Interview: Parker Ben Parker
by Matthew Toledo - 9/21/2000
Parker Ben Parker claims Dayton Ohio as their "hometown". Luckily for us, two-fifths of this five-piece modern rock act attends Ohio University while the other members are spread out between points west like Bloomington, Indiana and Oxford, Ohio. Since O.U. has a majority share in the PBP market, local music venues like The Union and Mama E's have the act on their dance cards for the next few quarters.
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You'd think that a band with members scattered across the Midwest would not have time to practice, let alone complete two full length CD's. I asked singer-slash-guitarist Marc Aiello how often the band gets together to rehearse. "...not very often, usually for a few hours the day of the show. We sometimes practice in small groups during the week, but we're all pretty busy outside of the band with work, school, whatnot, so even that's rare. Though it rarely seems to impact our live set. No one is more surprised by this than us. Its really quite weird."
Everyone knows that long distance love rarely works out. Bands are forged of relationships between band members. " The love of the music, the rush of the performance, and the friendships" are some of the elements that have kept the act together. Spending a lot of time together practicing and bonding during long summer breaks from school also help.
Whatever they are doing to stick together, its working. The band formed way back in 1995 and has survived just fine for the last five years.
Parker Ben Parker's latest disk, entitled "...in order to speak to you", will undoubtedly be compared to the minor-key saturated mood ballads of bands like Radiohead. However, in an interview with the Dayton Daily Times this past February the band stated that they would describe themselves as "pop rock." The Dayton voice states that PBP is "Latin-tinged rock, quasi-blues, fuzzed out pop-rock " No matter how you define them, the band has a solid performance and a knack for making captivating tunes.
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If you're one of those people that must have a major-label comparison for a local band before you see them, think Hum, Radiohead, The Cure (wow, that's stretching), Sunny Day Real Estate (before their latest disk) and the like.
The bio on the PBP web site states that their "most favorite band" is the Poster Children. They've managed to open up for the Poster Children and several other well know regional acts like Ekoostik Hookah, Pretty Mighty Mighty, Lollipop Factory and the female art rockers Salvador Deli.
Each of the songs on their new 10-track effort explores melancholy, melodic and often times somber musical themes. Songs like "Natural" and "Might Be Losing Touch" portray a sense of social disconnection with the world. Other songs celebrate life in a minor harmonic key.
I asked Marc Aiello who wrote the lyrics for the songs and if they were based on fact or pure fictional story telling.
"There is no primary lyricist, really. It's really split up among us, usually whoever wrote the song (which is similarly dispersed). But, even then, there's not a lot of consistency. I'm the only one who didn't contribute lyrically to this album. I think our lyrics run the range of abstract to concrete, poetry to prose, fictional to metaphorical. Sometimes to tell a story, sometimes just to create a mood with syllables. Never to preach."
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"...in order to speak to you" took only 12 days to record, mix, edit, and master. Whatever momentum the band achieved through the efficient recording of this, their second CD, was brought to a halt by "Extenuating circumstances" with the bands producers. The disk, recorded nearly a year ago, is just being released.
A CD release party is being held this Saturday, September 23 at The Union with Columbus based band, Stone Velvet and local emo rock act RAN. It promises to be an excellent show as Parker Ben Parker is by far the best modern--dare I say emo--band that Athens has ever witnessed.
