Christian Parry loves to sing in the shower.
Or at least that’s where most of the inspiration for the lyrics on his upcoming album Refined Fool came from.
The album—which features seven new songs from Queen’s own Parry, ArtSci ’19—will be released on March 22, followed in April with a documentary film by Brandon Royce, ArtSci ’19, exploring the making of the album.
For Parry, music has been a lifelong love. He is consistently inspired by the works of other artists and has found a way to incorporate music into his busy schedule as a student. Sometimes that means an unconventional approach.
“Honestly, I’m usually just in the shower and find like a catchy hook,” Parry said in an interview with The Journal.
It was this unconventional song writing process—and his jazzy, bluesy music—that got Parry’s song “Velvet” into the top-100 of CBC’s Searchlight competition. His newfound success inspired his friend, Brandon Royce, to film Parry for his Film and Media thesis project.
For Royce, a fourth-year Film and Media student, choosing Parry as his subject was a no-brainer.
“When I was thinking of doing my thesis, I thought, ‘What haven’t I done yet?’ And I haven’t really done anything about music and immediately I thought of Christian,” Royce said in an interview with The Journal.
Parry was the first person that Royce met when the two moved into residence together in first year. For Royce and Parry, working together brings their relationship full-circle. “He’s actually the first person I met here at Queen’s,” Royce said.
Despite knowing each other for years, the driving force behind Royce’s film on Parry’s new album is their commitment to their art.
“The whole thesis is about never giving up on art. I have lots of friends who were musicians or photographers and they’ve sort of given it up,” Royce said.
Parry echoed this sentiment, saying that even though sometimes putting out music to little fanfare can feel defeating, that doesn’t take away from the joy of making it.
“When I work really hard on music, and I get really excited about it and I hope that this is going to be the album that will take off and it doesn’t, then I’m really down on myself. But I still really love making music and that’s what’s important in my life. I’d always make music because it makes me happy,” Parry said.
While Parry admits he can sometimes get down on himself for his music distribution, he’s sad to be done with this album.
“It’s kind of weird when music comes out, because I’ve been working on it for so long that I know every little part of it. Exciting but it’s kind of sad because I feel like, that’s what kind of makes me excited about waking up—I get to keep working on my album—but I guess I get to start the next one now,” Parry said.
Tags
documentary, Singer Songwriter
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