A Man Is An Island

It really is true then: if you want something done, you best do it yourself. In the case of Brisbane-born, Melbourne-based solo folkster Dan Parsons and his self-titled second album, this adage is more of a challenge to accept than advice to be given then forgotten. “If you know what you want then there's no better way to do it,” Parsons reasons. “I like to think that no matter what the music is, as long as it's coming through the artist it's always going to make sense.”

Parsons hit the ground running in 2010 with debut Firestarter, a rich tapestry of ear-pleasing folk-pop surrounding his uncanny James Taylor-like vocal, produced in the comfort of a studio set-up. It was when he returned from touring overseas that songs for the new album began to take shape, but not in the way he expected. “I had written those songs [for Firestarter] purposefully and not doing my usual thing of fleshing out tracks, because I was pretty keen to experiment with someone else,” Parsons explains. “But this time around I really wanted to take up the slack and see what I came up with. [The new songs] came out a little bit differently. I remember thinking early on that I wanted to make the album strictly just vocals and guitar – stripped back and intimate. But I guess I couldn't resist putting drums or bass in there.”

While overseas, Parsons invested in an old four-track reel-to-reel, and with this new toy came liberation from the demands of the studio clock, giving him an organic basis to become his own band. “I played most of the instruments myself, which was really fun but also quite infuriating,” Parsons says. “You've got to make sure the microphone's the same [position] and then you've got to wonder if the part you're playing is any good. I'm a bit of a control freak so if I didn't like what I was playing I didn't have anyone else to blame except myself!” Indeed, there was times when Parsons questioned the merits of taking on such a task and wished he was in a band. “Totally,” he confirms, “there's one track on the album in which I kind of play a quartet of bass, mandolin and two guitars. Even though a lot of the songs and the recordings are of me doubling against myself, nothing can actually compare with the spark of four people in a room playing together. There's a certain energy that you just can't recreate.”

After arduous efforts recording endless parts, young-gun producer Robin Waters from The Boat People stepped in to mix things up. “He scared me a few times because my general kind of tactic is to start out kind of conservative and then if I think it can go to a stranger, more crazy place then I'll take it there,” Parsons explains. “Robin starts out crazy and wild then pares it back to something that's restrained and beautiful. It sounds quite nice and crisp, but he made it sound like it was a record he just pulled out of a sleeve and put on the turntable.”

With this second album in the bag and the touring cycle about to kick off, it seems an inevitable question to pose if Parsons would go through the process all again. “I want to do it live with a band and not be so pedantic about minor details. You can't do that to other human beings. They're always going to sound the way they sound, and that's a really nice thing.”