Lily & The Parlour Tricks
A few weeks ago, an email in my inbox with some information on Lily & The Parlour Tricks caught my eye. After a quick listen, I instantly became a fan of their music. A blend of three-part harmonies create eclectic sounds drawing from each members’ roots. The band has a few dates scheduled in the NY area, but hope to get out on a full tour this year. Take a listen to their music and hear what lead singer Lily has to say below.
Arin: How have the few shows you’ve had lately been? You were just in Philly this past weekend.
Lily: It was good. We’re sort of… we haven’t really done an extensive tour since last spring because we’ve been working on stuff here, but it’s always really, really nice to get out of town for a couple days; we love doing it. Unfortunately, we were only in Philly for the night, we drove back in the wee hours of the night. It’s really… I personally love getting out of town. As much as I love playing in New York, there’s something really extra fun about playing somewhere else and playing for new people.
A: There are a few more dates in NY and one in Massachusetts scheduled in the coming month, so what are you looking forward to about getting to play some more shows and play out a bit more?
L: I mean we, for us, for better or worse, we just love playing; we love playing live. We love any opportunity to play a show and that doesn’t change; that’s no matter where we are. This month in particular is going to be really fun. We’re playing a show on friday at the Knitting Factory with two bands who are friends of ours, Mercies and The Hollows, and then we go to Boston for the first time. We’ve played in Massachusetts before, but never in Boston so we’re really excited. At the end of the month, we’re playing at Le Poisson Rouge for our friend Nat Osborn’s album release party which is really exciting and it’s a rad venue.
A: After CMJ last fall, what has been going on with the band and what is coming up?
L: Some of it I can’t talk about just yet, but really, really good things. We’re actually in talks with a label that I don’t wanna name yet, but it’s really exciting. Hopefully, everything works out; we’ll know in the next couple weeks, but we’ve been recording for the first time in like a year and a half which is so much fun. We have a lot of new material and we also revisited some old stuff that we’ve never really recorded before. It’s gonna be really exciting; we’re all really pumped about it, so that’s sort of what we’ve been doing since CMJ.
A: What got you into music personally and how did the group come together?
L: I grew up surrounded by music. My dad was always playing classical music or jazz in the house. There was always music playing when he was home, so he introduced me to that stuff. My mom introduced me to The Beatles and Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash; and then, when I was like 10, I started listening to the radio every day and I started listening to the oldies station and I found Doo-Wop and Buddy Holly and [that] sort of changed everything. For a while, I really thought I was going to be a jazz singer, and when I was a teenager, I would sing in jazz clubs and then get up and go to school in the mornings which was probably not a great idea; but once I got into college, I started writing for the first time and I was writing rock and roll which came out of nowhere because I always thought I was going to be a jazz musician, but I’m very happy that I’m not. The band got together; we all met in college and I think we all had a sort of similar experience. We were in a jazz program and one could argue that we learned a lot, but we also learned what we didn’t want to do. First [it was] just the guys and I, and then we added the ladies. To capture what I had been writing really required three-part girl vocal harmonies. The girls joined like two and a half years ago and it’s been nonstop ever since.
A: Where does song inspiration come from and how does the writing and recording process typically work?
L: I write the music, and then I will send everyone a barebones recording that I make on my computer or something, and then we get together we arrange it. The inspiration really comes from all over; a lot of the songs are about books that I’ve read or articles that I’ve read. I have a thing for true crime, and real life crazy horror stories or ghost stories. Then, there’s the normal stuff about boys and whatnot, but it’s really mostly books. I don’t know; I just find myself most inspired by things that I’ve read. We always hone whatever we’re doing at a live show. We’ll bring in the new song and we’ll arrange it and then we’ll play it live; and from there, we’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t and we’ll tweak it, or sometimes we’ll leave it alone and not play it for a few weeks and then suddenly someone will have an idea and we will try that and see if it works.
A: What are your visions for the band and what direction do you see things going?
L: We would love to go on a really lengthy tour. We wanna get to Europe; that’s a big goal which, hopefully, will happen in the next year. The most important thing for us always is getting people out to shows and really putting on the best show we possibly can. Selling records is obviously something we want to do a lot of as well, but to me there’s nothing like seeing a really phenomenal live show and that’s what we strive to accomplish. Every time, every show. Sometimes, it doesn’t entirely work, but we always try to make that happen.
