Parks and self-creation... in the face of adversity
With a highly acclaimed debut album in Collapsed Into Sunbeams and high-profile fans such as Billie Eilish, Phoebe Bridgers and Lily Allen praising her, Arlo Parks is set for a big 2021 and she is only in her 21st year.
The London singer-songwriter’s musical influences include Portishead, Radiohead, Elliott Smith and Joni Mitchell. Her lyrics exhibit a poet’s eye for detail.
Given that she only began uploading songs to social media outlets a little over two years ago, becoming one of the ‘buzz’ artists of 2021 has taken her a little by surprise.
‘I was just making quiet, sensitive songs in my apartment in London and hoping for the best,’ she says.
‘Then they started to reach people all over the globe. Artists I really admire have been recognising my work. That has been so gratifying. I just made the most of every opportunity that came my way.’
She only played her first gig in
May 2019. Just a month later, she performed on the BBC’s Music Introducing Stage at Glastonbury.
I joke that she might become the subject of a future pub quiz question as one of only two artists who played the Worthy Farm festival site in Glastonbury in 2020 as part of a BBC Glastonbury special. For double points, the other was Laura Marling.
‘That was one of the oddest experiences I’ve ever had,’ she says.
‘We drove out to Worthy Farm and I could see the rolling hills with absolutely nobody there.
‘Glastonbury in 2019 was my first festival. I ended up playing
‘There’s a lovely warmth from the audiences in Ireland. People always seem a little tipsy’
four or five shows over the weekend. There is an electricity there that I crave and I really hope I can play there again.’
Not this year alas, but her gig in late May at Whelans in Dublin is still scheduled to go ahead at this stage, so fingers crossed. She has already played here several times in her short career.
‘I played Whelan’s with (New Zealand singer) Jordan Rakei in October 2019. I played Vicar Street with (south London rapper) Loyle Carner and the Grand Social, I think it was, when I was on my headline tour,’ she recalls. ‘There is a lovely warmth from the audiences in Ireland. People always seem a little tipsy and having a very free time.’
That show on March 11, 2020, was one of the last shows in the capital before the first lockdown.
Arlo spent the remainder of the year honing those ‘quiet, sensitive songs’ for her debut. Tracks such as Hope, Caroline, Black Dog and For Violet address such subjects as dealing with a friend’s depression, relationship breakdowns and domestic abuse.
She adopted the name Arlo Parks as a stage name as she thought it sounded similar to one of her musical heroes Frank Ocean. She was born Anaïs Oluwatoyin Estelle Marinhowas and brought up in Hammersmith, West London, the daughter of a Nigerian father and French mother. An upbringing she describes as a happy one. ‘I was the happiest child but I spent a lot of time in my own head,’ she says.
‘I’ve been writing since I was seven or eight. My family have always been very supportive of my work. That is a blessing because I know that not everybody has that.
‘I only decided to take a gap year from university on the day when I had to decide whether I was going or not. I was supposed to go to UCL (University College London) to study English literature. It was what I always thought I would be doing. The decision to do music full-time was a very last-minute one.’
Certain elements of her songs address the different sides of desire through the prism of her bisexuality. She says she is surprised that people have taken an interest in that aspect of her work.
‘I know that it is something that people take interest in. The conversation around sexuality is opening up but it is relatively new,’ she says.
‘My sexuality is part of me and it colours the way I see the world in a way, in terms of the things that I’ve experienced.
‘I can sense a shift when I’m talking to someone towards that part of me, rather than the songs I’ve written which can be quite deflating at times but I understand where it comes from.’
I tell her that if this interview was conducted in maybe 10 years’ time it probably wouldn’t be remarked upon. But for now, it is. ‘I think that’s possibly true,’ she says. ‘That does make sense to me. In years to come, people won’t bat an eyelid, as you say.
‘I can only write from my viewpoint. It doesn’t matter from what perspective that is. My songs are like a kaleidoscope of different images, their impetus comes from a range of different emotions but they are all real in this moment.’
Collapsed In Sunbeams is out now. Arlo Parks is due to play Whelan’s in Dublin on May 22.