Photo by Sharon Davies
We got a chance to chat with Alex Cooper, one third of the Montreal trio Parlovr. The melodic “sloppy pop” front man was a sheer delight to speak with and we would have never guessed he was weathered by his hectic touring schedule (China —> Montreal —> NYC via bus this week alone) unless he told us so. Read our interview below and learn how to correctly (mis)pronounce Canada’s newest wave of indie rock to inundate your iTunes. Listen to their single “Pen to the Paper” and its remix by Gobble Gobble below (wink).
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TMAP: Greetings. While we have you on the record, can you please pronounce Parlovr for us.
AC: Well, we call ourselves both parlour and parlover, just because a lot of our fans have started calling us that. Originally it was Parlour because that was the name of the loft that Louis and I lived in when we started writing together and we decided to name the project after that. But we found out there was another band named Parlour so we just replaced the u with a v and made it look a little more badass. It caused a little confusion but we like that. So we let people pronounce it either way. You can say it whatever way you want.
TMAP: You guys just got back from a big tour of mainland China. How did that come about?
AC: Yeah, we went all around the country. We were asked by some promoters based out of Hong Kong and Shanghai to do the tour. They’re affiliated with a group in Canada as well, and they asked us to come over and play with a few other Canadian bands. And fortunately, the Canadian government really helped out with international tour support and helped us get over there. It was pretty, dare I say, life changing not just to play there but just to see the country.
What was really amazing about it was it’s really similar, strangely enough, to playing in North America or Europe. You are playing in bars and clubs and everyone has the same type of vibe, you know. You’ve got people fist pumping and jumping around and moshing. It’s the same, it’s not like the audience is any different. It’s as if there is a universal rock show attitude. And the Chinese fans are amazing. They are really into rock music and the indie scene is a relatively new thing for them so they’re hearing all kinds of new music and they’re very excited by it, which is really awesome to see.
TMAP: You put out an LP in 2008, right?
AC: That is right. Louis and I, the two singers and songwriters, formed in 2006 and started writing music together. Jeremy came in early 2008 and started drumming with us. Our new album is just a rerelease of the LP we put out in 2008. We got picked up by Dine Alone [Records] and they wanted to be put [the record] out themselves. We are already finished writing for our second album. No news on when that will drop, though.
TMAP: So you are in NYC now? Do you have any shows planned here?
AC: We are just about to announce a bunch of shows that we are playing in all of the northeast U.S. We are gonna be playing New York and Philly and Boston and that’s all gonna be next month in July.
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Purchase Parlovr here.
you have a good sense of humour.