Parlour Bells Want To Know: To Be Or Not To Behave?

BOSTON, MA
September 27, 2024

THAT was the question. And on Friday, September 27th, it finally got answered as the band presented To Be Or Not To Behave, their first proper studio recordings since 2017’s Waylaid in the Melée. The four-song EP was mixed and produced by Brian Charles of The Sheila Divine and owner of Rare Signals studio in Cambridge, MA. Initial tracking began at Q Division in the summer of 2023, with the remainder of production taking place at Rare Signals in the winter of 2024.

Tracklist

Track By Track Breakdown

Knight Owl
Equal parts anthem-rock and new wave fight song, the salty lead-off track on the album got right to the point as it opened with a monstrous voice sample. Singer Goddamn Glenn explained how the song set the stage for the rest of the EP: “For the new record, I wanted to create something both more modern sounding, but also something that pays homage to my 80s glam rock, pop, and early 90s influences. These were also the first studio recordings featuring keyboardist Allison Sigrist, and she gave the track its high, new wave sheen.”
Sigrist added, “Glenn often put together demos with certain sounds in place, but he provided the space to change the parts or add to them, so I never felt like I was just playing those parts from rote without being able to contribute.”
To capture the flamboyance and virtuosity of 80s glam rock, it was also critical to bring in a real “shredder” on guitar. Parlour Bells found that in Michael J Johnson, and on “Knight Owl,” the results were a guitar solo for the ages.
Johnson explained, “I tried to synthesize elements of some of my favorite guitarists, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, and Tom Morello. Eddie and Randy stretched the boundaries of traditional guitar playing, where Tom Morello explored ways in which you can go beyond the traditional sounds of the guitar, and I liked the idea of combining elements of both approaches.”

Dixies
The “dixies” here referred to the paper Dixie cups used to serve up some very questionable Kool-Aid to the cult-faithful. Clocking in at just 2 minutes and 29 seconds, it was a brisk foray into psychedelic pop, anchored by Mike Leggio’s stopwatch bassline and Tony Porter’s airtight drumbeat. “We were constantly trying new things in this band,” said Glenn. “I didn’t really feel like any two songs were alike. But I thought ‘Dixies’ was probably the most unconventional tune we’ve ever released. Sure, there were nods to T-Rex in there, but we felt like this one was some truly spacey headphone music.”
The band credited Brian Charles of Rare Signals, who recorded and produced the album, with the sonic quality of the tracks. Drummer Tony Porter elaborated, “To a certain extent, I'd say he approached this music with a cinematic approach in terms of trying to evoke some 'imagery' along with the basic meaning and intent of the songs. It was fun to see his enthusiasm for the possibilities of what this music could become.”

Slasher Movie Weather
That “cinematic” aspect of To Be Or Not To Behave was taken quite literally on this 80s slasher-inspired track. In August, the single arrived packaged with a mini-horror movie/music video directed by Glenn and his wife and creative partner, Honey Pie.
“One of my guilty pleasures on a sweltering summer night was sitting in my office with the AC cranked and watching some of the lousiest, cheesiest slasher movies from the 80s,” said Glenn of his inspiration for the song and video.
But the cinematic aesthetic could also be found just in the track itself, particularly in the song's moody, nocturnal breakdown. Listening closely, you would find yourself lost in the woods with no one to keep you company aside from the eerie guitars and cricket noises. Certain sounds in the song were also direct nods to the 80s slasher genre, emphasized especially by Allison Sigrist’s textured keys.
“I had a bunch of different things going on,” Sigrist explained, “from the sparse atmosphere of the early verses to the Halloween soundtrack quote, to full-on piano comping under the outro. That was a fun one to work on.”

The Ballad of Felix Moncla (2024 Version)
Closing out To Be Or Not To Behave was an updated and fully realised version of a song the band created and released remotely from quarantine during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. “Back in 2020, when we were unable to perform or even assemble in a room together, we were intent on staying creative. As happy as we were with the results of putting this one together from our respective home studios, it still had the overall vibe of something recorded in isolation,” Glenn explained. “Initially, there was never any plan to re-record this one, but we found ourselves with some extra studio time, and our bass player Mike Leggio suggested we use the time to attempt an updated version. It was an excellent suggestion on his part because Brian Charles ended up giving the song the lush production value that it always deserved.”
The song tells the lesser-known story chronicled in American UFO lore known as the “Kinross Incident,” in which US Air Force Pilot First Lieutenant Felix Moncla vanished mysteriously after pursuing an unidentified flying object over Lake Superior in 1953.
Taken as a whole, To Be Or Not To Behave built upon the theatrical and cinematic aspirations established in earlier Parlour Bells work. From the rainy, film-noir streets of “You Don’t Wear That Dress, The Dress Wears You” on 2013’s Thank God for the Night to the Bowie-like science fiction musings of “Celebrities On Ice” and “Wetware” on 2017’s Waylaid in Melée, Parlour Bells liked to transport the listener to a setting of their own creation. But what set this record apart was that those cinematic inclinations were not just evident in the song themes but in the overall production. Where previous efforts might have been considered more or less straight-up anthem rock with the quirky tales to be discovered within the lyrics, the songs on To Be Or Not To Behave embraced those idiosyncrasies in both content and form.

Parlour Bells is
Goddamn Glenn - Vocals
Allison Sigrist - Keys
Mike Leggio - Bass
Tony Porter - Drums
Michael Johnson - Guitar