For a guy who made his reputation as a raging rocker, Graham Parker is quite content these days to perform solo.
“I prefer it in many ways. I’m free to do what I want,” the acerbically witty Brit said last week from his home near Woodstock, N.Y. “(With a band) you’re locked into a set. … I’ve actually cultivated an audience who knows (a solo gig) is going to be a bit looser, with a few more jokes and a lot more silliness from me.”
But not less intensity. “You know me, even when I play the soft stuff, it rocks. I find it very hard to lay back,” said Parker.
Parker still enjoys playing with a band, but he generally does so only when he’s promoting an album. That’s what he’ll be doing early next year, when he releases a country-tinged set, his first for the Bloodshot label.
“If I played with a band all the time, I’d break even or lose money,” said the 52-year-old London native. “When you’ve been around a long time, you like to know when you do a gig you’re getting paid.”
Parker has never really achieved the level of fame his talent deserves, and he’s aware that the general perception of him is frozen around 1979. That’s when he and his storied band, the Rumour, culminated a brilliant run with the classic “Squeezing Out Sparks.” Since then, he has lost none of his snarling edge, but he also has shown a more soulful side, becoming quite an expressive balladeer.
Parker, who has just published his second novel, “The Other Life of Brian,” doesn’t gripe about his place in the music business. As he’s fond of telling fans on his entertaining Web site (http://www.grahamparker.net/): “This is not a complaint. It’s a description of reality.”
“Nobody’s interested in new material,” the singer-guitarist said. “Rock “n’ roll unfortunately is more about image than substance. … We don’t care about a new Stones album. The Stones have been one of my greatest influences, but I don’t care if they put a new record out. I want to hear “Exile on Main Street’! We’re all the same. I have to give a lot of credit to any fans of mine who know just how good I am now.”
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AP-NY-10-10-03 1113EDT
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