Parquet Courts Discuss New Sheet Music Single, ‘Sunbathing Animal’

First it was Beck, now it’s Parquet Courts. There’s something about sheet music at the moment that just seems all too alluring to musicians.

For this year’s Record Store Day, the ‘Light Up Gold’ band will be following up their last EP – their October 2013 effort, ‘Tally All The Things That You Broke’ – with a special Record Store Day single, ‘Sunbathing Animal’. The only catch is that, instead of previewing it to audiences by streaming the MP3 straight away, they decided to provide fans with a slightly more DIY-style showcase.

“I just thought it was funny because the song was mostly one note!” laughs the band’s frontman Andrew Savage, when quizzed on just what made the band release it as sheet music. “It looks like a joke, you know? It almost looks like a Steve Reich piece or something, just one note for a couple of pages.”

He pauses, “By the way, I’m not comparing Parquet Courts to Steve Reich! But yeah, I just thought it looked funny.”

That’s not all they’ve been up to recently though. Following on from their RSD single news, the band managed to clock a bit of a trend in the discussions being had online, and just figured they’d put together a blog to celebrate their unanimous status as ‘slackers’; something which seems a little ironic, given the nature of the single reveal itself…

“I think there’s a certain archetype that people want to see in rock bands, of the slacker, stoner guy who flies by the seat of his pants,” offers up Savage. “It’s a kinda romantic notion of that guy who just gets by on chance, and doesn’t have to work that hard and just writes these songs. It’s a bit ridiculous as it’s not us at all. People wanna attach a certain narrative to the band that will look nice on paper and have that sexy angle, but it’s really reductionist. This is not exclusive to Parquet Courts; as I’ve gotten to meet other bands, everyone has their little sound bites. Ask any musician, none of them really like it, but everybody has theirs.”

Parquet Courts will release ‘Sunbathing Animal’ as part of Record Store Day, on 19th April through Rough Trade Records.

Taken from the new, free DIY Weekly, available to read online, download on Android via Googleplay, or download on iPad now.