When recording their third studio album, Melbourne indie rockers The Pretty Littles weren't concerned with being the best.
They just wanted to be a little bit better. “I suppose we're not breaking any new ground genre-wise,” frontman Jack Parsons says. “We're just doing what we've always done, which is pretty straight up and down rock & roll. We're not really shying away from that, but what we do like to do is improve.
“I think the thing that's kept us interested and keen to keep going is that the songs are getting better each time. That keeps us involved and in terms of nurturing of fans and looking for new ones, I don't know, we don't have that many to worry about,” he laughs.
The new album, 'Soft Rock For The Anxious', sees The Pretty Littles, particularly Jack, kick their songwriting up a notch, retaining their shambolic-indie style while achieving a slick and cleanly-produced end result. “There's no conscious decision made lyrically or thematically really,” Jack explains.
“The songs generally end up presenting themselves as you put an album together, which is nice and you can kind of create a narrative around that. One theme was 'honesty' and not shying away from different things, either personally or otherwise.
“Normally, that stuff is hard to write and you bury it in metaphors until you don't really know what you're thinking about anymore. This one was a little more obvious and it felt good doing that; it was a bit scary, but that was the main, conscious decision going into this album. Also musically going into this, it was accepting we're the band we are and that's ok, we're a straight up and down indie band.”
First single from the album, 'Pride' has already received considerable airplay and elevated The Pretty Littles from their humble, garage-jam band origins. 'Pride' has been followed with second single, 'Sleeping In Water'. “The song's just about a relationship that was near me, and at one stage it was just going through a shit spot and I suppose it was about a couple of people not being compatible but being afraid of where that would put them. It's all pretty basic, sooky stuff,” Jack says.
“There are three songs on the album that stem from one song we were trying to work out for two or three years. It ended up being split over 'Sam's Mob', 'Not Good' and 'Sleeping In Water'; we were trying for so long to work this song out and we couldn't quite do it. I think that's because we were trying to do too much, and it ended up being three songs.”
'Sam's Mob' is a song that caused some controversy for the band when they released it earlier this year. It came in the wake of highly-charged comments made by AFL personality Sam Newman. When the song hit the airwaves, some fans hit back... hard. “Some people had some pretty fucking full-on things to say to us, but in the end we were making a comment on what happened.
"There's an ugly thing going on at the moment and I think people, particularly white blokes, are afraid of what they feel like they're losing, which is such a sad and hectic thing. I suppose we like making those things clear because we don't want the wrong people coming to gigs, so it's good to stamp them out if you can.”
The Pretty Littles Shows
Fri 28 Oct - Karova Lounge (Ballarat)Sat 29 Oct - Northcote Social Club (Melbourne)
Thu 3 Nov - Rad Bar (Wollongong)
Fri 4 Nov - Moonshine (Sydney)
Sat 5 Nov - Brighton Up Bar (Sydney)
Fri 11 Nov - Cats @ Rocket Bar (Adelaide)
Sat 12 Nov - The Loft (Warrnambool)
Fri 18 Nov - The Northern (Byron Bay)
Sat 19 Nov - The Bearded Lady (Brisbane)
