Ladies and gentlemen and all stations in between, I give you Picture Parlour.” These were the exact words shared by Courtney Love after she watched the swaggering, rock’n’roll four-piece perform at Brixton’s Windmill back in March. “We went to see the band’s sixth ever show and got OWNED” Love wrote. “There’s no more mojo to go around. It’s all gone. I know it when I hear and see it and MAN it’s been a minute.”
“It was honestly so weird,” says vocalist and guitarist Katherine Parlour about their turn of fate. We’re sitting in a central London boozer; Parlour and lead guitarist Ella Risi are opposite me, nursing two pints of Guinness – a situation not unlike the one they had been in when they first discovered Love was a fan. Notifications had been lighting up Parlour’s phone. “I saw Courtney Love’s name with a verified tick,” says Parlour, still in disbelief. She had thought it was a glitch at first. “I tried to say words, but they weren’t coming out,” she recalls, before re-enacting her conversation with Risi. “I was like Co- Co - Co!” she laughs. “It was amazing to have such an icon say nice things about us,” says Risi. “It was just surreal, especially at such an early stage.”
The band, formed by Parlour and Risi and completed by Sian Lynch (bass) and Michael Nash (drums), only played their first show together last December. Since then, there have been magazine covers, critical acclaim and label interest. It’s easy to see why. Their syrupy rock’n’roll is sticky and seductive. It sounds raw, yet anthemic; these are songs destined for stadiums. “We’ve always been ambitious in terms of making it sound huge,” says Risi. “It just gives you serotonin, doesn’t it?” Luxurious guitar solos are matched by Parlour’s growling vocals, which elongate painful lyrics with courage and charisma. “Kate reminds me of a circus ringleader on stage,” says Risi. “You’ve got that kind of commanding theatrical energy.” Parlour leaves the extraversion for the stage, though. “It would be weird if I was like that normally,” she laughs. “F***ing hell I’d be the biggest c*** in the universe!”
Given their audacious sound and Parlour’s undulating voice, the Arctic Monkeys comparisons are unsurprising. For the most part, they are flattered. “I think Alex Turner is phenomenal,” says Parlour. “He’s the leader of a generation, so if someone wants to tell me that there’s some resemblance, or that I’m trying to rip him off – then thank you so much!” But, she says, it is somewhat frustrating not to be seen in their own right. “There’s an element of me that thinks it’s just because we’re northern and because there’s not necessarily any other women [in that field] to compare that to,” says Risi. “They go, confident woman, a bit of swagger on stage – Alex Turner.”
Few artists cause as much of a stir without releasing any music. Unfortunately for Picture Parlour, the excitement has been short-lived. Hype, it appears, is as much a weapon as it is a tool. In the week after our interview following the release of their debut single, “Norwegian Wood” and a feature on The Cover of NME (the publication’s new campaign to champion breakout artists), the band have become targets of a nasty Twitter attack. The online vitriol has been coupled with accusations decrying Picture Parlour as “nepo babies” and “industry plants”.
“We’re just really shocked and confused,” says Risi in our follow-up call post-Twitter storm. Her tone is different this time. She and Parlour are audibly emotional. “What makes it more frustrating is that it should have been a fantastic moment for us,” says Parlour. And the accusations? “It just couldn’t be further from our truth.” Some online comments went so far as to allege they were the daughters of famous footballers. “It’s close to comedy at this point,” says Parlour. “You couldn’t have put the target on a more ridiculous head. Ella’s mom is a cleaner. My dad’s a retired factory worker. I don’t care how you feel about our music, but I care that you’ve erased our background and identity.”
Picture Parlour (from left): Sian Lynch, Michael Nash, Ella Risi, Katherine Parlour— (Jennifer McCord)
They aren’t the only recent up-and-comers to face the internet’s wrath. Just last month, Brixton five-piece The Last Dinner Party were met with similar accusations. Parlour thinks this kind of attitude goes beyond bitterness. “This leap from hyped to industry plant, to me, seems like lazy journalism,” she says. “I say that because there’s a predominant history of male-fronted bands, who are privileged and who aren’t privileged, who have happened to gain a large buzz pretty quickly and I can’t recollect one that has been questioned.”
Parlour makes a good point. Their early hype could be compared to the likes of the Monkeys back in 2005, and yet it’s hard to remember any negativity towards them. “It’s funny to me that these male-fronted bands happen to fall through the industry plant witch hunt net. There’s a question mark on it for me.”
It’s funny to me that these male-fronted bands happen to fall through the industry plant witch hunt net— Katherine Parlour
The band do understand where the scepticism surrounding nepotism comes from. “It irks people when you think someone has gained a position because of privilege, no one likes that because it’s unfair,” says Parlour. “We’d have answered straight away if someone would have genuinely asked the question. We can lay out exactly the timeline of where things began and how we’re here now. What we won’t take is misogynistic comments like we’ve slept with producers, racial erasure towards Sian.” She continues, “This could have been an opportunity for a really constructive conversation or for some semblance of change.”
Clearly, as well as gender, there’s a plethora of other factors (such as race, disability, class) that contribute to prejudices within the industry. Parlour thinks we need to focus on solving the problems from the root cause. “Instead of blaming musicians, why aren’t we looking at the infrastructure around musicians, the music industry, which has made it that way?”
Parlour, originally from Liverpool, met the Yorkshire-born Risi when they were at university in Manchester. Risi was the only woman in her music class at the time. “You just start feeling like this isn’t my space, trying to just hide in the corner,” she says. “There was so much self-doubt,” Parlour says of Risi in the early days. “Your self-confidence just wasn’t where it should have been.” Making music as a duo changed everything. “That transition to us being so accepting of each other felt so natural and instinctive,” says Risi. In 2021, they took a leap of faith and moved to London to pursue music. The rest of the band were found on Facebook. They met Nash over a pint first – “Just to make sure he wasn’t a serial killer,” jokes Parlour. “We really got on and his values aligned. If we’re going to have a dude in the band, it’s gotta be the right dude!” At their first rehearsal, everything clicked. “It was explosive, “ she says, moving the bleach streak in her hair from off her face. “When we all came in, it was chills.”
Then came “Norwegian Wood”, the band’s debut single. The song, barely altered from the demo, bursts into life with a euphoric punchiness that makes it hard to forget. “When I’m down, I’m so down/ If I expressed myself then you wouldn’t stick around me,” Parlour roars in the chorus. Written in 20 minutes on a bad day, the song hits you straight in the guts. “It fell out,” she says of writing the track. “It’s about the shame you feel when you struggle to be vulnerable with someone and the cynic in me acknowledging dooms and glooms.” Really though, it’s the ultimate love song; Parlour begs the subject to leave her, so they don’t have to suffer her. “Oh my God, she read me like a book!” Parlour laughs to Risi when I suggest this interpretation. The track is full of darkness, yet wrapped in light. “If not for you then rest assured, I’d go without this life,” Parlour cries in the song’s final moments, as the guitar pangs goodbye.
It’s a powerful first statement, and surprisingly their last choice for a debut. “I remember I wrote it, and I hated it,” says Parlour, who recoiled when someone suggested the track be used to open their shows. “I was like there’s no way we’re doing this, it’s too vulnerable.” Eventually, she gave in. “I felt like it was pathetic, but in hindsight, everyone at some point feels like that and there’s something special to me about our first statement being no bulls***.”
The band’s stint in the music industry so far hasn’t been a comfortable one. But this is their dream – despite the baggage that comes with it. Parlour had never believed a career in music was a realistic ambition. “It’s a massive mountain to climb,” she says. “At least where we came from and the situations we were in. It’s just not real life,” Parlour pauses and then corrects herself. “Or at least, it wasn’t.”
