INTERVIEW: Reid Parsons Is One With the Source
In our interview, Reid Parsons explains how they use music to connect to the Source, and how that connection informs everything else.
Vermont's Reid Parsons has given us a fluid masterpiece with their new album Back to Back. (Bee Delores review it for us last week.) The album is confident and imbued with love: listening to it will give you the sense that Parsons knows exactly who they are and is enjoying their presence in the moment. In our interview, Parsons explains how they use music to connect to the Source, and how that connection informs everything else.
You work in a lot of different genres. How do you follow your muse?
Okay first off - I gotta talk about the genres! I've done a lot of thinking about genre and, more broadly, the human desire to name and categorize things. How we are constantly defining our world through comparisons. But genres are categories and categories aren't solid. Their membranes are permeable. Genres are just as alive and social as the people who make them. They're malleable. We're supposed to play with them, discard parts and bring in new ones. I love genres because they're a really cool tool to intentionally restrict creativity. I think of the Source/Universal Tone as this enormous, very powerful river. I can't tap into all of it at once - it's too overwhelming. So I channel a little bit of it off by setting limits for myself:
finish the song in an hour even if that means the lyrics will need to be reworked, or use only these four chords but play with their order or duration, or arrange this kinda jazzy song with instruments typically found in bluegrass. Whatever it is, I have to direct off a manageable stream of creativity, and then I just let it flow and try to follow it as well as I can. You have to be ready to receive the river which also means practice and routine to get strong enough to handle bigger currents. Also seeking out inspiration to draw the Source to you. I believe really strongly in that. The great news is, inspiration is everywhere because life is literally creative.
Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way.
"Sack O Woe" by Cannonball Adderly. What other ten-minute song is able to build and sustain energy better than that one? I also love that the vibe is the opposite of woeful. It feels so good. Hard bop is such a tight, funky era in jazz. It's nasty good and just delivers confidence.
The alto saxophone was the first instrument I properly studied and nobody has ever made the alto sax sound as good as Cannonball did, in my opinion. His sound can be sunny-sweet but with these little crackly rough edges. The groove on that song and every single solo just drives. And the harmonies between Cannonball and his brother Nat are so tight. Can't beat a sibling harmony even in horns. But okay, I was also thinking the other night that if Bella White, Kacey Musgraves, and Sierra Ferrell want to form a supergroup, I bet they could also write a perfect song. (Imagine how mind-blowing yet understated their lyrics would be!) Fortunately there are a lot of perfect songs out there that haven't yet been written, because there's infinite Source to draw from. We just have to keep receiving and writing.
Have you ever been star-struck when playing with a musician?
Yes, all the time. Any time the vibes align when you play live, it is magical. Making music with other people is true alchemy. We create sound waves and hear them collide. We make intangible art that shifts people's moods and energies. It's insane. I was regularly star-struck when making my album, because it was this incredible experience where I got to see how different everyone is as an artist. Playing live is fleeting and you can kind of grasp someone's style, but recording a lot of different takes meant I could really witness a musician's particular art. I could spend time with it. It was like peering into their souls.
Making this album also made me realize that equally fantastic artists are made up of drastically different strengths and talents. All of the musicians on my record, who are all currently or recently based in Burlington VT, are tremendous artists but bring really different things to the table. Some can't read music but could perfectly mimic any line I sang, some sightread parts with 100% accuracy the first time through and could immediately bring any emotion to the line, but wouldn't be comfortable improvising. This realization gave me a lot of confidence – it doesn't matter how or why you play well, it just matters that you do. I am so lucky to be a part of the Vermont music scene, because there are so many talented musicians who really believe in the art and do it for the art, as we're not exactly on the top ten list of music towns. But we punch way above our weight and it felt really special to have this album reflect our community.
How do you feel your queer identity ties into your performance style or music?
Queer people have to create our own futures because the structures of society aren't built for us. That is a blessing and a curse; it's not exactly easy. I have always been comfortable with my sexuality and gender. I fell in love with a girl when I was thirteen and was not surprised or ashamed or anything, because I was very fortunate to grow up in an accepting home and state. But boy oh boy did I feel social shame for being bi/pan. There were like two out couples in my high school and most of my queer friends in college weren't out until after graduating, so like a lot of other people, I felt super alone in these predominantly straight places and went through a lot of not-so-good situations in my youth. I had to learn to be really steady in my core and that has made me a better artist.
What I make is a direct reflection of who I am, and I've had to be clear in my identity, which makes me more confident as a performer. Like, when someone in the audience isn't vibing with my music, that's fine, because I don't write my music for them, I write music for me. I have always loved myself but had to learn to keep loving myself even if other people didn't, and that's a must-have as an artist. We can only write from our own perspectives and create from our own souls. And if someone connects with my music, it's awesome, because they are connecting with my whole authentic self. It feels funny to even separate any of this out! I am an artist, musician, performer, queer person, I am me and I make music that's mine. End scene.
What words did you need to hear as you explored your identity?
I am one of three siblings and all of us are queer so this is an amalgam of our conversations growing up. That there's no right way to be anything. That the best part of being queer is that you get to be whoever the fuck you want. And that being queer is fun and amazing and should be celebrated, not feared. That the queer community looks out for each other and that it is our responsibility to continue that tradition, especially if we carry privilege. That we can really create our own societies and futures and that we need weirdos to imagine and create the new worlds that we want to live in.
