Sitting down with The Pretty Littles frontman Jack Parsons, one thing becomes immediately clear: he's a no-bullshit kind of guy.
He’d rather make honest music with Aussie rock outfit The Pretty Littles, say what he means and connect with people and leave the rest at the door.
We talk about art for art’s sake, vulnerability, politics, ageing and the strange pull of the places that shape us.
The Pretty Littles
- Eighth studio album out now: Mulga Wire
- Hometown headline show – August 1, The Corner Hotel
- Tickets here
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Politics inevitably seeps into The Pretty Littles’ Mulga Wire, but Jack Parsons is quick to reject the idea that musicians should be tasked with fixing society’s problems.
“We shouldn’t be relying on artists to create change,” he says. “We should be relying on policymakers and people with legitimate power to actually make change.”
That’s not to say music is powerless. Songs like In Our Times, which takes aim at power-hungry world leaders, prove Parsons isn’t afraid to engage with politics when the subject demands it. But when I ask whether artists have a responsibility to be political, his answer is characteristically blunt.
“I don’t think that anyone has a responsibility to do anything, really,” he says. “Particularly in art, people should do whatever the fuck they want.”
It’s a fitting philosophy for a band that has spent more than a decade doing exactly that.
After years spent building a loyal following; touring nationally alongside Bad//Dreems, playing their first international shows in Sri Lanka and appearing at festivals including Party In The Paddock and OK Charlton, The Pretty Littles return with Mulga Wire, a record Parsons describes as their most confident yet.
“I think my taste just broadened, probably, and I got a little more confident and accepting of who I was or some shit like that,” he says.
That sense of self-acceptance runs throughout the album, shown more clearly on Terracotta, one of its most nostalgic moments.
Inspired by Point Lonsdale on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, the song looks back on Parsons’ youth in a version of the coastal town that barely exists anymore. Long before it became a desirable seaside destination, it was a place defined by boredom, surfing and teenage trouble.
“It was quiet, you know,” he recalls. “There was no pub there. Being a kid there was getting up to no good, stealing booze, throwing water bombs, riding our bikes around, surfing and sneaking around.”
Back then, Point Lonsdale felt worlds away from the attention it receives today.
“It was such an undesirable place in those days,” he says. “It just wasn’t on anyone’s radar.”
Although the song began years earlier, returning to it later in life forced Parsons to confront something bigger; the town had changed, but so had he.
“I was looking at it through a different lens and realising that unequivocally I was getting older,” he says. “It’s one of those moments where it’s like my life is changing.”
For Parsons, his identity is largely defined by where he came from.
“The things that you experience in certain places at certain times form a large part of who you are,” he says. “You’re hugely affected by place and time and people.”
That emotional awareness has long been one of The Pretty Littles’ defining strengths, though Parsons admits vulnerability can be an uncomfortable thing to navigate.
“When I hear really bold-faced demonstrations of vulnerability, it feels like I’m in a room that I shouldn’t be in,” he says. He laughs while describing himself as “an emotional cuck”.
Songwriting often sits somewhere between confession and performance, and Parsons is wary of crossing the line into self-indulgence. “Sometimes it can feel voyeuristic,” he admits.
Still, when honesty lands, he believes few things are more powerful.
“It’s a beautiful thing when you feel yourself writing about something which is important and something that you feel deeply about,” he says.
“If you’re singing it and you mean it and you believe it, then it’s amazing seeing those songs connect with people in a way that you felt. That’s where music becomes so powerful.”
As they prepare to take over The Corner Hotel in August, Parsons offers a typically understated preview of what fans can expect.
“It’s four guys playing rock and yelling a bit, harmonies, moving our bodies, shaking about and sweating a lot,” he laughs.
The self-deprecation can’t quite hide his excitement. The Corner remains one of Melbourne’s most iconic live music rooms, and for a band like The Pretty Littles, it’s exactly where they belong.
The Pretty Littles are headlining the Corner Hotel on 1 August.
