The Parrots

Madrid’s finest The Parrots have played across Europe, the US and Central America – packed nights at London’s Shacklewell Arms and chelada-fuelled lunchtime showcases at SXSW, raucous gigs of elemental garage noise, feelgood ferocity and many, many stage invasions (“everybody else gets very motivated when they see us play,” says frontman Diego). After half a dozen singles and EPs and countless shows around the world, in 2016 they released their critically acclaimed first album, Los Niños Sin Miedo (Heavenly Recordings).

While writing their second album, The Parrots took some days off and went down by the sea in Cádiz at the studios of much-loved Spanish sound engineer Paco Loco, to record ‘Girl’ and ‘My Love Is Real’, two new singles produced by The Horrors’ Tom Furse and mixed by Matt Wiggins (James Bay, LCD Soundsystem, Adele). They follow up their own unique take on Soy Peor by Bad Bunny, one of the biggest songs on the Latin/Spanish hip-hop scene of recent years (400 million plays on YouTube, 100 million on Spotify), which they released in February of 2018.

The Parrots have that genius-stupidity of all ace garage rock bands, and they mix sunbaked stoner elation with a gleeful mangling of the English language: “If sometimes I express myself in the wrong terms, because I’m not English, for me it doesn’t matter,” says Diego. “Let’s just get wild and do it the way we feel. When I first heard Jonathan Richman singing in Spanish, I loved it. He gets it all wrong and that has so much charm.” They also cite The Monks, The Groupies, 13th Floor Elevators, Buddy Holly and Elvis as inspiration, and Diego’s biggest musical love is Marc Bolan: “He has always been my main guy, he’s always there in my mind. I love the way some of his songs sound so naive but at the same time so mean and so tender. No one can say ‘baby’ quite like him.”