Within six months of forming in high school in Byron Bay and just a handful of gigs, Parcels packed their bags and moved to Berlin. The band’s five members were barely out of their teens with no real plan; it was purely “vibes-based”, as vocalist and guitarist Jules Crommelin remembers: “It’s the inevitable small town [thing] – you either stay forever or you leave as quick as possible.”
That spontaneous move a decade ago turned out to be a fortuitous decision for the young band: Crommelin, percussionist Anatole “Toto” Serret, keyboardist and vocalist Louie Swain, bassist Noah Hill and keyboardist, vocalist and guitarist Patrick Hetherington. Their 2015 self-released debut EP caught the attention of the French record label Kitsuné, who signed them.
A year later, when Parcels played their first-ever gig in Paris, a little duo called Daft Punk was in attendance. The dance pioneers liked what they heard and invited the band to their studio. The result was Parcels’ 2017 single Overnight, which ended up being Daft Punk’s final ever production.
“[That] was the first time we’d ever been in a proper recording studio as a band,” Crommelin says. “Having them guide us and write with us and produce with us … They really helped us get on the tracks.”
Working with Daft Punk felt like a “university degree of lessons”, teaching the young band how to approach and refine their craft. “It was just an explosion of everything … how to record, how to put instruments together, how precise to be,” Crommelin says. “They are just absolutely so tapped into detail, and really focusing on this infectiousness of music and just getting it right … and things just having magic.”
Parcels took those lessons and ran with them. The rest, you might say, is history. They released their self-titled debut album in 2018, with one single’s video starring Milla Jovovich, and chased it with an ambitious double album, Day/Night, in 2021. Blending Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies with disco and funk influences, Parcels’ simultaneously nostalgic and contemporary sound has clearly struck a chord – their music has topped 1bn streams worldwide.
The band’s euphoric live performances also put them on the map. They’ve been in hot demand this year, playing Coachella and Glastonbury. They will return to the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado in October – a venue they sold out in five minutes last year – and kick off the Australian summer with east coast shows, including two gigs on the Sydney Opera House steps.
Crommelin singles out Glastonbury as the pinnacle of a year full of highlights. “I just found that festival so wildly different to every other festival – just how people were, how people engaged with the music, the vibe, the energy of the crowd,” he says. “We just played an amazing show thanks to them – we got out there, and they were just so on for us.”
The band is firing on all cylinders, but that couldn’t have happened if they didn’t take some time to rest after almost a decade of nonstop touring and recording. In 2023, Parcels hit pause for six months, and Crommelin returned to Australia for some downtime: “I finally got to be with friends and just have a normal life.”
But the music never stopped – not really. During the break, the band members continued to write and work on music individually, without the pressures of deadlines or touring. It all comes together in their upcoming third album, Loved, which was recorded all around the world in studios in Byron Bay, Berlin, Sydney and Mexico.
Loved builds on their signature disco grooves, while also taking inspiration from a raft of different genres – Crommelin told Billboard that Katy Perry, the Plastic Ono Band and the seminal post-rock group Tortoise all influenced the sound. Each band member’s “wildly different” musical tastes have converged to make something new. Serret “is deep in dance and techno”, for example, while Crommelin just “admire[s] it”. But “I’ve always felt that the more we can all go our own directions, the better the band will be,” he adds, “because when you’re pulling the same references, you can start to feel like you’re in an echo chamber.”
The title of the new album has a double meaning: being loved in both the past and present tense. These songs are about love in all its pain and glory, and that duality is baked into the music. “Our music [has] this overarching light spirit … but the lyrics often speak towards something deeper and sometimes darker,” Crommelin says. “The ultimate goal is to cry on the dancefloor.”
The members of Parcels are now approaching their 30s; two of them have returned to live in Australia, while the others remain in Berlin. The beauty of a band being together for so long is that there’s space for both personal and artistic growth – but what has remained unchanged is their shared love of music. “It’s been such a journey, us five being together over 10 years,” Crommelin says. “Of course, from 10 years of life, everything’s different … [but] when we get together as a dynamic of five and when we play together, we sound like Parcels.”
Parcels’ new album Loved is out 12 September (Because Music). The band is performing across Europe in September and October before heading to Australia in November and December. See here for all dates.
