PARCELS: BRINGING THEIR LIVE SHOW HOME TO AUSTRALIA

Read our interview with Patrick Hetherington and Noah Hill below!

Australian electro pop five-piece Parcels have made their long-awaited return to home soil for their national Day/Night tour. We caught up with band members Patrick Hetherington and Noah Hill ahead of the tours commencement to chat about the run of shows, bringing the album to a live setting and heading in a new sonic direction.

Having kicked off their sold-out tour at Sydney's Enmore Theatre last night, the band will play a second show in Sydney tonight before continuing on to Brisbane and Melbourne for two shows in each city. Supported by The Velvet Trip, the band played through tracks from their latest album, as well as a bevy of hit songs and fan favourites. An electric lighting plan lit up the venue as the bands magnetic stage presence filled the venue, with each performer expertly showcasing their individual musicianship, whilst also working cohesively together to deliver an outstanding performance. View our full gallery of the show below!

Intricately weaving together threads of western folk and classic pop, the five-piece explore new sonic terrain on Day/Night, creating a layered and textural collection of songs. Across the body of work, Parcels explore the duality of life, navigating the juxtaposition of identity vs anonymity, family vs independence, belonging vs isolation and nostalgia vs projection.

The Australian leg of the tour kicks off tonight, which is super exciting. What can audiences expect from this round of shows?

Noah Hill: A very well rehearsed [laughs] show at this point. We've played many shows, but it's gonna be kind of somewhat different tonight because we haven't been able to bring some of the things that we actually need that we've had on the Europe shows. So it's gonna be maybe a bit of a mixed bag. We'll see. A few surprises. We don't really know what's gonna happen either, so we'll figure it out on the fly

I'm sure it'll be so great, and the crowd will eat up every second. How have you gone about bringing the new album, Day/Night, into like a live setting and recontextualising it into a live sphere away from the original recordings?

Patrick Hetherington: We pretty quickly after releasing Day/Night moved on [laughs] from that record altogether in our minds, because we spent a lot of time working on it. So we're playing a lot of the songs, but we've kind of been inspired by a different sound, which is more of a dance direction and wanting to make really, really solid dance music. So we've taken a lot of the songs in that direction. And then at the moment we're kind of playing, I guess the idea of Day/Night, which is like some songs in a more organic open sounding setup and some songs purely dance groove orientated.

How important is like live music and performing to you guys in terms of not only showcasing your art, but also creating an in-person connection with the audiences who do resonate with your music?

NH: Yeah, it's definitely the time that you can actually get instant feedback from a crowd and know whether it's working, if something's working or not. It's always a refreshing experience, having recorded a record and then going out and touring it. And it's always different songs that you think, the ones that you think are gonna work sometimes don't and the ones that you don't do. It is always like a progression throughout the start of the tour. Everything changes. You're slowly moulding the songs to a different way, changing them from the recordings and making sure that it's more of to a live setting. It's just so much more outward as well. The recording process is so inward and you're like in a small room for like three months together and this is just so, it's like finally letting go of it all and giving it to people.

You mentioned there it's like receiving instant feedback. So I wanted to know which songs from the latest album that when you've been playing them live, you've been kind of surprised by the audience's reaction to them? Like maybe you weren't expecting them to resonate with those ones as much or maybe the ones you thought would be instantly resonate with them didn't.

PH: I'd say the song Famous has been difficult.

NH: [Laughs] Yeah, it's really been pain than ass.

PH: But that's more, I think a lot of it it's us, you know? Like I think we know when we hit an arrangement that feels like it's working live, maybe it takes some time to really dial it in, but we get it. And I think with Famous, we just, the arrangement has been really hard and we haven't quite nailed it even at this point. [Laughs] People like it sometimes, but yeah, that's been definitely the most difficult.

NH: The first time we played Coming Back, I was surprised by how mental people went in London. They were like moshing. That was like, I didn't think it was gonna be a song that people went crazy to. I thought it was kind of more reserved, but they lost it.

I love that. You said earlier that like pretty much as soon as you put the album out, you were kind of moving on from it into more dance territory. So what can we expect in the future? Are you working on new music or just living out the tour and taking a break after?

NH: Yeah, we're gonna need to finish this before we even can fathom what's next. I think there's a few inclinations of what we could do and what the direction might be. But it doesn't bode well to make too many plans in this current state of touring and fatigue and stuff. But I can imagine, and we've talked about what the future might hold as far as we've gotten though.