Throughout NME’s history, exciting new bands have been plastered on the cover, despite having little to no music officially out. Suede hadn’t released a track when they appeared on the cover in 1992, and The Libertines made their first mark on the mag as they released their debut single in 2002. Twenty years later – and with The Cover revamped as a franchise dedicated to emerging artists – Picture Parlour continued that infrequent tradition on the same day they released their debut single, ‘Norwegian Wood’. It was a dream start for any band.
Quickly, though, that dream turned into a nightmare, as changes in music and internet culture became apparent. “Industry plant” accusations took over social media, and the Manchester-formed band were left reeling from how fast things had turned sour.
“It all should have been moments of celebration,” reflects frontwoman Katherine Parlour now, as she and guitarist Ella Risi take a break from working on their second album, a week before the release of their debut, ‘The Parlour’. “It felt like there was a resentment from us, like, ‘Why? Why is this moment being taken away? We do deserve it.’ And maybe back then we were scared to say, ‘Fuck you all, we deserve this.’ Because it’s such a scary, overwhelming feeling to have what felt at the time like everybody telling you that you don’t deserve it, and this isn’t meant for you.”
Instead of trying to harness the attention and use it to their advantage, the band instead took a step back and gave themselves the time and space to figure out exactly what they wanted and what they needed to say. (They’ve also seen a line-up change, too, since 2023, with bassist Sian Lynch departing the band.) ‘The Parlour’, an aural safe space designed to allow listeners to be themselves, became a way for them to reclaim the narrative that had been so unfairly taken out of their control. “At the time, we probably didn’t realise it, but subliminally, maybe that was our own mental catharsis or protective zone,” Parlour nods.
“I’m glad that we took a minute, because we’ve learned so much and I feel like, now, we’re way more equipped and we wouldn’t be so easily affected by something like that now,” Risi says, sitting next to her bandmate. “We feel ready for the album now, whereas at that point, we just wanted to hide.”
Read on for our interview with Picture Parlour, where they discuss drawing a line under that debacle with a piss-taking pop song, relocating to Nashville to record their debut album, and the community they’re building around the band.
You talk about the backlash around your breakout moment on ‘Talk About It’. How did that song help you process that experience, draw a line under it and move on?
Katherine Parlour: “‘Talk About It’ started as a joke. It was like, ‘You know what? Imagine if it was all fucking true and we were these industry plants – what would be the song that we do?’ It just started off as taking the piss, never gonna see the light of day. We finished it and, to be honest, we hated the song.”
Ella Risi: “It was the classic you put it at the bottom of the demo link, and everyone was like, ‘What’s that tune, though?’”
Parlour: “We said for ages, ‘We’re not going to release it.’ In the moment, though, we had so much fun doing it because it was a way of just being like, ‘Let’s not take it seriously. If we did want to say something, what would we say?’ It would probably be a little bit tongue-in-cheek and satirical. I’m a terrible communicator as it is, and the only way I can do so is probably through song, so maybe that’s the way that we address it. We don’t really speak about it in interviews, and I wouldn’t necessarily write some big post – it’s just not worth that kind of time. So it felt nice to wrap the entire episode up with a little pop tune.”
You recorded the album in Nashville, which is known as Music City. What was it like relocating there to work on this record?
Parlour: “We just didn’t sleep for three weeks.”
Risi: “We were jet lagged as well, so we were just naturally waking up at 5am, and after the studio, we didn’t want to go home, so we’d be like, ‘We gotta go out!’ We were just living off adrenaline.”
Parlour: “It was an amazing place to be. Growing up, my nan shoved Johnny Cash down my throat – she was all about country and ’50s rock’n’roll. So to get to go there… we went to the Johnny Cash Museum. I cried looking at the letters between Johnny and June – that got me going. We did all of the cliché things, like walking up and down Broadway and the honky tonk bars. One night, I got up and did a Johnny and June duet with some bloke with a huge handlebar moustache, so I felt like we really became local after that. The general Americana sound and that magic of Nashville bled into the record, which is everything we always wanted. We’ve always dreamt of being an international band, and a dream of mine is to go over to the States and tour, so for me, it was a dream come true, and it definitely impacted the album.”
You mentioned Johnny Cash – he’s the reason you first started writing songs, Katherine…
Parlour: “My grandma didn’t know how else to shut me up as a kid, so this one time, she just put on Walk The Line – which I know is probably the worst way to get into Johnny. She put it on, and when it finished, I was like, ‘Again! Please, again!’ So she literally played it on loop, and then that’s when I asked for a guitar. Next Christmas, I got a little Spanish guitar from Argos, and then I was like, ‘OK, ‘Ring Of Fire’. OK, ‘Cocaine Blues’.’ I just learned every Johnny Cash song, which is why I can probably still only play three chords on guitar.”
You’ve said that the album is “shaped by the dive bars and clubs that birthed you”. What influence have those spaces had on the band?
Parlour: “Me and Ella met at one of those independent venues – The Castle in Manchester, which is still going now. Those places just shaped you as a human. As much as it shapes you as a person, it shapes you as a musician, too. Going to see bands like Black Honey at the Ruby Lounge when I was 17 – it has to influence the record that you grow up to make. It’s just part of who we are.”
Risi: “One of the tracks that we wrote really early on, ‘Neptune 66’, we wrote hungover after a weird night out.”
Parlour: “That song narrates that night that we spent going to this gig, the people you meet at gigs, the security, conversations while you’re having a smoke with a stranger… I suppose it’s this element of ‘The Parlour’ – it’s this mood and state of being that takes you back to.”
Risi: “It definitely reflects how we were feeling at the time. We’d just moved down to London and everything was so new and different and weird from what it was like up north, so I think that the spookiness of that song reflects that.”
The album was also inspired by Northern Soul, which is having a resurgence in the UK right now. Why do you think young people are connecting with that genre and culture?
Parlour: “There’s so many reasons. I was lucky enough to have a dad who did Northern Soul dancing with his brother when he was young, so I grew up with that. It reminds me of home. But I think the reason it’s connecting with so many people now, which is amazing to see, is not just about the music. Obviously, the music’s a sacred part of it, but it’s a sense of community, and it’s such a free space. It’s euphoric; you just let go. I think there’s a nice synergy there with live music and how going to gigs makes me feel.”
Risi: “But there’s an intimacy with Northern Soul in the community. We’ve been going to nights down here and we’ve met so many people. People are just craving human connections and care at the moment. I think that’s what the Northern Soul community prides itself on.”
Have you seen that kind of community at your gigs as well?
Parlour: “100 per cent. Moreso maybe in the past six months. When we did the independent venues tour, that really shone through, because obviously a lot of the places we played, we’d never heard of, being northerners. And then you meet some of the people again, and we have a WhatsApp chat where we’re in it and we’re talking [with fans] – we share outfit ideas and there’s just a real sense of having a friendship group. When we go to the gigs, we all have drinks together. We might even have our first Picture Parlour fan group love affair. I’m so locked it. It’s happening. There’s going to be a PP baby or marriage on the way. But no, there’s a real sense of community that we’ve got now, which is just so unbelievable to see. There’s so many bands we’d do this for growing up – like me with Black Honey. I was such a huge Black Honey fan, and that’s something Izzy [Bee Phillips] has done beautifully, is be connected to the people who connect to her music.”
The two of you have been playing and writing together for around four years now. What is it about your creative partnership that works and lets you create this magic?
Risi: “I think the trust that we have in each other, in that process.”
Parlour: “When we met, I’d known of Ella for a while. We played in bands, and we had a bassist in both of our bands who loved Ella and would talk about her. I’d go and watch her in different bands and be like, ‘She’s too good for that band, she needs to be in my band.’ I didn’t have a band at the time! When we eventually met, there was an anticipation and an excitement and energy that was explosive from the beginning. We’ve been lucky that it’s not changed or died out, and maybe that’s when the trust builds.”
Risi: “On that first day, we’d be spitballing ideas, and then it was almost like we’d finish each other’s sentences musically. I was like, ‘This feels like some sort of electric synergy, we must pursue this.’”
How is that partnership feeding into album two, which you’re working on now? Where is this album taking you?
Parlour: “Straight away, it’s definitely darker. It feels a lot more confident as well. Obviously, I love album one, but it was written in the midst of a lot of changes and new things – having a manager and then getting a record deal. These things are just like The Twilight Zone.”
Risi: “I think now we trust ourselves and our creative instincts. Towards the end of album one, we were just like, ‘Fuck it, let’s do what we want to do, and it doesn’t matter if anybody thinks it’s going to be a hit, as long as we’re proud of it and we can stand by it and enjoy listening to it and love it.’”
Parlour: “I think reaching that for album one has really put us in good stead to just build for album two, so there’s a lot more creative confidence to this new record.”
Picture Parlour’s ‘The Parlour’ is out now via EMI