Why Do Parquet Courts Hate Australia?

It could be because of recent US coverage of our Prime Minister, or that their promoter and tour manager screwed up the rider request last time they toured, but Parquet Courts will spend less than 24 hours in Australia when they visit next week.

After an appearance at Japan’s Fuji Rock, the Brooklyn four-piece will drop into Splendour On the Grass on July Sunday 27 before jetting off for a gig at Lollapalooza in Chicago. I spend longer in the self-check out at the supermarket.

Parquet Court’s Andrew Savage insists that the band actually do like Australia. “We love the place and bands like Total Control, Woollen Kits and Dick Diver,” he says by phone from his Brooklyn home. “We are actually making plans now to try and come back in early 2015.” I’m not sure if I believe him.

Two years after an exceptionally crafted second album Light Up Gold and solid touring, Parquet Courts return with Sunbathing Animal, which maintains the nervous post punk jitter of it’s predecessor but spreads it’s wings with two songs peaking over the six-minute mark. “The last classic rock band’s last solid record creeps in/ A call out of the blue from an old, old friend” Savage sighs wearily on “Instant Disassembly”.

We catch up with Andrew to find out what Parquet Courts problem with Australia really is.

NOISEY: Why do you hate Australia so much?

Andrew Savage: I just don’t trust any place that allows the platypus to exist.

I saw you perform on the Seth Meyers Show. In the hierarchy of late night US talk shows where does he sit?

He’s kind of bottom. He was the head writer on Saturday Night Live but after Jay Leno retired Jimmy Fallon took his spot and Seth Myers got Fallon’s. He’s only been on a couple of months. We played the thirty ninth episode. As far as late night TV shows go it’s at the bottom of the totem pole but it’s technically the same show we played earlier in the year. The Jimmy Fallon show only with a new host.

People here lost their shit when young Australian musician Courtney Barnett played Jimmy Fallon. How important are spots on these late night talk shows?

You know I wonder that myself. It’s a national television audience so in that regard they are a big deal but for me it’s not so much as no one I know watches those shows. They make you seem more important to your aunts and uncles when they see you on Seth Myers. If I was to tell them I was putting out a record on What’s Your Rupture? they would be “What does that mean?”

You do all the artwork for the albums. What makes for good record art?

I like records that look the way they sound. When a band has a good sense of who they are visually. Total Control would be a good example of that or Black Flag who had a single artist they worked with throughout their career. I like it when you see the art and you have a synesthetic appreciation of the record. That’s my goal. I worked on the Sunbathing Animal art for two months. It’s got a lot of symbolism in it. A lot of the lyrics are presented in the artwork. If you look at the record, looking at the images, reading the lyrics and hearing the music it becomes the full experience.

How has your label Dull Tools been going?

It’s been busy. We’ve released three new records in the last few months. I run it with my friend Chris Pickering my band mate from Teenage Cool Kids which was our first release. Light Up Gold was our second release. That was a big success we sold three pressings before What’s Your Rupture? started doing it and from there we’ve worked with bands like Beth Israel, Yuppies from Omaha Nebraska and we just got finished with a Brooklyn electronic duo called Eaters.

Any plans for releasing an Aussie band?

I’d love to do an Australian band. I was actually speaking to Al Montfort and asked him to send me some Dick Diver stuff. He said he would but I haven’t heard anything. He did send me a picture of him dressed up as a sexy cop. But yeah we would like to do an Aussie or international band in the future.

Parquet Courts perform Splendour in the Grass in Byron Bay on July 27.

More Parquet Courts here;

Behind the Scenes of Parquet Courts Video for ‘Black and White’

“Sunbathing Animal” (Official Video) and Interview