Purveyors of: the sands of an hourglass running out

The melodic jazz-pop of Loitering Heroes was first brought into this world by Kevin Parnell, playwright, writer and Wavelength booker extraordinaire. Essentially the lead songwriter, Parnell extracts lyrics, non sequiturs, noises, shouts and laughs from the bustling cityscape around him and delivers them with a winking eye and a tapping foot. If you can’t attend the December 16th Wavelength to see this in person (which you should) then you would be well advised to pick up the recently released Beast Alert!, the result of the Heroes’ efforts over the past year and their first record. Pras Rajagopalan grilled the ever-occupied Parnell on what the heck is up with him and the Heroes with whom he plays.

It's been a while since we last spoke. What have you been up to in the last 6 months?

I've been up to everything. In the summer I worked on a cooking show and for the Fringe and Summerworks theatre festivals. In September I was working on a Canadian Film Centre indie feature film, which was a lot of fun and great experience but with killer hours, like a couple 21 hour days, all-night [in] alleys in the rain, [and] claustrophobic hospital corridors, but fun! I booked all the Wavelength shows from September to November and now I'm working on a crazy local variety TV show that starts airing in April. I'm doing some writing and producing for it and also booking bands to be on the show, so all my worlds are colliding.

Similarly, it's been a while since Loitering Heroes has played Wavelength (April 2006, yes?). What has come and gone and renewed and evolved and progressed or regressed for LH since you last played?

Loitering Heroes has become a lot more focused in the last six months. In the summer we lost our drummer Brandon. He's a fantastic drummer, which means he's in a million great bands, so he just got too busy. Loitering Heroes is always hard to get together and book a show because all the players are professional musicians mostly from the jazz scene and they're all busy making a living with their instruments. It's hard to ask them to find the time to play for free, but when it happens it's a lot of fun. It's worked out though because I quickly asked a mutual drummer friend Nico Dann to join us and it's been a blast having him. He plays regularly in Sister Suvi and a bunch of local jazz groups and really brings a different kind of frenetic energy to the songs.

Our songs have evolved musically and lyrically a lot too. We've sort of found a unique sound and have started writing songs more like a band, rather than just me bringing the band completed songs. There's more of quirky jazz influence on the songs coming from the band members. I've abandoned the more silly songs but we still have a strain of whimsy to the new lyrics, though they're darker. There's a lot more water imagery in the new songs too. I've been trying to write songs that allow me to sing differently as well so they don't all have the same vocal register and I'm trying to get some screams and yelps into a few places. I like catchy songs and pop hooks so it's fun trying to work those in to interesting chords or noisy sections. Don's great at coming up with hooky guitar lines.

Also, a list of LH members and your favourite superheroes would be nice.

It'll take to long to get everyone in the band to list their favourites so I'll do it for them:

Kevin Parnell - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Michael Herring - Harvey Birdman
Don Scott - Spike Speigel
Nico Dann - The Runaways
Leah Hunter - Jesus

So you just produced an album of your own work, congratulations! How did you find that experience and why was it important to you and your compatriots to realize the fruits of your labour in physical recorded form?

We did just release our first LP Beast Alert! and it's fantastic to have a physical object to give to people. Peter Thorne's artwork is always amazing and it really makes the record come together for me. It gives the record the right tone. Album artwork is really important and I tend to like art that informs the music and lyrics, rather than just throw-away images. Peter gets exactly where our songs are coming from, with their sort of darkness and whimsy.

We recorded the record in Don's bedroom, which was beside my room at the time above a Portuguese Karaoke/Sports bar. We recorded it over seven months at random times because we could make noise whenever we wanted, though if you listen close at times you may hear a tone-deaf Portuguese man in the background singing "My Way".
Michael bought Pro Tools and wanted to learn how to use it so we figured the best way was to record our own record.

We did it all backwards though, because when we started recording we hadn't found a drummer yet. So my guitar was the bedtracks. When Brandon joined, his drums were the last thing to be recorded, so he had a few moments when songs weren't quite in time thanks to me. There’s a nice organic feel to the album though. There were some heated debates between band members about reverb and harmonies and adding other sounds and things. [And there were] some classic moments of screaming into the mic until 3am trying to hit the right harmony and finally getting it perfect. It was a great experience and it definitely helped us grow as a band and as friends.

Can you walk me through the conception of a Loitering Heroes song?

I'm the songwriter, so all songs begin in my notebook or while randomly strumming some chords. I carry a notebook around with me and whenever concepts or phrases or words pop into my head I write them down. When I'm sitting around with the guitar I tend to just strum random chords and mumble nonsense or just make noise in key and try out various phrases to see what sticks in my mind. I tend to have an idea where the song will go lyrically but sometimes as I'm writing the verses I realize it's going in a different direction and that makes me fully understand what the song should be about. I was working on some notes and chords and singing the lyrics "Prophet, prophet will you teleprompt me, there's a ringing in my ears" and I thought I knew where it should go but after thinking about the words and the other lyrics of the song I realized it was about something else and rewrote it with new chords and it felt right.

Once I have the words and chords to a song finished I bring it to the band to help fully realize it and sometimes that changes the dynamics and way of singing it.

I mainly try to capture a tone or mood in my songs and get that across without making the meaning too obvious. Beck was a big influence on me growing up so his way of writing songs has definitely crept into my songwriting. In songs I tend to write from a darker or negative outlook on the world, but it's fun because most of our songs are upbeat, which is a dynamic I've always loved. The songs from Beast Alert! have literary reference points and a lost childhood feeling to them, as well as many sections about big cities and castles; they're fantastical. The new songs seem to reference the more immediate dark present and technology and media and lots of end of the world shenanigans. The new songs are starting to become a cohesive set that I think will make a great second LP next year. I’m already pretty bored by a lot of our older songs, but that’s what always happens right?

"Heavens to murgatroid" is a fantastic little-used phrase that is prominently featured in the chorus of one of your songs. What drew you to it? Are there other anachronistic turns of phrase that you would like to hear used more often?

"Heaven's to murgatroid" is such a great phrase that everyone knows because of pop culture but in origin is pure nonsense, it originally had no meaning. It's a great exclamation to use when faced with terrible disasters in the world, because they too are almost like nonsense, being too terrible to truly comprehend.

How has your involvement with Wavelength affected the way your approach the creative process, not just in music, but your other work - in writing, and photography, etc.?

Being involved in Wavelength for the last four years has made me much more interested in the larger community. Whenever I'm in a position to promote or employ others I jump at the chance, whether it's taking photos or booking bands or just passing on a CD to someone. It's sort of benevolent nepotism I guess.

Like right now I'm working on a TV show that will air next spring and I'm doing a lot of writing and producing for them but I'm also booking all the bands that will be on the show, so of course I'm jumping at the chance to book some of my favourite musicians, rather than typical TV rock bands. I'm in the studio this week with Deep Dark United, Green Go, Laura Barrett, Nifty, Spiral Beach, Feuermusik and a ton of other fantastic bands. I've got some other friends involved in the show as spoken word artists, actors, photographers, etc.

Wavelength has also helped emphasize how you can do things differently, which has influenced how I do other things and has lead to me getting work in other industries. The job interview for the film I worked on in September consisted of the producer and I talking about bands we liked and nothing about actual work. The film was really low budget with a small crew and everyone worked crazy long hours for the same amount of low pay, but we were all in it to make something great. Same as Wavelength, none of us get paid and we put in many hours but we're all dedicated to making it great and to keep expanding what Wavelength means to us and to the city.

A Wavelength show, I've thought, isn't so much a show as it is the intersection of what can be staggeringly different angles and viewpoints. Your show is very much a case in point - you're going to be on a bill with the infamous Istvan Kantor, whom I believe will be preceding you. Is there a mood to a Wavelength show like yours?

Going on after Istvan Kantor could be disastrous. I'm expecting the stage to actually be destroyed before we go on. Last time I saw him he destroyed a bunch of tables and lamps with bats and saws. That might just be perfect for us to play amongst now that I think of it. It could give that great post-apocalyptic mood to the show. Since it's hard to get the full band together to play shows, we try to just have a lot of fun on stage. We're not Strickland's with each other, sometimes we mess up on stage and we just laugh and keep playing. For all the darkness in the lyrics, I definitely don't want that to be at the forefront in the live show. The music is upbeat and almost danceable at times so it should be fun for everyone. The paranoia and worry drenching the songs can be left for more private listening, while walking through the city and realizing that you could be GPS tracked

By Pras Rajagopalan