Parables For Wooden Ears – 30th Anniversary, Vinyl Re-issue – Out Now

G’Day Everyone,

Early to mid 90’s Brisbane was undergoing a huge musical metamorphosis. The touring circuit in the late 80s and into the 90s had degenerated into one dominated by covers bands, and concept bands. Original music had been forced into the fringes. ZZZ community radio had always remained a staunch supporter of alternative music and of factions within the local scene. Powderfinger’s music had not really found its home at this point and was stuck somewhere between community and commercial radio. JJJ radio had just gone national; Rage was playing videos of local artists and Chanel V and other cable stations were helping to promote local acts.

Powderfinger was just starting to be noticed during these times beyond Brisbane. By this stage we had been playing shows in Brisbane and surrounds for 6 years. That’s a long time for a bunch of youngsters. The hair was getting longer, and we were getting kind of jaded that people kept comparing us to other successful international bands, while we felt like we had been doing our own thing. We had conviction. Even if in retrospect it seems slightly misguided.

We still loved playing cricket in the local band comp. We still loved surfing. We were all still great mates. We all still lived in share houses. We were all still on the dole and most of us had deferred university and had uncompleted degrees. We still hadn’t travelled overseas. We still all lived in our self-imposed bubble of Brisbane. It was generally fun times.

After releasing two self-financed EPs, and being signed on the back of the successes of these, the record labels were noticing that we could indeed draw fairly loud crowds in our hometown… they took a punt with us just as we were changing musical trajectory with the songs that we were writing. A lot of the songs were formed in a communal rehearsal space in Fortitude Valley with musical inspiration coming from other bands that were our peers and observations of local happenings at things like ZZZ market day with the “help” of psychedelics.

It is often referred to as our “heavy” album but it really is in a way our “prog” album. Overly complicated. Whatever the accurate description may be, it is definitely the anomaly within the catalogue and the band members do not unanimously agree on many aspects of this album.

One thing that everyone does agree on, is that the experience being in a huge world class recording studio with a respected producer was both daunting and exciting for the band, as we were all so inexperienced in so many aspects of the process. One thing that is not often mentioned is how much the assistant engineers Andy Baldwin and Jeff Lovejoy helped to get the album completed while Tony Cohen was battling his own demons. It often made for tense scenarios, but we survived… and there is definitely much gold buried inside the tracks.

Happy Birthday Parables!  30 years is a long time. If the actual session tapes hadn’t been lost many many years ago in some warehouse disaster, then perhaps we could have waved a retrospective wand over the thing to make it more palatable for the masses.  But that’s not the case. This is what 1993/1994 sounded like in our rehearsal room and at shows.

We hope you enjoy it for what it is. A definite time capsule.

Ian, Powderfinger