"Don’t listen to anyone, don’t let anyone sway you from your musical convictions. Ideas and advice are the last thing I need! I don’t need them cluttering up my head."

Graham Parker: Squeezing Out Sparks 

Graham Parker’s first album of new material since 2018, LAST CHANCE TO LEARN THE TWIST (2023, Big Stir Records), produced by Parker and Tuck Nelson, finds the veteran singer-songwriter in top form, offering up thirteen new compositions with exquisitely tasteful backing by The Goldtops (bassist Simon Edwards, drummer Jim Russell, guitarist Martin Belmont and keyboard player Geraint Watkins) and frequent contributions from the Easy Access Orchestra horns and backing vocal duo The Lady Bugs. It's a dazzlingly diverse album: sweet classic soul grooves and roots rock sounds dominate, all framing lyrics dripping with Parker's vintage “Wicked Wit” (as one song title has it) and inimitable, impassioned vocal delivery. Two early singles have hinted at the record's depth: the devastatingly stark “We Did Nothing” with its heartbreaking examination of the cost of inaction on both the personal and global stages, and the delightfully playful reggae-tinged “Them Bugs.” But there's much more waiting to be discovered on the full album, which is at once one of Parker's most relaxed and boldest statements to date.

(British Rock legend Graham Parker / Photo © by Dion Ogust)

From the sinister shuffle of the opener “The Music Of The Devil” -- a mission statement of sorts for the album and perhaps the singer-songwriter's career – through the closing honky-tonk-inflected “Since You Left Me Baby,” Parker blends humor and heartbreak as only he can. Touching on concerns both intimate and culture-wide, often within the same song as on “We Did Nothing,” LAST CHANCE TO LEARN THE TWIST finds Parker moving from strength to strength over the course of its two sides. Highlights include the bittersweet, piano-led third single “It Mattered To Me,” the loose groove of “Sun Valley” with its soaring horns-and-harmonies coda, and the folksy meditation on mortality of the near-title-track “Last Stretch Of The Road” (already a fan favorite from its live airings at Graham's recent solo gigs in the US). LAST CHANCE TO LEARN THE TWIST is as warm and inviting a record as Graham Parker has ever issued, but it also delivers all the unflinching honesty, literate nuance and passion his admirers have come to expect from him. 

Interview by Michael Limnios / Photos © by Dion Ogust

Special Thanks: Graham Parker; Tony Bonyata (Pavement PR); Big Stir Records

How has the Rock Counterculture influenced your views of the world and the life’s journeys you’ve taken?

When I was 12 years old when the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and all the other British groups that appeared in the early ‘60s it was the first time for kids my age to be aware of any real meaningful new music and fashion that we could relate to. I didn’t know what a “counter culture” was but I suppose right there it was being invented for us and much of life revolved around it as I grew up.

Is there a message you are trying to convey with your new album “Last Chance To Learn The Twist”?

Well, there’s 13 songs on the album and they all tell different stories, so any “messages” that people might take from the songs is entirely up to the listeners. I don’t really think of sending messages, I only follow where the songs lead to.

"I’ve always been hugely interested nature, growing up in the country so I did. I can’t say that it influences my music in any way, though." (Graham Parker’s LAST CHANCE TO LEARN THE TWIST, finds the veteran singer-songwriter in top form, offering up thirteen new compositions / Photo © by Dion Ogust)

Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album?

I treat recording as something that’s needs to be done in a very disciplined manner. I want me and the band members to get 3 or 4 basic tracks on tape every day, and we managed to get 14 songs recorded and ready for overdubs in 4 days on this album. I suppose with that kind of discipline and professionalism I can’t say anything interesting happened at all! It’s more like making things work like a Swiss clock.

What do you love most about the act of writing fiction books? Where does your creative drive come from?

When I was writing those books, I felt like I was taking life experience and fictionalising it, and that’s exactly what I did, which made it a lot more fun than writing a memoir or anything that is supposed to be based on truth. My creative drive to do that - and I was still writing a few songs at the same time - was working in hyperdrive. I don’t know how that happens, it just does and my job is to harness it, not escape from it, but once again, it’s discipline that gets the job done. The ideas and creativity are too mysterious to understand. It’s just weird brain chemistry I suppose, something shared among creative people. It’s not something that can be learned or taught, the creator just has to get down to work and not waste it.

What moment changed your life the most?

There’s quite a few, but watching my first child being born was right up the top.

Life is more than just music, is there any other field that has influence on your life and music?

I’ve always been hugely interested nature, growing up in the country so I did. I can’t say that it influences my music in any way, though.

What were the reasons that made the UK - since 1960s - to be the center of music researches and experiments?                       (Graham Parker / Photo © by Dion Ogust)

We got it all from American black music, from blues, jazz, and soul music, but the British have a way of making it our own. Our version is often a more aggressive form of old styles, I know mine is, anyway.

"When I was 12 years old when the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and all the other British groups that appeared in the early ‘60s it was the first time for kids my age to be aware of any real meaningful new music and fashion that we could relate to."

What is the impact of music on the socio-cultural implications? How do you want the music to affect people?

I don’t think about those things so much these days, maybe earlier on, but now I’d just like my work to affect people’s emotions, whether sad or upbeat.

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?

Don’t listen to anyone, don’t let anyone sway you from your musical convictions. Ideas and advice are the last thing I need! I don’t need them cluttering up my head.

Graham Parker - Home