Parentz
Catching up with Parentz; photographed by Claude Cardenas.
Longtime Impose readers will remember some of our earliest reporting on the Parentz phenomenon with the advent of the beloved Big tape, & a few years later with the FP&B<3Z1:FLY EP. The principle project of Oakland’s own pop visionary is his own right Jeremy Sullivan, he’s sampled the beeping effect from trucks in reverse as heard on “Back it Up” to the beginnings of a conceptual work titled 1989 heard on the single “FP&B<3Z:PART1“. This ambitious work that coupled nostalgia & Sullivan’s own aesthetic forms of futurism barely had a chance to get off the ground as Jeremy found his own health in jeopardy—right around the time Taylor Swift announced her own 1989. After a few years of recuperation, Parentz rises again, completing one cut at a time and putting together a new testament to the resolve of the human spirit. With a new lease on life & a new attitude, Sullivan further develops his sound on a level of distinction & sophistication that sharpens the definition & tone that all stems from Jeremy’s own audio journeys that began years ago.
Presenting the world premiere of “Beach Body”, the Parentz song for summer sails out like the windsurfers on Ocean Beach, or the boats floating in the Bay on a cloudy but sunny day. The track opens with a pristine chorus of synths that are surrounded by punctuated bass bubbly beats that only egg on and encourage other keys to join in on the shore-front party. “Beach Body” is the Parentz track that should be played at all ocean-side fashion shows where the opening beats imagine the models making their way in glassy-eyed strutting steps on the sand in front of a group of revelers, surfers, scuba divers, volleyball enthusiasts, and more. A soon to be released digital single, Parentz gifts the world one of the greatest summer anthems to let the past three months settle, where reflections of the mind, spirit & body let experiences & emotions sink deeper into the system of self. In a recent conversation with Jeremy Sullivan, he described the forthcoming super ridiculous visual component for the track involving consumption of In-N-Out and KFC mixed with dancing and singing, and plenty of aerobic push-ups. Read the following transcript of our recent conversation with Parentz.
Rumor has it great things have been abounding & surrounding Parentz; give us the scoop.
Well my recent history is quite melodramatic and sad. You know I wrote my last tape about Tom Hanks. Well this time around I was writing a huge concept album, 1989. I had a bunch of like weird vine/instagram video teasers with clips from movies and television shows from the year. Some pretty good songs going. I filmed maybe three videos that I didn’t finish. Taylor Swift announced her album, 1989. I had a pretty brutal health event. Everything sort of collapsed under it’s own weight.
That took me out of commission for a long time. I continued to work on the songs, but something about it all was like this big spider web so any time I worked on a song from that batch I just remembered how I had sort of missed the boat, hadn’t worked hard enough, and had an extended pity party for myself on the creative front.
But now my eyes are fully on the ball, and and I’m a lot more focused. I’m just trying to create, finish, and release a song at a time, and not let them languish.
Partying with Parentz; photographed by Claude Cardenas.
The new single “Beach Body” is the jam, describe the summer vibes & more that lead to it’s inception & creation.
My approach now is just to make laughably obvious pop, and fast, but with hints of darkness around the edges and underneath.
Some friends of mine in LA do this yearly camping trip on the beach, and it’s pretty much inspired by that, that vibe, a little bit by Charles Manson, and just the absurdity of life. The self-improvement as masturbation thing.
The cover for Parentz single “Beach Body”.
Describe how the project of Parentz has evolved from the beginning to now.
It started as a result of my love affair with Ableton. I still can’t believe how amazing it is. It’s like someone made a magic spell for getting ideas out of your mind and into a program, and you can control everything. I love it.
From there it was about finding where I fit in in the greater music community, what I do that other people don’t do, what do I want to accomplish. I haven’t got too far, but I’m definitely getting somewhere. Just finding what ignites that flame in the process.
Parentz & product placement; photographed by Claude Cardenas.
What about production & track creation catches your own particular fascination, and how would you begin to describe our own creative focuses, lenses, and the like?
I try to find one very strong core hook or core idea, and build everything around that. A lot of times it’s a phrase. Sometimes it’s a very strong melody, or (less often) rhythm. Look around at the world or coincidences. Turns of phrase that I hear a few times in a row. Stuff like that.
Like Dale says: “When two separate events occur simultaneously pertaining to the same object of inquiry we must always pay strict attention!”
I am pretty much all in-the-box as they say. All inside the laptop, very little outboard synth gear etc. I know that’s not very en vogue, but it’s the truth. I love keeping everything there because I like being able to change things a lot along the way. Like I’ll be in the mixing phase, but I’ll want to recompose a keyboard line around the vocal. If it were outboard gear I’d have to re-write the midi or re-perform it, re-record it, and hope I didn’t mess with it too much to blow the whole song mix. Plus I can’t afford a lot of gear, but I’ve been meaning to go check out the Vintage Synth Museum and try to get inspired or track some stuff there.
Parentz getting crazy with the Cheez-Its; photographed by Claude Cardenas.
What have you been listening to, reading, and watching that has caught you attention lately?
Impossible to ignore Stranger Things. I like it a lot. As a Twin Peaks fan I’m very pleased to see its influences making it to the forefront of pop culture all the way in 2016, and hey just in time for the new season in 2017. This feels like a really big moment for synthwave, VHS-wave, whatever you want to call it. Anything that brings people in to appreciating electronic music is good.
Reading a lot of comics: The Vision, The Wicked + The Divine, Planet Hulk. I’m playing Enter the Gungeon and Hyper Light Drifter, trying to get in to video game sounds in some way. Have some buds that are really thriving in that world. A totally new frontier and a lot to be done.
Listening to the new Frank Ocean a lot(sike). New Blood Orange I think is a pretty amazing and important record, and I’m not sure why it’s not getting more attention and acclaim. It’s really brave and vulnerable, speaks to a lot of the racial/class conflict we’re seeing out in the world today.
The persistence & perseverance of Parentz; photographed by Claude Cardenas.
State of the Bay Area, east & west Bay scenes?
I don’t know if I’m plugged in enough to comment, but I wonder if we’ve sort of weathered the storm, financially/housing-wise and it’s about to break, or cool off, if it’s going to get much worse out here. It might be a bit too late as we’ve definitely watched a ton of buds forced to move away. My wife and I definitely can’t afford a two bedroom, but we’re buckling down to be here at least another year. If things decompress a bit maybe everyone can stop talking about rent and start talking about things that matter. Maybe we should knock on wood and wait until after November 8…
In SF you’ve got Noise Pop and Patrick at Different Fur really going above and beyond to maintain and grow the scene out there and even over here in the East Bay. On the East Bay side you’ve got a lot of homies and some good friends in the music world that have hunkered down and low and behold a lot of them now have bars and music venues opening like Rockridge Improvment Club, Eli’s is back, Uptown is back open. Jason Kick from Maus Haus is going balls to the wall at Nightlight booking that room. Sarah and some other folks are crushing both rooms at Starline…
Also, there’s a small crew of musicians and creative folks that do this monthly meet-up where we play songs and ideas for each other. That’s been really motivating and given me some hope that a community can still thrive here and make good art stuff whether that’s songs or games or video or whatever.
I dunno. I feel like maybe we’re sort of opening the fallout shelter doors and seeing that there’s been some serious damage to the bay area as we knew it, that world that we knew is gone, but we’re still here, and we can still make this place what we want. Might just be the optimist/dreamer in me. Maybe it’s going to keep getting worse.
What’s next for PARENTZ?
Music video for “Beach Body” films this weekend, and another couple jams I hope to just shut the fuck up and put out.
Prayer/hymn for the Bay/world?
Drop Names, Not Bombs.
Listen to more from Parentz via Bandcamp & Soundcloud.
