The Henry Parker Interview
Growing up in Yorkshire, Parker was influenced early on by heavy metal music before his taste evolved into the sounds of Nick Drake, early John Martyn and Bert Jansch. Parker went on to record his own tales of melody and sprawling poetic expression. With the release of both “Silent Spring” and “Lammas Fair”, Parker has securely placed himself with the contemporary greats of his time and for a fact his ghostly peers would be proud of the path he has carved out of that precious stone of human expression.
Tell me about growing up in Yorkshire. When did you first begin to fall in love with music, more specifically the guitar? Was this something that was relevant around your households growing up? Do you have any siblings?
I was lucky growing up where I was in Yorkshire, a short train ride away from Leeds and Bradford for access to gigs and within walking distance of large open spaces up on the high ground to leave me with a love of the outdoors. When it comes to falling in love with music during my childhood I have a memory of learning and reciting a poem when I was around 4 years old, learnt from a medieval castle CD-ROM game, I took great joy in enjoying the sound and the rhythm of the words as I spoke them aloud. A guitar was placed in my hands soon after at the age of 6, but it was when I approached secondary school that I really started developing an intense love for music, acquiring a feeling that it was something that belonged to me in a way that say sport or science didn’t. Music was encouraged in my house, which I am so grateful for, but it was never pushed hard, my parents dabbled, and my two brothers played when in school, but went on to become caving instructors/software developers. That kind of freedom to choose your own direction is all you could ever hope for growing up.
Who were some of your earliest influences? When and where did you see your first concert and when did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a musician? An artist. When and where did you play your first gig and what was that experience like for you?
Growing up it was all about heavy music for me and from the age of 14 I was going to local shows in Keighley nearly every weekend, the best local band being Random Hand, a ska-punk outfit who I still enjoy today for their socially aware lyrics and gritty vibe. I played my first gigs (outside of a school assembly environment) in the local clubs and free to hire spaces with my band of school friends, playing a strange kind of math-rock/metalcore of which I wrote most of the music for, it was terrible but absolutely crucial to developing as a musician. At that time in my teens I was practicing guitar for hours each day, often from getting in from school to going to bed, I was also going to gigs most weekends and rehearsing with the band regularly too.
Did you participate in any groups, or projects before venturing into being a solo musician? Tell me about writing and recording your 2019 debut “Silent Spring”. What was the process of creating this album as well as some background to songs such as “Marbled Wren”, “New Mantras” and “Prospect Of Wealth”. How did you go about having musicians such as Augustin Bousfield, Brendan Bache, Theo Travis and David Clickmore joining in on this project?
Bizarrely I was playing in the death metal band Cryptic Shift at the same time as I was getting into folk music. This was when I was 20 years old, we were playing shows with bands like Voivod, Exodus and Hirax whilst I was intensely practising finger-style guitar at home and listening to Martin Simpson, Dick Gaughan and Bert Jansch. I kept up the balance between the two worlds for a few years before I decided to leave Cryptic Shift and focus on my solo music, and at that time I was writing the songs that would go on to make up my debut album “Silent Spring”. Silent Spring was written on acoustic guitar in my bedroom, when I was living with my Brother at the time. Most of the songs were written across 2017 when I was consuming all the music I could that sounded like Nick Drake, early John Martyn and Bert Jansch, I had become completely obsessed with this sound much in the way I had with metal music a decade before. I went in to the studio with a producer called David Crickmore who presented the BBC Radio Leeds folk program and had a home studio in his basement in Oxenhope, a small village nestled at the head of the Worth Valley. I would drive over the moors every week to his house and record sporadically through 2018 and the start of 2019, gradually bringing in the other musicians to lay down bass and percussion. Myself and Gus (Augustin) were playing live together at the time, performing my own songs with myself on guitar and him on double bass. We had the great privilege of supporting Soft Machine at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club, after our soundcheck Theo the flautist in the band kindly offered to play on my record if I ever needed any woodwind, and as it happened that’s exactly what I wanted to finish off the record, so that’s how I ended up with the flute parts on New Mantras, Sylvie and Prospect of Wealth.
Tell me about writing your highly anticipated follow up “Lammas Fair” in 2021. How did you want to go about bringing this album of songs to life? How much did the pandemic and everything that went down during that time play a part in your music? What was the overall vision for this album and what did you want to express with this work?
Writing began for another album as soon as I put out Silent Spring, I had three tracks written/arranged, the title track Lammas Fair, Nine Herbs Charm and the traditional folk song The Brisk Lad; then the pandemic struck. In late 2019 and early 2020 I had been rehearsing as an electric trio with Rob McNicholas on bass and Louis Berthoud on drums, we played one gig together in Leeds the final weekend before everything closed for covid. However this meant I knew where I wanted to take the direction of the 2nd album, bringing in a solid folk-rock sound across a few of the album tracks. The free time during the pandemic allowed me to ease off from some of my guitar teaching work and I wrote the rest of the album through 2020, recording as I went from June onwards in-between the strictest of lockdowns. I drafted in Theo from Soft Machine again and also asked Hugh Bradley, bass player for Steve Tilston to play on “Nine Herbs Charm” and “Return to the Sky”. With Lammas Fair I wanted to build on the vibe that Silent Spring had created and with the increased appreciation for folklore that had emerged online during the pandemic I feel like the album struck a chord with people. Songs such as Lammas Fair and Nine Herbs Charm dealt with themes of folklore and ritual which seemed to tap into a vibe that had taken off more widely. I was really happy with how the album panned out and very grateful for everyone who listened and bought a copy.
Are you currently working on any new material/projects/gigs for Spring and Summer? Is there anything else you would like to further share with readers?
I’m trying to write all the time, but songs come slowly to me and I work a fair bit teaching so it may be a while until another full-length solo album, however I have a big bunch of projects happening which is really nice. I’ll be putting out a 7” lathe cut for the label Future Grave, as well as having a song appear on a compilation album, the follow up to Folk Funk and Trippy Troubadours, compiled by Paul Hillary. I also have another exciting project which I can’t say much about, but it’s in relation to a great Yorkshire musician! On top of that I’m also writing with my friend and brilliant musician David Ian Roberts for a duo, instrumental guitar record. We toured together last Autumn and really struck it off musically in way where we can seemingly write music on the fly in a totally natural way. Lastly my two albums are currently trading on discogs for inflated amounts so I’ve finally put my hands in my pockets and I’m re-pressing both Silent Spring and Lammas Fair on vinyl. I’ll be very happy to have copies of these available again for sale at shows and on Bandcamp.
