Will Anderson, Johnny Stubblefield, and Christopher “Kit” French are a trio from Virginia. Their band, Parachute, is a platinum-selling powerhouse with a decade-long pop/rock reign. Their “young” tour makes a stop at the Troubador on June 11 and 12.
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Natalie Durkin (TribeLA Magazine): Give yourself and your work a tagline and tell us why.
Parachute: Soft rocking our way to your heart since 2009.
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ND: What got you started in music? What is the reason you are here today?
Parachute: We all took music lessons when we were kids, and falling in love with bands like Weezer, Dave Matthews Band and Ben Folds Five made us want to be in a band together. I think we just never stopped wanting to play live shows and write new songs, which allowed us to go as long as we have.
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ND: How do you hope to influence your audience?
Parachute: I think the goal for us has always been to connect the audience [to] a song of ours on some emotional level. Whether they’re listening to it on Spotify or hearing it live, we just want them to have a feeling afterwards that they might not even be able to explain, but is tangible and helped them feel at least slightly more known.
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ND: What do you do when your creativity is blocked?
Parachute: I just hang out for a few days and it comes back. Most of the time it just comes from not living enough to generate new ideas or feelings to write about.
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ND: What fires you up and gives you energy?
Parachute: Great songs fire me up. All the time. Good hooks and great melodies do wonders for my mood.
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ND: Can you tell us a little-known fact?
Parachute: Kit and Johnny were sponsored mountain bikers in high school, and did long races while we were growing up.
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ND: Where is your favorite place in Los Angeles and why?
Parachute: I love Venice Beach. We lived there for a summer while we recorded our second album, and I fell in love with the weirdness of it. I love going back there anytime I can.
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ND: How do you make music? Briefly chronicle your creative process.
Parachute: I usually am sitting at home in my living room when I write the song, and eventually flesh out a demo of it in its most basic form. I’ll send it to the other guys, they’ll work out what they’d do with it, and then we go into a real studio and add the stuff we can’t do at home. It’s a pretty streamlined process now and always seems to flow easily from one step to the next.
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ND: What is coming up?
Parachute: Lots of touring and promotion of our new album we just put out.
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ND: Describe your style – musically and otherwise.
Parachute: We’re piano-driven pop music with tasty melodies and emotionally resonant lyrics.
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ND: What is the best advice you’ve received and the best advice you can impart onto us?
Parachute: Don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s worked for me forever.
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ND: Any closing words?
Parachute: Thank you for this and pick up our new album!
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