, Hotel ten and Bounds, and I wanted obviously, poetry is like my first love, so I wanted to combine that in some way and get all these kind of KOOKI

So yeah, it was amazing.

It was Is it called folded gold not gold, not gold, notted gold. It's great. It's it's got that great opening shot of you on the balcon is it the war pole, the woletel and there's the people playing bowls. Yeah, it has got a real way Anderson. Yeah.

I wanted it to feel, you know, with those very like specific color schemes like in Morelli's with the pinks and the reds, and I wanted it to feel yeah, a little bit surreal. But I also wanted to involve like the people who just lived in market, like the Bulls team, which is such legends like they just they were just so down to just like play their bowls and be the intro.

It's really cool.

And it ends with you chucking a Gucci bag in the sea. Did you actually chuck it in the sea? Is there someone down there catching that bag?

It was it was another bag, was it?

Because you know, we wouldn't be chucking one thousand pounds worth of Gucci material.

And I was going to say that is decadent. That would be very decadent to do that. And it ends that video. I'll put a link to this in the description this podcast. It ends with the bag kind of floating out. There's a hand coming out of the sea. Yeah, So who was that unfortunate person who was under.

The ways Tom Dream who co directed the film with me. That was his girlfriend and she just put a wet suit on. It was it was cold, she just.

Got in there.

I really commended her bravery because I was shivering and I was not even in the water. But yeah, she had to fully duck underneath with wet suit and hold it up.

It's a great final shot. Yeah.

I wanted it to be like a message because you know, there's a there's a period, there's a point where I like scribble something down, put it in the bag and like almost like you know, a message in the bottle, like putting it at sea. But yeah, that was that was It was like my first experience doing anything like that, and it was a lot of fun.

So this new one you were doing in Rome, is that like a follow up to this to this one?

No, it's actually a different thing.

Yeah, it's it's a way for like the new collection to be showcased in a way that's kind of a little bit left of center. So it's basically seven episodes. There's like a cameo in each one. So there was Me, Harry, Stars Elish and a few other people just kind of

I would say star struck. I was like, because I had to act. I was like.

Acting, so you got lines in it?

No, I didn't. That's the thing.

I had to improvise. I had to improvise my lines, which is the hard bit, because you know, I had to. So Sylvia was the character that I was playing opposite, and I would speak in English and she would speak in Italian, but we had to pretend as if it was like a normal conversation. Obviously I didn't understand what she was saying, but I had to be like.

Ha ha ha, like yeah, great, do you do Do you feel like you nailed it? Did you get did you get to see any of it back? Okay, sure it's not I'm sure it's good. And what does it? What was gus Fan sound like?

He was a very kind of quiet, sensitive, confident presence, Like he was quite subdued, but he knew exactly what he wanted. And Chris was more kind of like explosive, like he taught me how to play pinball and we were just like laughing the whole time. So it was amazing to have those two like quite juxtaposed presences, but both like icons of cinema.

Yeah, have you done any acting before at all, like at school or anything.

I did like a few bits at school, not really, but you know, in some of my videos, like for Eugene, I was acting alongside this actress and media, and you know, obviously we had to pretend to be like to have known each other forever, and it's something I really enjoy.

I love it.

It's so interesting, like putting on that mask and like being somebody else for a little bit.

I really like it.

Nice. I love that you've just gone straight from zero row to gus Van sand Fagucci.

Yeah.

In Rome, Yeah, during lockdown? What was the lockdown situation like that?

It was pretty literally at the day we arrived, everything closed, So everything I think was closed from like five or six for example, So I only I was staying in the hotel, so I wasn't allowed to leave. All I did was make beats in my hotel room and read my book, and so it was literally hotel to set to hotel. So I saw the Colisey of like from Afar, but didn't really get to see that much of Rome.

Your film had like it, as you said, had like a Wes Anderson vibe to But you're also a horror film fan, right, Yeah, what, okay, let's talk about horror. I'm kind of the opposite of a horror foror fan.

Are you you're not into it, I.

Can't, but but tell me about what's your foot when? Okay, what horror we talking about? What's your kind of thing?

What's my thing?

Okay, So it kind of depends, right, So I really like the kind of hitchcock like Psycho.

I love that.

We So I like the more kind of stylistic violency ones. I do like the kind of psychological thrillers as well, Like I mean I recently watched Hereditary and like you know, Midsimar and stuff, like they're in a similar kind of vein. And so I like the ones that are like slightly kooky or you know, really old ones where the special effects are terrible. I don't like zombie ones. I'm not really down for that. I like the science of lambs kind of like Cycloa.

That's where I'm at. So, yeah, I do like something.

I mean, I've seen, you know, things like Friday the thirteenth and all of that. I watched the Human Science People. It was a terrible mistake and I don't know why I didn't add to myself because it was just all it was just gross. But I like ones where there's like a storyline and you're a little bit on edge rather than it's just like someone getting like hacked.

Yeah, so you're not.

Well, I've seen it, but I just didn't really vibe with it, Like I didn't find it enjoyable. It was just a bit like jury, Yeah, you're enjoying it exactly exactly the eye.

Okay, So yeah, I mean that type of stuff. I like the thriller side of things and stuff. Are there any of those films that you've watched that have stuck with you?

I think the first time I watched Science of the Lambs definitely, because like Anthony Holk, I was I was just very taken aback by how good he wasn't playing that role and like you know with the like that sound he makes when he's talking.

About the beans and stuff. Oh my god.

I think what I really liked, like Psycho. I feel like the twist at the end was like I don't know, I found it super inventive and like progressive like for the time, like I didn't expect that at all. I definitely think my favorite films are the ones that just like have stuck with me forever and ever.

The one that haunts me of recently, He's get Out. Okay, Yeah, I mean I've not seen us, And part of the reason I've not seen us is because get out just I was talking to a friend about this other day. I still think about it every now and then, like it's one of those things that are just just the premise of.

It that's much more horrific then sore or you know, I'm with you, because it is that sense of like when there is that little grain or kernel of like reality or possibility, like the fact that that could actually you know, that's what makes it scary, because if it's like, you know, some kind of supernatural like you know I saw like Anna Belle or like those like Chucky and stuff, and it's a bit like, you know, that wouldn't happen.

And yeah, it's so slow the reveal of what's going on.

I know, when he's like crying, oh, it's horrible things.

And the bit where they reveal what's going on where he's the picture of him is on the easel and the auctioning him and it's just so that like the camera he's been taken off for a walk, to cat Oh, that moment of realization.

It's yeah, that the premise of that film, that is an excellent.

Thing, absolutely stuck with me. I mean, when did you get into have you always liked the see?

Okay, this is the story.

When I was eight or nine, I saw Coraline and it terrified me to the exam that I never watched a horror film again until I was like sixteen. That's not even a horror film, but I was absolutely terrified of I didn't like dolls, I didn't like the buttons on the eyes. I was very traumatized. And then when I.

Was sixteen, I watched I can't remember what I think, it was like the Shining or something, okay.

And I was like, okay, Like, even though I wasn't that taken by the Shining controversial opinion, I liked that sense of tension. And then I watched things like seven and just kind of got into the more like psychological side of things. And then I thought, you know, why not watch some of the groy ones. I just didn't do that much for me. Yeah, what I mean, I just want it.

Yeah, They're kind of good to laugh at if you watch it with a may and you're just like, yeah, laughing, how absolutely absurd.

It exactly exactly, That's.

Kind of where that's at. So we're currently in well, I don't even know what the date is anymore, November. We're in November time for anyone listening in the future, in November time again, untiwards the end of twenty twenty. Your album comes out in January.

January.

You are currently well and truly in promo mode, right, You've been super busy, Yeah, but you've actually had I was thinking about all the things you've been doing over Lockdown. I didn't realize that the album, which we have talked about in a bit, but you wrote that during Lockdown one.

Yeah, most of it a little bit before and a little bit after.

Sure, But there's loads of things you've done whilst a lot of us have been locked in. Really. You played Glastonbury, Yeah, and obviously there was no Glastonbury this year. For anyone who was not worth of this, there was obviously no Glastonbury. But a few people went and played and they had like a little bit of coverage and it looked amazing on TV because it was you in front of the Pyramid stage. There were cows there. Yeah, the pyramid was

Yeah, and that was your first Classton b Yeah, I mean that was my first festival.

Oh wow, Okay, this is a theme you just go you're just going straight for.

Straight in the defense. But yeah, that was amazing, especially you know, the sun was setting. I was singing black Dog was a really important song to me, you know, on the TV, like my parents were watching from home, and it felt like it was very surreal. It was kind of bittersweet because you know, I remember being Glastonby last year and running around and playing all these shows and you know, seeing Tim in Parlor live for the

Sure was there? What was the crew situation? Where's a lot of people there? It looked really sparse.

Yeah, there weren't there weren't that many people there, honestly, probably like ten or.

So, Wow, that's kind of creepy.

Yeah, it was really. It was eerily quiet as well.

And were there because a few other people playing, hand full of like new artists were they were they there when you were there?

No, they weren't.

There were no it It was literally just me, my manager and my guitarist and someone from Transgressive Mic.

So that was.

Yeah, it was nice to like, you know, have a little road trip down. But I remember last year, you know, we were listening to like Princess Nokia and like shouting in the van, like so excited.

So it was definitely a big contrast.

So when you went last year first festival, did you the whole thing? Did you just stay the whole Yeah?

I was playing. I played four times. I've no experienced anything like it. Yeah, because it's weird, like all these different kinds of people just in this kind of bubble of music, Like everyone just kind of is in a good mood because everyone's in the sun. Especially it was sunny, thank god, it's almost too hot. But yeah, it just kind of ignited my love of festival. It's not my love of camping, though definitely not a camping no.

Me neither and gastinories. I've not been the customary for a good ten years. But every time I watch it religiously on TV. Yeah, and every year, I'm kind of thinking I really miss out. I feel I'm really missing out. I always want to be there and I always intend to go the following year, and I was going to go this year, but obviously it was canceled. How are you with Fomo?

I feel like at the beginning when everything kind of dissolved, obviously, I was like, oh, I was.

Supposed to be going here, they're doing this that.

But then I kind of just like, I don't know, as we were saying before, like it's amazing what people can get used to. It was like, oh, well, I guess it's not happening, so it might as well just like write some songs.

Yeah, And it's kind of felt, all right, isn't it that we're all at least we're all miserable.

Yeah, to be fair, it's like a collective collective.

It's like, well, I mean I am missing out, but so's everyone. You're kind of not missing out in anything right now.

Yeah, that's true. It's so weird though, how the world just shifted like in a few months.

Yeah, it's crazy. So you were saying that you rented an air b and be kind of close to hear down the road in Hoxton to was it to you recorded there as well? So you set up a little studio in there.

Yeah, I mean it wasn't It wasn't much of it was literally a mic guitar, bass and like one of these little Midi keyboards in a computer and that was literally.

What the whole record was made on.

What that's mad?

So we made yeah, I would say we made like five or six of the songs that during that period of time. And then afterwards I made one of the tunes in the Church with Paul Upworth and then he helped me like develop one of my demos, which is another one of the songs, Portry four hundred, and then Bad Sounds down in Bristol helped me work on Bluish. So yeah, but it was mainly made in apartments, which I love. I'm definitely not that much of a studio person.

Like I like my.

Comfort and my tea and my windows.

Right, and I suppose there's no pressure right when you're in a I mean when I go to if I ever go to a recording studio to institute some or whatever I've been to. I went to pull Up Works to do a podcast with him, and it is I do get quite. I do get really excited being in that room and seeing the big desk. I'm like a child in there. But I can imagine there's a pressure because there's a time limit. Like you know that this

Yeah, you're right. It is so hard.

Like when I was writing the album before, like I had this definitely this sense of like stress and expectation, and like I was just like I need to make this good.

Like there are people like.

Not relying on me, but like you know, I'm signed and like all these people working on a project, Like I need to make this good. And I think that desire to make something because you know, I listened to out the albums that I love.

You know, if you're listening to like in Rainbow, it's done me all of this stuff. I was like, oh my god, I need to make something like groundbreaking. And I was like I'm like nineteen years.

Old, like I can't make I can't make to PM Butterflo on my first album, you know. And I think once I let go of that sense of pressure that I was putting on myself, then it just kind of came flowing out. You know.

Yeah, yeah, you kind of got you've got to leave yourself somewhere to go as well. You're right, you know, and hey, it's great, the record's great. We were just saying, I've heard it, I've played it a lot, and it's one of those records sound like I'm on Radio one now. It's one of those records that it's really instant. It's it's like it's like instantly, it's like a no brainer record, Like yeah, like this is all great, and it's so

No, I agree with you.

I think the reason why is that those songs on the record, Like most of them were written in terms of like the melody and the lyrics in like under an hour, like in like thirty minutes. I always just I don't know when I when I hear some chords or whatever that I'm taken by, I just literally just

And does that come from? Because poetry is a big love of yours. Were you writing poetry way before you were writing songs?

Yeah?

Yeah, So I started off with writing short stories when I was like eight or something. I just always loved words, and then I went to poetry when I was thirteen, and then lyrics.

Yeah, what were your short stories about? As an ace?

It is so funny. I unearthed one the other day.

It was one of them was like kind of like Bonnie and Clyde vibes like it was called like the Highway Kids or something, and it was like these two kids who were like highway robbers and they were like running from the law. But then and then I don't really understand because I loved words, so the plots were like not very good. It was mainly just me opening the saurus and just adding massive words I didn't really understand.

Yeah, I loved those stories that kids, right, because kids just have no rules at all. They just do whatever they want. I've mentioned this on this podcast before, but my wife used to write stories as a kid, and but her thing would be she'd get bored very quickly, so she'd just kill everyone in the story. All her stories end up everyone dies.

Wow.

Wow, I'm sure there's some deep psychological issues going on there underneath that. But she says, it's just because she'd get bored like that.

I mean, I can definitely relate to that. Like my attention span is very short. I think that's why I moved onto poetry, because I couldn't really follow a thread for like pages and pages, Like I would get to the end of like two pages and that I'd be like, well, I kind of had enough of this now, so I would just like finish it really quickly, like in a way that didn't make sense.

Just get it done, do you. I'm going to drop a name here because this happened recently to me, so that's fresh in my mind. It is relevant, I promise. I interviewed John Cooper Clark and we were talking about poetry, obviously, and he was saying he was telling me about how he was taught poetry in school and it was a big thing, and all the guys, he said, in his class would kind of use poetry as a bit of a show of that mat show their manliness to try and get to try and get the girls in the class.

Yeah, last year was last year?

When what was the curriculum? Is poetry a thing or was this just off your own back of like this is my thing?

Well, when I started, when I was like young, like thirteen or whatever, then we weren't really taught it that much.

But as I got.

Older, it was definitely a part of the curriculum, but it was more kind of you know, Shakespearean's sonnets and like romantic poetry like Byron stuff. And we did some modern poetry as well a little bit, because I studied English at a level. But it definitely wasn't the poetry that I learned at school. Was definitely not the poetry that I gravitated towards and that I was inspired by

When was the first time you performed poetry to people?

Oh, as in like on stage or like just yeah.

Yeah, has that only ever been at your shows? And since being a musician, did.

You go for a period of being a yeah, no, no, I was never like a spoken word, but no, no, I think I was too.

Nervous for that. Yeah.

It's very.

To listen to as well, but like you know, sometimes it's a little bit like I think it's about execution, right like other headline shows. I would like write a poem that day about the city, and it was like short, you know, thirty seconds, and so it's like a nice little interlude. But sometimes you know when it like goes off like fifteen minutes and it's just like a monologue, just like shouting, yeah that's.

Not that's not you. So the record as I say, super personal, very poetic, and like a big thing. A big thing that you love is nostalgia. Yeah, I'm really nostalgic as well. Do you feel you've got a handle on your nostalgia?

I definitely think I did.

That's good. I sometimes question why.

Yeah, I think, you know, I the way that I approached nostalgia, it's not necessarily you know, the idea of like looking at the past through a rose tinted lens. For me, it's more like, I mean, this whole album for me was about almost like processing the past and discussing the traumas and the joys. But like I tried to do it in a way that wasn't kind of tainted by hindsight, which of course is impossible, but I wanted to kind of reconjure up how I felt in

So that's kind of how I looked at it.

King Crawl, I was going to ask you about that was for you, right, like a bit of a light bulb moment to say.

Yeah, definitely.

So six Pep Beneath the Moon came out when I was thirteen, and it was a moment where the stars kind of aligned for me creatively. I heard this voice that was literally like gravel and grit and like dark London skies, and I heard this like poetry and this rawness and the fact that the instrumentals will often like quite kind of stripped down and simple, but there was this sense of like pure emotion to me and.

I just loved it.

I think it was the first time that I discovered an album made recently for myself that I was completely obsessed with. There was also this album called I Thought I Was an Alien by Soco, which was around a similar time. I think I just discovered like the idea of like super emotional music that I didn't really know could be executed by, you know, like people my age and in that way, and that was just immediately like this is what I want to do.

And it's such a like it It's such an important thing, that moment when you discover music for you, but like when you're not living off of someone else's golden era.

Exactly, you know, exactly.

So how did you Was it the thing that everyone was listening to at your school? Can you remember how you came across that record?

No? No, no, no, absolutely not.

So. The way that I discovered it was that there was this cool girl in my in my class who had like cool taste, Like I just remember thinking that she was like the cools thing ever, and she introduced me to Loyal Kanana and King Cruel and she was like, oh, you should listen to these guys. And I was really taken by by both of them. And we had to give a presentation in school about an artist that we liked, and I was like, OK, I'm gonna do King Cruel.

Let's do it.

And I remember putting it, like, you know, putting all this work into like the research and stuff, and then like playing like baby Beal or something, and everyone in the cast like didn't get it, and they were like what is I don't really I don't really understand this.

And I think at that moment that.

Was what were they choosing for their I don't know what they were.

They were picking like kind of noble or something. I don't know, it was just not I realized that I was in a slightly different way. You know.

It's like a lot of fall Out Boy and a lot of I mean I did like that as well, But for me, it was a moment where I was like, Okay, not everyone is going to like what I like. Not everyone is going to like what I do, so I might as well just kind of follow my taste and do my thing.

So you were kind of out on your own with with the cool girl. She was into it as well. Yeah, yeah, but you were like in the minority at your school in terms of your taste.

Yeah, I think so. I mean I didn't really you know, I didn't really talk about music with my friends. Like I only actually encountered other people who loved music in the same way that I did when I was about sixteen or seventeen when I was at college. But at the beginning, music was very much my own kind of personal little it was only my person world. Like writing was this private ritual that I did at home, Like I would look up on YouTube, like find new songs and stuff.

But I never really told anyone about it. Yeah, even my family. I just kind of did it by myself.

Thing can you remember what your first song was?

I remember it, but I have no idea what it was about.

I remember just like thrashing on the guitar I think I listened to I listened to like something by Slow Dive or something like that, and I was like, wow, like I need to just like make something emotional, and it was just the lyrics were I don't remember the lyrics, but I remember at the time I was.

Like, this is like, this is groundbreaking.

I've got something to say and I'm saying it.

Well literally literally. Yeah.

So what did after King Crawl? What did that open up for you? Once you went from him? Where did you go after that?

Honestly, there were I went to a million different places at once, so I went. I got into like the Pixies and the students and stuff. I got really into Slowing the Family Stone, got really into like Elliott Smith, John Martin, Nick Drake. I also explored the more like soul Roots and Nina Simone and Minnie Riperton, and then I found Porta's Head and the whole kind of trip hop like Massive Attack, Tricky and stuff, which was so

It went through. It's like opened this portal to possibilities exactly. It's great, isn't it that like one thing can just do that for you? And actually I think it probably I'm not sure that necessarily everyone does that. I think some people might have heard King Crawl and then stuck in that world. Although maybe King Crawl is the key to it, because he's a guy that is just like Encyclopedia of music himself, and you can kind of tell

I think for me it was the way that I approached it was, Okay, I've discovered something that's unlike anything I've ever heard, and it makes me feel really good to know that there's something other than what I've already heard out there. So I wanted to kind of keep reincarnating that feeling, keep finding that in other places, which is why I just kind of went super broad.

Yeah, and you're a Radiohead fan. Oh my god, you're a big radio Head fair right. I say that because what makes me think that was there's just a few. Well, and what I love about your songs is there's like references and little name drops of things that I like. And I think it's in the in the Gucci film, the first Gucci film where you mentioned kid A. In that you mentioned Tom.

York closing Tom York. Yeah, good, Yeah, I love them.

So yeah, So that came. That came after.

Yeah, that came after I think I was like sixteen seventeen, okay, And that was actually a really beautiful time in my life because that was when I really found my people in terms of finding other creatives. Like I went to college and there were people who wanted to be painters, directors, and my best friend Matthew showed me Weird Fishes and obviously I knew I knew Radiohead, but after that I was like, oh my god, it like listening to songs like Nude. It just changed the way that I saw music.

So is in Rainbow's You're that's your Radiohead.

Well, you know, I enjoy all of it, Like I really like Hail to the Thief, and like The Bends for like a certain mood as well.

And obviously Idiotech is like one of my tops.

But in Rainbows, if I had to pick just one, like as my favorite, just like the warmth of there and the guitars. Oh, it's just I listened to it every day. I'm serious.

You great, Yeah, I love that. That's great. I like it when someone's got an album that they just still can't get over, like they're still fascinated by it and love it. I love it Rainbows and the Bends. I'm a sucker for the Bends. Yeah, that's the one that Radiohead fans aren't meant to say they like it.

No, I like it. I don't care.

I love It's good, right, it's good. You and Phoebe Bridges. I was watching your cover All Faint Plastic Trees for the BBC. Where was that film that was like in a big church?

Yeah, it was filmed in a church. I can't remember what it was cool now, but it was like a church in North London. Sure, and we filmed that. Yeah, we filmed that over a few months.

Ago. That was Phoebe came on the podcast a few weeks A few weeks ago. We had actually had to do it twice because I forgot to press record. It's bad, isn't it. That's really bad? And I think it would have been actually probably just before or you did that thing, because she was when she was here. She's very funny. Yeah, she's fun Have you known her for a while, like or did you just meet her for did you meet her then?

Well, so we had kind of chatted on Instagram and you know, she had said she was a fan. Obviously I'm a massive fan, Like Stranger in the Alps was one of the albums for me in terms of specifically in terms of the lyrics, like that sense of hyperspecific and that wittiness I could even though it was very kind of there were moments where it was very somber and heavy, like there was that sense of like cutting

We did it. It sounded great. Albums out in January. How are you feeling about it?

Nervous?

Very nervous, excited, slightly apprehensive. I'm just gonna go through all the adjectives I think. I'm just I'm excited. I'm excited for it to be out in the world. But then there is that sense of like, oh my god, like maybe I should have just put one more song, or maybe I should take that one off, or did I say everything? Or is that lyric even any good? Like I think when you have it finished, so easy to like unpick it. But I definitely think that I put as much of myself into the album that I

Important to people.

But no, you never know, like maybe I'm just gonna get maybe it will be terrible, it would be great.

It's gonna be great, It's gonna be great, and then I guess next year. You don't really know, right, It's like it's going to happen next year exactly.

I'm definitely taking it like one day at a time, just because it feels like everything can shift, like within twenty four hours.

Anyway, I guess we'll see.

Well, hopefully the new vaccine's going to arrive, We're all going to be cured. Donald Trump will leave office. Everything's going to be fine. Your album's going to come out. It's going to sell millions.

Yes, I'm loving this premise.

And you'll make a movie with. Who would you most like to make a movie with?

Oh my god, Where's Anderson?

Where's Anderson? Will cast you in his new film, starring alongside That's.

So Hard, starring alongside Robert DeNiro, Perfect.

Twenty one, Your Year?

Love it

Anyway, good night,