London hardcore merchants and pioneers of the lauded UKSwell scene, Pariso, have decided to call it a day following the release of their self-titled album – which we’re streaming right now! We caught up with guitarist Alex Fitzpatrick to find out why the end is nigh…
**Firstly, the question needs to be asked, why have Pariso decided to call it a day **“Essentially, it was becoming a hassle for most, if not all, of us. It was becoming hard to organise practices due to everyone’s commitments, which meant new music wasn’t getting written – which has always been the primary driving factor behind Pariso – which led to some of us becoming frustrated. It was also getting to the point where some of us weren’t enjoying gigging or recording, apart from physically playing the gigs and having the finished songs.
“We are all friends, naturally some of us closer than others, there’s no bad blood or personal dramas. The irony of the whole situation is that as soon as we agreed we were splitting up, it felt like the weight of trying to force out a third album was lifted, and we suddenly started writing music easily again.”
You’ve played an obscene amount of shows in your time, won’t you miss that experience? “We didn’t actually play all that many, compared to the say the work rate of our friends in Employed To Serve or Svalbard, we were just around for about six years and managed to do some tours that registered on people’s radars as being ‘an event’ or something I guess. Two of us still currently have other bands – Kurt in Artemis etc, and Alex H in Stallone – and I’m sure myself and Stuart are already greatly missing it! One final gig to go though…”
**Will you all be going on to different musical projects? **“Kurt and Alex H. have plenty on their plates, and I’m currently hatching esoteric, pretentious plans. Stuart will certainly do something. Mazz I’m not sure as he’s busy with his new screen printing business esotericscreenpriting.com.”
The new album is a mix of new material and rarities, why did you decide not to go 100% new tracks? “We scrapped a few rough sketches of new material, but essentially this final record is as it is because we wanted to put the definitive ‘full stop’ on our band – so if you own all five 12” LPs we put out (two albums, a compilation of early tracks, a split LP with Svalbard, and now this new one), then you literally own everything we ever recorded.”
**What’s your fondest memory of your time in Pariso? **“It’s pretty hard to pick just one, as we really had so much fun. We always just did what we wanted when we could, writing the music we wanted to hear basically, and had a great laugh. But I’ll never forget touring Cuba for two weeks – there’s simply too many stories from that tour, some of which I still find hard to believe actually happened. We were the second ever British rock band to tour the country, apparently!”
**What bands fans check out to fill in the void when you’re gone? **“Employed To Serve, Svalbard, Stallone, Artemis, Rolo Tomassi, OHHMS, We Never Learned To Live, Haast’s Eagled, Old Skin, Ithaca, Years Of Abuse, MINE, Throats and Oblivionized should give you a good start!”
Pariso will be released digitally on July 6th through Tangled Talk and Holy Roar, with a vinyl release date to follow soon after. Order here.
Their final ever show will be on September 4th at the Unicorn in Camden, London.
