My Short List Of Heroes: Q & A With John Parish

By J Howell

John Parish may not exactly be a household name, but the scope of his work, on both sides of the glass, is almost unparalleled in both quality and variety. My first exposure to John was seeing his name in the liner notes to PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love, which is still a favorite record of mine. I had to find out who was responsible for the sounds on that record, which were jarring and lush, often in the same song. Turns out this Parish fellow had a lot to do with it, both as a musician and a producer, and as a mentor of Harvey’s, who basically got her start in Parish’s Automatic Dlamini. (Harvey once introduced him onstage as “more a god than a man,” which probably made him blush a little.)

The following year, Parish and Harvey released Dance Hall at Louse Point, a collaboration in which John was responsible for literally 99% of the music, and Harvey for the vocals. That record still stands as my favorite “Desert Island” album, the almost impossibly high-water mark that I, as a musician and producer, aspire to. From the first time I heard “Taut,” John Parish had a permanent place on my short list of heroes. John’s work with dozens of bands like Sparklehorse, eels, 16 Horsepower, Goldfrapp, and the extended Giant Sand family has been astounding, while John’s own records are equally so.

I was fortunate enough to see John’s band on tour for How Animals Move in Chicago a few years ago, and my musical life was forever altered. Since then, I’ve had some small interaction with John and found that not only is he a creative force to be reckoned with, he’s an exceedingly nice guy. John even sent me the entirety of Automatic Dlamini’s discography on vinyl, and I’m pretty he sure he actually had to go to the local record shop in his native Bristol to get it! He’s kept up a brisk working pace lately, and I was fortunate enough to get him to answer a few questions about his recent solo soundtrack work, his upcoming follow-up to Dance Hall with Polly Harvey, and to talk a little about working with so many differing personalities in varying contexts.

Popshifter: Why don’t we start by talking a little about two records you have forthcoming soon: the soundtrack to the Patrice Toye film Nowhere Man and the follow-up to Dance Hall at Louse Point with Polly Jean Harvey. Your soundtrack to Toye’s Rosie (1998) and Dance Hall are both incredibly evocative, compelling records though very, very different from each other in many ways. How different (or similar) is it for you working in these contexts, and how similar (or different) are the Nowhere Man soundtrack and the Dance Hall follow-up to their predecessors?

John Parish: Well, the obvious similarity between writing the soundtracks and writing the music for the JP/PJ albums is that I’m concentrating on music and not words. And in both cases I’m trying to write something that works emotionally and musically without words, although obviously being aware that the JP/PJ will end up (in most cases) with words. But knowing that does influence the way I structure things. I’m more likely to make some concessions toward a verse/chorus structure on some—not all—of the stuff for Polly. I say not all, because one of the exciting things about working with Polly as a writer/singer is that I can throw something pretty challenging at her, and she can match it with something equally surprising.

One of the main differences between writing Rosie and Nowhere Man was that this time I was more experienced in soundtrack work and didn’t make the mistake of ‘writing to picture’ too early, then having the film be re-edited and the music not fitting anymore

To look at the Nowhere Man soundtrack and the new JP/PJ album (‘A woman a man walked by’), I think you could tell they are by the same artists that made Rosie and Dance Hall, even though they both sound pretty different. But it’s hard for me to say. I’m aware of all the little common idiosyncrasies, and I’m not sure how clear they would be to anyone else.

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