After several years out of the limelight and working on various other projects, ex-Oasis guitar hero Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs is back with new band Parlour Flames.
Teaming up with Salford-based singer songwriter Vinny Peculiar, the pair have co-written and produced their forthcoming debut album.
Experimenting with various instruments and having the creative ability to play around with styles, Parlour Flames have produced a unique sound which is set to add something new to UK music.
The band have embarked on a short run of UK dates ahead of the album release which is set to be in April.
A magnificent set at Liverpool’s Epstein Theatre displayed a band with a lot of potential. The experience and ability of Bonehead and Vinny could be heard in every track as they bounded between songs in an energetic and fun set.
Tracks Lonely Girls and Horses and Sunday Afternoon were the strongest of the performance and displayed the brilliant, tale-telling songwriting ability of their creators.
After the set, I caught up with Bonehead and Vinny to find out what Parlour Flames are all about...
How did Parlour Flames come to be a band?
We’ve known each other for six or seven years now. We got introduced by Mike Joyce from the Smiths and after a long series of complications, [Bonehead] played on the European tour for the Vinny Peculiar Band. After that, we just got on really well and stayed in touch. A couple of years after the tour [Bonehead] played on a Vinny Peculiar record which went really well. We’d said from there that we wanted to record something at some point. At the beginning of last year we started doing a bit of work on an EP, which turned into a full album and before we knew it, it was a fully formed project.
Talk me through the songwriting process...
[Vinny] had a lot of fully formed songs and [Bonehead] sort of had a few ideas floating around. Once we’d brought these ideas together, they evolved and we just played off each other. About half the songs on the album came from [Vinny]’s demos and we tweaked them, re-recorded and perfected them into better tracks.
You recorded the album at [Bonehead]’s home, how was that?
We’ve tried to keep it very DIY, so it’s been great. At the same time it’s been a big learning curve as we’ve been playing with all the equipment until we got a sound we really liked. We tried to play everything we could ourselves on the album: the drums and a couple of other things we got help on. I think learning to fully understand the recording equipment and putting it all together ourselves has given us much more creative space.
How’s it been playing the music live?
So far it’s been really good. We’ve received a lot of good feedback from audiences and people seem to like the style. We think it’s only going to get better too. Once the album’s out and we see how it’s received on a larger scale, we’ll hopefully be able to get the music out and perform to more people.
Parlour Flames are eager to see the album be released. The hardworking musicians are evidently proud of their work, speaking with passion about their music and plans for the future.
With a special edition 7” single set for release on this year’s Record Store Day, it seems like the things are only going up for the Mancunians.
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