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Sonic Explosions With DR. PARALLAX · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  So Hi, I'm Rashid from Doctor Parallax, an instrumental prog band from Brisbane,
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  and I'm Elliott from the same band, Parallax. Beautiful guys, thanks
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  for joining us today. Thanks for having me Chris. Why so, Dr
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  Parallas have just released your debut EP, Stick and Strings. So I know
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  it has have been out very long, but what's the early feedback been like
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  so far? It's been pretty positive. Yeah, we've had some very nice
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  things said to us about it, and uh, who knows, they all
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  could be lying to us but telling the truth, but we'll take it.
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  I don't that must be more about the EP from a musical point of view,
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  and what are you going for with it? Yeah, it's weird.
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  We wanted it to be weird and it is weird, elaborate. What do
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  you reckon now? Not so much weird. I just think they were These
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  songs were the ones we were most familiar with, and they were the most
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  solid songs we had at the time, and it was time for us to
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  finally record something. Yeah, and it was good to know, get it,
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  get them down properly recorded, instead of doing mud tracks and things that
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  we've done in the past before we get going any further, like it is
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  important to establish it. Doctor Parallax is an instrumental band, so us through
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  the reasons behind that. I don't mind playing in bands where there's a front
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  man. I, as you well know, have played in a band fairly
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  recently with an awesome front man. But sometimes I like to be the front
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  man and I don't want to sing, and it's probably better if fresh doesn't
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  sing. Yeah, thanks, al thanks. Occasionally that'll be some incoherent screams
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  just for on, but otherwise I tend to keep my mouth fairly shut because
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  that's what you're doing in an instrumental band. We've also had our later edition
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  join us, Hey John. I think part of it also was we couldn't
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  quite find a singer that would suit our style, and instead of having a
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  mismatched singer, it might just be better to have no singer, and that
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  was maybe part of it as well. Bye John. So Sticker Swing is
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  a collection of six tracks. So how do they showcase Doctor Parallaxis dound Well?
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  As Elliott said before, we kind of wanted to go in with our
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  sort of easier listening tracks, if you will, So the less intense ones,
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  the ones that don't have the strangest mixes of time signatures and genres and
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  tempos and just about every other combination that you can throw on music. That
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  said, there's still plenty of it there, but we kind of wanted to
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  offer this one up as the introduction very much to our sound because it just
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  gets more intense from here on in. The EP opens to the eighteen second
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  song stick, which is more or less an assortment of swirling soundscapes like what
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  should that particular song to open the EP? So the intro stick and the
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  utro string both composed by little snippets of the recording sessions. So there's little
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  little nods, not not that you'd be able to hear them from the way
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  that. Yeah, the effects and everything are put on it, but they
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  are creations made from the creation of the EP. So that's why they kind
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  of bookend the EP itself. So again, it's just kind of little little
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  touches, little little gleams of what's to come and what was the end of
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  string is the start of stick. So if you played it the loop,
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  it sort of flows back into itself like a circle. Yeah, yeah,
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  it was sort of touched on this before, but your music features erratic time
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  signatures and tempo. So in the ilust of creative process, how do you
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  come up with those eclectic sounds? Yeah? We fight. We fight terribly.
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  It's our fisticuffs. It's blood. John's the biggest, so he tends
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  to win. We all come into the band with ideas and little bits and
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  pieces that we've been working on, and then we quickly find that it goes
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  through the doctor, Parallax, shredder, and any any one reforce sound that
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  one of us brings in is usually not what ends up being in the final
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  version of that song. Things Once once we throw it in, it's it's
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  like, Yeah, everyone's creative process starts diving in. People have better ideas,
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  Yeah, better ideas the songs. The songs evolve over time, so
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  we might play it a few times at of various gigs, and then in
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  the gym room we may change parts that we're not quite happy with or just
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  want to shift things around. I was just going to say to add to
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  that as well. I think it's it's one thing now after so many years
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  playing, you know, and riding together, it's bizarre you'll listen to your
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  own sort of music in your own time, and play your acoustic guitar and
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  your bass. But then when you actually come into the room and then you
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  play together as Parallax, it's it's this weird kind of unspoken thing that we're
• 5:30
  We've got these rules that probably got no words, these rules, But if
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  Rashid's going to do this, or Alliot it's going to do that, then
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  I'm probably going to bounce it to complement it this way or that way.
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  And I think Cooper does that with the percussion. With the percussion as well
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  like playing drums, He'll try to flirt with whatever groove I'm trying to make,
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  and then Rashid will come and go, oh, you know that groove
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  that you had last week. I think if we play it this way,
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  we might be able to jellet into the next part. And then of course
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  Ali it'll add some layers over the top of that, and then before you
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  know, you go, Alliot would say, how do we write that?
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  We come up with that, what's that final piece? So I think in
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  Parallax it always kind of is like I said, that unspoken rule. When
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  we're playing the four of us in the room, right, thing, it
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  just it just evolves the way it does I won't come home and play Doctor
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  Parallax on my guitar. I play that when I'm playing with the three other
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  guys. So further than that, like how do you engauge if you've gone
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  too far into the ethleptic side of things or maybe not far enough, like
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  if he's got parameters that you said, or if anything goes I think we
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  hit the event horizon, and yeah, we hit the event horizon in ninety
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  nine, and I think we couldn't get out of the wormhole. Yeah we
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  came back with no eyes. Yeah yeah, turn it up to eleven.
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  Turn it up to eleven. So yeah, yeah, as long as the
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  drama can play it, it's all good. It's all One thing I've always
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  wondered with instrumental bands guys, is how do you come up with song titles
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  when you haven't got any lyrics there? For inspiration? Again, mostly just
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  comes down to stupid things that happened in and around the jam room. We'll
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  be working on something to the point where it's like, yeah, this needs
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  a name, so we don't need to know what to call it when we
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  get back together and try and play it again. So usually it'll just reference
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  back to something yeah, dumb that we've had in a prior conversation. Throughout
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  it, sometimes there's a little bit of more thought into the naming process,
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  but the majority of the time that's it. I remember Doctor Parallax from Cans
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  over twenty years ago. Guys, like, how time we only now releasing
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  your debut EP? Does anyone with money you want to answer that. We've
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  made a few recordings in the past, but it was more we kept it
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  to ourselves, or they weren't. They were self funded and we made them
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  ourselves, so they weren't quite ready to be released in any meaning full way.
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  And one day we decided it's time to actually put some money down and
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  properly go into the studio and make it happen. I don't know about you,
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  guys, mate, but another twenty years, I'm not sure I'm going
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  to be here. So you have to waste so long with the next one?
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  Yeah, I hope, hopefully not. We've already started talking about going
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  into a bit of pre production to try and get the next EP together.
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  I'm keen to do another collection of four songs with a with a little bit
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  of extra spice here and there in it. I think with our music as
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  well, the less is better, Like when it comes to listening to it,
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  I think, yeah, give them a little, keep them keen,
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  hopefully keep them wanting more. But then we've also spoken about perhaps getting a
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  couple of epiece together and then combining it into maybe something that is a full
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  length. But yeah, at the moment, I'm pretty content just to keep
• 8:58
  sticking it to the fore five track length, long, extended place. How
• 9:05
  do you guys feel about especially in the era of digital media, where back
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  in the day, you'd get a full album and you can sit down and
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  play it. But now if it's everything streaming, you can cherry pick what
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  you want to hear. So if you've got three EPs that are combined,
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  there's no it might as well be an album because it's just a playlist now
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  it's not necessarily a physical media that you'd put in your CD player or something.
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  So yeah, I think just times forever changing, you know. So
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  it was it was having all the time in the world when we were all
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  in cans, you know, late nineties, early two thousands. You've got
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  all this time in the world, and then we move down here and then
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  we'll get a little more busy here a little a little bit busier there,
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  you know, and then trying to get us all together to record something.
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  I'd tell you in twenty years, if one of us are dead, there'll
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  be an AI version of Elliott Rashid Cooper and yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  he's still had a tune. He's still I could just imagine with you guys
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  over like after twenty years Passive being a band. I'm sure you've got a
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  hell of a lot of originals. How many of you, god, that
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  aren't actually committed to it's kid, I guess. Yeah, Well, we've
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  got quite a few songs from the old era of Parallax, which was before
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  say, two thousand and six, and then you've got the Brisbane version of
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  Parallax. So there's probably thirty songs. Yeah, we just have to remember
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  how to play them. Yeah, I think that's the thing when you sort
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  of go back here. I forgot all about this song. You know,
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  it's fun, but yeah, thirty And then I heard Elliott saying the other
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  day we had our acoustic tracks, which were renditions of original songs that were
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  electric, you know, we threw them onto the acoustic and we had tabla
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  drums at that and so yeah, to put it all in there, yeah,
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  thirty forty yeah, I bet yeah, and then and then you know,
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  yeah, and then Rashid's got his electronic versions you know of those things
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  as well. So it just stems off into a bunch of different ideas.
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  Hey, so what's next for Doctor Parallett's The EP's out, now, you've
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  got these shows or anything like that. We did have a launch show lined
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  up, but unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control that it's no longer
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  going ahead. But we are hoping to maybe do some form of celebration show
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  for the EP early next year, so we're still working on the logistics for
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  that. But in the meantime, Stick and String is out. Now where
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  could people get a hold of it? It's currently available on pretty much all
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  of your major streaming services, so you should be able to find it on
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  your usuals, your Apple Music's, your Spotify's, your YouTube's titles, cetera,
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  et cetera. We should have it up on on band camp by the
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  end of the week as well. It's all right, guys, well,
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  thanks for your time and I had been a pleasure chatting with you and catch
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  up with you for bea hopefully one day soon