Parachute interview: Beatweek Rising Star 2011 talks The Way It Was

by Bill Palmer

“We had another side to us we wanted to show,” says singer Will Anderson of the lead single from his band Parachute’s new album The Way It Was, due out on May 17th. Two years after hitting it big with the sparsely arranged acoustic ballad She Is Love, the band has struck back with their Top 20 Hot AC radio hit Something To Believe In, an up tempo rocker which shows off their full musical chops – and the song helps tell the story of the album itself. “We were trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our sound at that point for the album and how we wanted to do it. That was kind of a rallying cry for us.”

The seeds for the quintet from Charlottesville, Virginia were formed back in their school days, and while the five members strike a serious pose for the album cover of The Way It Was, Will says that’s just one side of the Parachute story. Having recently parted with a “sketchy” looking lucky mustache he’d been growing during the album’s creation process because he didn’t want to be seen sporting it during his band’s upcoming television performances, he explains that “anybody who knows us knows that we’re the same goofballs that we were in college and high school,” he says of the lineup which includes traditional rock instrumentation plus a full time saxophone player. “I just feel like we take our music seriously, and we take our fun very seriously as well. And so to have the kind of outlet with YouTube, we love having fun there. But when we come to the music we take it seriously.”

There are also, of course, multiple sides of the band when it comes to the music itself. While he plays both guitar and piano, Will writes songs on both instruments and “often it’s whatever one I’m closest to when I think of something.” That in turn impacts the finished product, as “it’s funny how a song can take shape based on what instrument’s in front of you, especially with this album.”

Parachute fans who favor the band’s softer side will appreciate the decidedly mid tempo Kiss Me Slowly, which has the distinction of having been cowritten with members of the country trio Lady Antebellum – and in fact it wasn’t originally intended to be a Parachute song. “I know Charles and Dave from Nashville and they’re good friends of mine,” explains Will. “So we wrote with a specific artist in mind. But it worked out to where we needed that song for the record. I called them and they were kind enough to let us do the song. It really worked out great in that it fit the record perfectly, and the lyrics I changed to fit our band. I always hear stories about a band writing a song and then giving it away and they’re like oh no, I want that song back. So we got really lucky with it.”

The band’s touring escapades have seen performances on back to back nights in different cities more often than not, and it’s a schedule which the band favors. “You can get into a really good rhythm where we hate when it breaks,” he says. “There’s a certain point where you kind of have to say okay, we need a break. But there’s a point where if you’re not in the rhythm, you can feel it when you play. Once you play a couple times in a row, it’s like an addiction. You want to do it the next night and the next night. So it’s honestly disappointing when we don’t get to play one night.”

This summer Parachute will perform a string of headlining concerts along with triple-billed shows with the Goo Goo Dolls and Michelle Branch. So what does Will think of the matchup? “Our genre is Hot AC, Adult Contemporary, and they’re the kings of that genre. So getting to tour with them, it’s an honor that they’d even choose us. I think it’ll be fun to vary things up. It’s in my opinion three great acts who all sound a little different, but I think all the fans will enjoy it all the same.” And of the prospects of getting Michelle to sing backing vocals on songs like Something To Believe In? “Hopefully she will. We’ll see.”

With the new album out this week, Will is hoping to steer fans toward the song American Secrets even though it’s closer to the bottom of the tracklist than the top. “That’s the most personal song and it took the longest to write, so it feels like I want people to know it because I worked so long on it and the band did too. It’s probably one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written.”

And as for the band, who changed their name to Parachute in 2008 after an early flirtation with the name Sparky’s Flaw, they’re still happy with the change three years later. “I’m glad we did it, that’s for sure. Especially the way things are going, and where we’ve gotten to.” And as if there were any doubt at this point, they won’t be changing names again any time soon: “We’re Parachute for life.”

WeAreParachute.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook

Ingrid Michaelson interview: Parachute, 2010 tour, and indie life

“You’re weirding me out,” Ingrid Michaelson jokes when I point out that she’s the indie artist whose success other indie artists tell me they’re trying to emulate. But her status as the most commercially successful indie artist of her generation has never been more apparent than when she released the one-off digital single “Parachute” last month and saw it immediately climb into the top twenty on the iTunes pop chart. She’s between albums now, building her audience through the age-old method of touring the country even as she also continues to build her audience through the decidedly twenty-first century method of getting her songs used on television (including a double digit number of episodes of Grey’s Anatomy).

Parachute, as it turns out, has been in the making for awhile. The glasses in the photo, for those wondering, are for real. And Ingrid’s next album, while slated for release in less than a year, is still up in the air as far as the direction it might take. But first thing first.

The short story of Parachute is you wrote it awhile ago, and then Cheryl Cole sang it in the UK, and you’re singing it now. Is that the gist of it?

Pretty much. I wrote the chorus like two years ago, and then I finished it with my friend Marshall in LA last year, a year and a half ago. Then Cheryl Cole picked it up, and I was like you know what, I’m not gonna put this out. It’s a little bit too poppy, the way it was produced, the way our demo was produced was a little too poppy for me. And then my producer Dan Romer from my last album, he made this really funky cool version of it, and I was like you know what, the song is so cool and I really think this production is more me. I felt like it just fit me better. So I went in and recorded vocals and we all really liked it, and we decided to see what happens.

I have a lot of new material, I just haven’t been able to get back into the studio and record it because I was touring pretty extensively this year on my last record which came out a year ago. And so I haven’t really had time to do a new album, but in this day and age people want things all the time. So I figured let’s just put this out digitally and see what happens, and then plan on a next full album sometime mid 2011.

Is there a distinction between writing something you think you’re going to use, and just writing something? Do you ever sit down and say okay, I’m going to write something that I wouldn’t use?

Initially, this song, I was writing it for somebody else. Not anybody in particular. But the lyrics were different. The lyrics and the verses were completely different. Then when I kind of was like wait a minute, this is really good, I like this, I completely rewrote all the verses to fit me. But then I still was like, you know what, I’m not sure. And then Cheryl Cole did the version that I wrote for me, basically, not the version that I wrote for somebody else. But there is a difference when writing for other people, because I have done it before, and it becomes more of, like, a project.

Is it that you’ve always stubbornly wanted to remain indie, or has it just sort of happened that way?

It kind of happened that way in the beginning, because I had all this success from TV and commercials without any major label. And so the labels kind of came around late to the game. They were like “Oh, now let’s do stuff together.” And it’s like, well, we kind of already did all this stuff on our own, so basically you’d just be coming in and taking credit and money for things that you didn’t work to do. So that’s why we never went full on. We did another joint venture with a label called Original Signal, and they have upstream capabilities to Universal Motown, so I could call on their radio stuff and their marketing people if we needed, or if they felt like doing it, that kind of a thing. It was very loose. So I had access to things, sort of, but I’ve never had a cut and dry record deal. I don’t think I ever will. There’s no need.

But you do realize the position you’re in, or how you’re perceived. I’ve interviewed indie artists who’ve said to me they don’t want to sign with a major, and they say “I want to be like Ingrid Michaelson.” They’ll specifically invoke your name as the standard of what they want to pull off.

I really didn’t know that. That’s kind of funny. I don’t think about that really, I guess. You’re weirding me out (laughs).

Sometimes I see you wearing glasses, sometimes I don’t. What’s your relationship with your glasses?

I’ve been wearing glasses since I was in the fourth grade. Up until college I would only wear them when I would have to see the chalkboard at school, and then when I started to drive I had to wear them when I was driving. But I didn’t really wear them all that much growing up, even though I had to. Then I got into college and I discovered thick glasses, and I was like oh, I’m gonna be the cool nerdy girl. So I bought these glasses and then I never took them off. I got contacts but I never really wore them. I always wore my glasses. They’re just comfortable. I don’t like putting things in my eyes. I don’t trust surgery.

I need them to see, basically. My whole thing is when I first came out on the scene, everybody was saying that I sounded like Lisa Loeb. And that was just dumb to me, because while she’s great and lovely, I don’t sound anything like her. It’s just that I wore glasses and people were stuck on that. So I’ve kind of gone back and forth wearing them, not wearing them.

If Parachute brings you some new fans who are looking for more from you and they see there’s no new record coming out this year, I suspect they’re going to find their way back to Everybody. I know it’s a year old, but if someone is just discovering that album now, what do you want them to know about it?

That record is very dear to me. It’s very personal, and I feel like the first real record I made was called Girls And Boys, then I made a glorified EP called Be OK, and then I came out with Everybody. There was this string of singles that were released because they were on Grey’s Anatomy or something, so there were other little songs here and there that came out. Complicated way of saying that Everybody was really my second full length release. I felt at the time that I was kind of a little bit more of a fleshed out grown up, not grown up, but for me grown up sound. I was being very honest in my lyrics. I wasn’t masking it. I wasn’t storytelling. I was just basically saying things that had happened to me. So it’s a very honest, autobiographical piece of work.

I’m not reinventing the wheel. I don’t claim to be trying to impress anybody. I just like to sing, I like to make really pretty harmonies and melodies, and I like to say things in ways that maybe they haven’t been said before, because I’m saying the same things that everybody has said for thousands of years, but hopefully in a little bit of a different way.

Is Parachute any indication of where you might be headed for your next record, or do you think it’s more likely to pick up where Everybody left off.

It’s gonna be somewhere in between. I definitely don’t want to do the same thing I did on Everybody. I kind of am shying away from the singer-songwriter thing because I think I’ve done that so hard. I have more up my sleeve and I’m interested in other sounds, sonically and melodically. Not to say that I’ll abandon my ukelele, but I want to move into a little bit of, I don’t know, something else. I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m not gonna become a Britney Spears popped. I know Parachute’s really poppy, and I really like it. Actually I love it. But I don’t see it as defining my sound. I just think if I can make lots of different kinds of music, then why shouldn’t I, as long as I’m not confusing my fans.

With your current tour you’re playing not just New York and LA, but you’re playing places like Salt Lake City and Boise, Idaho. Have you played those kinds of places before?

I’ve played every place you could think of in America. Salt Lake City was one of our best shows ever, on our last tour last year. There were fifteen hundred people and it felt like we were in an arena of twenty thousand people. They were the best audience ever. So you never know. The little pockets in the middle of our country are clamoring for attention, so when you go there, they’re just so receptive and wonderful.

interview by Bill Palmer

IngridMichaelson.com • iTunes • Twitter • Facebook

App review: Hello Kitty

New in iProng Magazine: a hands-on review of Hello Kitty, the new app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for $2.99 in the App Store…

“Hello Kitty Parachute Paradise” is such a treat for Hello Kitty and Sanrio fans! All of the favorite Sanrio characters such as My Melody, Badtz-Maru, Keroppi, Pochacco, Cinnamoroll and Corocorokuririn make special appearances along with Hello Kitty in the game.

“Hello Kitty Parachute Paradise” has two modes of gaming — Parachute Game and My Room Showcase. Both modes interact with each other, so you’ll find yourself switching back and forth after each stage.

The main objective is to help guide Hello Kitty downward with her parachute. In each level of the parachute game mode, you catapult Hello Kitty as high as you can. The higher Hello Kitty jumps, the more points are earned. When she starts gliding down, tilt the iPhone/iPod touch to help her parachute to safety. Collect apples and bonus items along the way, but be careful of the dangerous obstacles!

Be sure to collect plenty of apples to maintain Hello Kitty’s parachute power. The apples are similar to health points in other games. As long as her parachute power is not as zero, you can still parachute safely down and collect items. Bonus items include Hello Kitty’s friends, toys, cute items, decorations, and various backgrounds and flooring. These can all be use to decorate Hello Kitty’s room in the My Room Showcase mode.

There are 9 exciting stages total. Four must be unlocked from scoring high on previous stages. Clicking once on each stage will display the “Item Tracker.” The bright items are the ones you have already collected and the darken items are ones you have not.

All items collected in the Parachute game are stored in the My Room Showcase inventory. In the My Room Showcase mode, you can select the items you want to decorate Hello Kitty’s room. The 3D graphics used here are quite beautiful. There are so many items to collect in the game that you may find your room cluttered with cuteness!

There are two modes in My Room Showcase — showcase and design. You can toggle between the two by clicking on the hand icon in the top right. In design mode, you can touch and drag items to where you want them displayed. Let go of them item to drop it in place. To add more items, click on Menu -> Inventory. There are 60 items that can be collected throughout the game. Items that you collected will be bright. Items you have in your showcase will be highlighted in pink. Select items to be added in your showcase by tapping on them. A maximum of 20 items can be in the showcase at any one time, and only one background and one floor can be displayed.

Be sure to create stylish scenes, take a screenshot, and share them! The camera icon in the lower right corner will help you with this. Click on it, and tap the middle of the screen when you’re ready. This will take a photo of Hello Kitty’s room and save it to your camera roll. Six different songs are also available when viewing the Showcase mode. To access them, click on Menu -> Settings, and select the song. You may also adjust the volume of the music and effects here as well.

As an added bonus, if you score high enough in the Parachute games, you can unlock an extra “Sky High” mini-game. The object of this mini-game is to make Hello Kitty jump as high as you can. I don’t find this mini-game very addicting at all. You are scored only on the height of the jump, so it feels like a stripped down version of the Parachute game. A better mini-game might be an endless mode where Hello Kitty collects apples and bonus items. Once her parachute runs out of power, the mini game is over, and the score is calculated by how many items she picked up. Maybe this can be in the next version.

Overall, I’m quite impressed with “Hello Kitty Parachute Paradise.” The gameplay is really fun, challenging, and provides endless hours of playing. I’m also quite impressed with the game’s responsiveness to the tilt and touch of the user. The 3D graphics used in the showcase room are lovely, and girls will find themselves creating many variations of Hello Kitty’s room.
One small drawback to the game is that it does not respond to the Ring/Silent Switch on the iPhone. You must manually silent the game using the volume buttons.

For future developments, I’d like to see this game be more social. It could have an option to upload the screenshots and/or be part of the OpenFeint or Plus+ social game networks.

Hello Kitty Parachute Paradise is currently available for $2.99 in the App Store.