John Parish & P.J. Harvey
FROM ??
by Adam Jackson

Dance Hall At Louse Point is the new album from PJ Harvey. The catch is that it's not a PJ Harvey album, it's a John Parish and PJ Harvey album. This however, is no cause for concern to fans of the Peej, because those who keep close score will realize that John Parish was co-producer of PJ's brilliant To Bring You My Love, as well as guitarist and drummer on that album. He has been promoted from album credits to album cover because on Dance Hall At Louse Point he wrote and performed all the music, leaving the lyrics and vocals to Polly Jean. Since PJ does about three interviews a year even when it's solely her name on the cover, it is no surprise that she has used Mr. Parish's co-billing as an excuse to let him handle the press on this one. When Parish took the time to call from a break in their London rehearsals, I used the opportunity to find out a little more about his resume, and see what I could learn about future PJ Harvey projects. Mr. Parish is an incredibly nice man and, it turns out, interesting enough to talk to for an hour or two even if he didn't have Polly Jean in his rolodex. But since he does, we tried to keep the conversation on Dance Hall At Louse Point. And despite Miss Harvey's slightly lower profile on this one, Louse Point is a fantastic record. It is worthy of its place in her incredible catalogue and marks the emergence of John Parish's deserved rise to public recognition. As you'll see, Louse Point doesn't signal the end of the PJ/Parish collaboration, instead it hints at a lot of great work to come. I'll leave the details (and the thanks as well) to Mr. Parish.

Hi John, how are you?

Fine, fine, just a little tired.

A long day of talking about yourself to strangers?

No, no not at all. We're in playing mode now, which is nice. We just got back from a day's rehearsing and I'm settling down at home.

Are you doing a UK tour?

We're just doing a few club shows. Half a dozen or so in, like, 400 capacity clubs.

God, send me a plane ticket! Have you done any yet?

No, we just started rehearsing the middle of last week. We put together a new lineup especially to do these shows, or to play this album, anyway. It's a five piece.

So far so good?

Really good so far, but literally we've just done four or five days so we're just about at the stage where we can play all the songs. We just need to make it easier on ourselves, at the moment everybody's struggling a bit, especially me.

Well, you played every instrument on the album, right?

Yeah, apart from one or two tracks where Mick Harvey [of the Bad Seeds] came in.

So I guess you have to do a lot of teaching at the rehearsals.

Yeah, I do, but the thing is, when I play this stuff when I'm recording it, I'm terribly bad about making notes. And some of the tracks are really quite dense, so when I listen back I think, 'God, what did I do on this one?' But luckily, the musicians we've got now are all really good and I've worked with them all before so they know how I do things. They pick it up better than I can really.

Well, the record just came out in the States today. There aren't any plans for us to get to hear it live, I guess.

Oh, I forgot that today was the release day for America!

Yeah, it's just a few hours old, but there were people at the record store door when we opened today.

It's just a baby there! We did such a lot of touring there. We spent four months in America lat year, so I think it'll be a little while before we come back. Maybe the end of next year. I really love it over there, though. I was just over on holiday and did a little recording with some other friends. I enjoy playing there, but we have no plans to play in the immediate future.

OK, considering that you've worked with all these people before and the same songwriting team and most of the production team from To Bring You My Love are still intact, besides the fact that your name is on the cover of Dance Hall At Louse Point, does it feel like a significantly different approach?

Yeah, it really does actually. Reviews are starting to appear and I've read a lot of people saying, 'Why isn't this just a PJ Harvey record?', but it seemed so different to us while we were making it, right from the inception to the completion, that it almost never occurred to us that anybody would think that it is the same thing as a PJ Harvey album.. Although, I realize Polly has such a distinctive voice and distinctive way with imaging that, unless you're the kind of person who reads album credits, it's strange to see 'PJ Harvey & Some Bloke' on the cover. But we did approach it differently. Obviously, the fact that I wrote all the music is a massive sea-change, but also the way we put it together was new. Polly and I have worked on records together before To Bring You My Love because we've been friends and worked together on and off for the best part of a decade. In the early days, she was contributing to my work and playing on my songs, helping me get them together. Then, later on, she established herself and I kind of returned the favor on To Bring You My Love. But whenever we've worked on each other's stuff, it's been like, 'This is your song. I'm helping you realize what you're striving to achieve.' Whereas with Dance Hall..., all along the way we were very democratic about it, without having to sit down and draw up a contract, you know. It was very obvious that we both had to be very confident about each stage of the process, from writing to arranging to recording, right up to these rehearsals.

Because of that historyy of working together, did Dance Hall At Louse Point just sort of happen or did there come a point where you sat down with Polly and decided, 'Let's do X number of songs for an album next year.'?

We both need, because we're both so busy, for something to be proposed and put in front of us. It was actually decided some timee ago, 'Hey, let's do an album together.' It came about through some music I had written for a dance project at a college where I was lecturing three years ago. Polly had come to see the performance and she was really raving about the music I'd written. It was all instrumental stuff and she just said, 'Hey, how about making an album's worth of instrumentals in that vein and I'll see if I can put some lyrics to it.' It was kind of an experiment, initially, I guess she wanted to try something different, to see what we'd come up with. So she lent me a four-track for a while and I had these tapes with four bars or twenty bars or almost compete song ideas along with lots of notes I'd made about them over the last year. So I took the four-track away for about six weeks and started going through my notes and tapes and fishing out ideas I thought were really good and would be suitable. And when you start working like that, it inspires other ideas, so I basically wrote all the music for the album, or actually most of the music on the album and a couple of things that didn't make it, and gave Polly the tape just before we went on tour last year. So she carried the tape around and whenever we had a few free days, she'd try to write some lyrics and we'd get together and listen to how things were sounding. By the time we got off the tour, we realized we had an album and it was finished. So we went straight into the studio and only took about three weeks to record it.

I noticed in the notes that you worked fast.

It was really fast. We didn't work weekends, either! We would only work in the studio about six hours a day, but we did spend a lot of time listening to tapes at home and hecking that things were right. We actually recorded a few things that aren't on the record as well.

Will those extras turn up anywhere? Maybe as B-sides to those expensive import singles we have to buy over here?

It's so weird that you guys don't have the singles for sale over there. It's a drag. But most of our leftover tracks we'll probably use for things other than B-sides. There is one we thought was a B-side, but the record company and management think it's the most commercial song we recorded. [lots of laughs] I think they were slightly pissed we didn't put it on the record, but we didn't think it fit. It's a good track and we're going to do it live, but they say we can't put it out as a B-side because they want to release it as an A-side or use it in a film or whatever, so we'll see.

So nothing from the original dance project thaat Polly saw is on Dance Hall At Louse Point, but this album is going to be used for a new dance project, I understand.

Yeah! It's a London choreographer called Mark Bruce and he did some stuff using some of Polly's music a couple of years ago and we saw a video of the performance and liked his ideas. The South Bank in London also saw that tape and thought it was really good, so they commissioned him to do a major touring piece and asked if it was possible to have the music done live. So he called Polly and asked if she'd be interested in doing some music for him. That coincided with the time we were in the studio doing Louse Point, so she had him come down to the studio. I think we had four or five songs finished and he heard them and said that they would be ideal. So the wheels were set in motion and I think it's planned to take place in February and March of next year. We're very excited because it will be nice to do something a bit different.

I would assume that playing live for a choreographed dance will take a lot of precision and discipline.

I think you're right, but having said that, I get the impression that the way Mark choreographs is that he might build in parts where improvisation can happen, but obviously still subject to a lot of limitations. I think the idea is for everyone to be as flexible as we can and the songs certainly won't sound just like they do on the record. I'm looking forward to rehearsing with the dancers, I think it will be a stunning experience.

What about further in the future? I assume you'd like to do a John Parish album.

Well, I've certainly got a tape of ideas that's getting a little full and I'm thinking I should take the time to do something with it. When I was younger I wanted to be a successful pop star. I donn't have that at all anymore. I want to do work and be in a position to do work I find stimulating. I would be interested in doing my own record but I would have to feel that it was contributing something that nobody else was doing. I don't want to make a record just for the sake of doing it. I know that, right at the moment, I'm in a position where I could easily go to someone and say that I fancy doing a solo album and I could do it. So, in a way, I'm quite glad that II'm busy for the next year or so because we've got this dance thing to do after promotion for Louse Point and then I'm going to be helping Polly with the next PJ Harvey album. So that's going to take my time up through at least this time next year. Maybe then I'll feel like doing my own thing.

Well, I'm not gonna give up until I figure out a way to hear these Louse Point songs live. Is there a chance they might get played on the tour for the next PJ Harvey album or are you keeping everything completely separate?

I wouldn't like to say. It's really up o Polly. I guess it depends on how the next PJ Harvey album turns out and whether it would seem to make sense. I've heard most of the demos for the next record and they're sounding really good. I think it's going to be a great album. It's another new direction again and I would say some of the tracks from Louse Point could well fit into a set. Of course it also depends on what musicians we end up using for a tour and if they're right for these songs, but I'd kind of be surprised if none of these songs make it into that set.

Well, I hope they do, it's a great record.

(Laughs) Me too! And thank you.

More importantly, I hope we get to see you and Polly back in the U.S. before too long.

Thanks, I'm sure you will next year.