How the dance floor got Arlo Parks out of her head

Añadido: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]If you don't know Arlo Parks, well, you might want to. Um, she's a Grammy nominated artist, a Mercury Prize winning artist. She went from pretty much obscurity to opening for the likes of Billie Eilish and Harry Styles. So, she just released a new album. It's called Ambiguous Desire. Um, here's a little bit of it. This is a little bit of the song senses.

[00:00:18]>> [music and singing] [music] >> How are you? I'm good. How are you, Tom?

[00:00:35]Thanks for being here. Thanks for asking. I'm all right. Yeah, thanks for having me.

[00:00:38]>> You just got in? I did, a couple of hours ago.

[00:00:40]>> Were you Were Have you been doing a lot of this? A lot of chatting?

[00:00:43]>> Yeah, a lot of chatting, which I love. I was in Montreal yesterday. Oh, yeah. Um, and we were talking about it before.

[00:00:48]There's this real sense of calm and confidence and just excitement around the record for me. So, I'm excited to be popping around and chatting. Can you AB that with how the records felt before?

[00:00:59]Were you anxious and not calm?

[00:01:01]>> Not necessarily anxious. I feel like the first one was everything was so new. So, there was a sense of excitement, but also, you know, kind of rolling with this new schedule and these new kind of like everything was new.

[00:01:14]>> And you were a baby, too. Like you were >> I was like barely 20. Yeah. Um, and then the second record, I also kind of made a book. So, it was a book tour and then also a music tour and making the record on tour. So, it was quite a kind of nomadic, propulsive time. I was moving forward constantly. And I think with this record, because I actually took some time to sit and write, there's something a lot more kind of grounded and patient about this process. And that's also how it feels to put it out.

[00:01:41]>> Isn't it also kind of the the story of the record a little bit, too? That like a little bit of things you didn't get to do because of the treadmill of the first couple of records. Like Like what I was reading was that you you had, especially around like so going to clubs and going to nightclubs, you had some sort of realization of like, oh, I didn't get to live the same life as a lot of people my age.

[00:02:00]Definitely. I guess I I probably wasn't really thinking about it in the moment in that way, but I think upon reflection, I was doing a bit of soul-searching as to why I felt so myself, but also so free, and it felt so new to be in these nocturnal spaces. And I was like, wow, I haven't really done this before.

[00:02:19]When I was 17, I was doing things like this, and I was on tour, and I wasn't really in this space where I could just experiment and be free and spontaneous. So, When when was the first time you went to one?

[00:02:31]I feel like I I went to one when I was 18, and I did the classic like just turn 18, got like a tiny tattoo on my ankle, and went to a club.

[00:02:38]>> Drank vodka vodka cranberry, and had a big night. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:02:41]>> But, not in this kind of consistent, more intentional way that was also very much about the music. There's a movie version of this in my mind. And tell me if this is true, that like you have this sort of like you're like whatever stage you are in your life, you're like, okay, I went to a nightclub when I was like 18, you know, whatever, rite of passage, got drunk, enjoyed myself.

[00:02:58]But now I'm in this different stage of life. I'm going to go back in there and and sort of take it in, or or see it, or experience it. Like, was there was was there sort of one night you went out to one club, and you were like, oh, there's this. I forgot about this.

[00:03:13]>> Yeah, definitely. I went to I went to this club called Black Flamingo in New York, which is closed now. It was after the last show of the Myself Machine Tour, and I went with my band, and I met the DJ, and I started kind of being inducted into that scene and that subculture and that kind of underground um New York kind of space. Yeah. So, it was the community, it was the DJ and the curation, it was being in this space where it very much is about the music, the anonymity under cover of dark, the energy, like feeling the bass in my feet and in my body. I was like, okay, there's some magic to this.

[00:03:48]>> You got to tell me more about that, because I did this um So, it's become a bit of a meme now on our show uh because I said it to This is not me name-dropping, but it is more just me saying an embarrassing thing.

[00:03:59]Um I was talking to Dua Lipa. Have you met her before? Yeah. Lovely. Yeah, lovely. And uh And I was telling She was telling me about her life growing up in clubs in in in London. And I said, "You know, I've never been to I've never been to a club before, you know? I've never been clubbing."

[00:04:15]And she seemed shocked. And You've never been clubbing?

[00:04:18]>> No.

[00:04:19]And then I was talking to your former tourmate uh I'll name-drop again. I was talking to Harry Styles about this. And his new record is very influenced by like going to Berlin clubs and having some sort of like outside fame experience and being anonymous, you know, and and feeling that that that pulse. And I said the same thing to him.

[00:04:37]He said, "Oh, you really should go." But what I couldn't believe was how many people reached out to me who are deep deep music fans like I am and were like, "Oh, yeah, I I have never done it either. It's just never a world that I've ever ever entered into."

[00:04:50]That's interesting. Can you give us an idea Give those of us who haven't entered that [laughter] world yet an idea of how it feels to walk into one of these spaces and what you get out of it and what you feel in your body and I mean, I think it's a similar magic to like going to a a show. I feel like music lovers know what it's like to experience music loud in a dark room surrounded by people and that sense of kind of communal energy and magic that happens when you're kind of in this space that feels, you know, outside of reality in a way. It's like this kind of artificial reality.

[00:05:23]And that sense of release, but also coming back to yourself at the same time. That friction between the kind of private moments of revelation that you have when you hear that song and you have this moment, but you're surrounded by people. So, it's this kind of like private-to-public thing. And also, I love the fact that at a club, it's a music experience that, you know, it might be 6 hours. It might be 7 hours.

[00:05:45]It's a real journey, you know? And that feels quite immersive. I mean, I think I've had it playing music. Like, I've had it performing.

[00:05:54]And I I've had that sort of transcendent like I am I am Well, transcendent it.

[00:05:57]Like, I'm I'm not here. I'm somewhere else. I'm connected to all these people.

[00:06:00]I feel like, you know?

[00:06:02]But yeah, I've never had it that that that sweaty flashing strobe light.

[00:06:07]>> Yeah. But, it doesn't even necessarily need to be this kind of like mega club Berlin thing.

[00:06:12]>> You're right. The version I have is from 1993.

[00:06:15]>> [laughter] >> Exactly.

[00:06:16]>> in my mind.

[00:06:18]It's a night at the Roxbury and someone's doing That's all I have in my mind. Yeah, right. Right. Right.

[00:06:22]>> Yeah. Fist in the air. No. No. Like, I mean, for me it actually kind of started by me throwing nights in my house. And it would be 20 of my friends. And I'd have the decks on my living room table.

[00:06:32]And it would just be about sharing music and dancing and hanging out. So, I think for me it doesn't necessarily need to be this like big infrastructure. And I was researching a lot of those institutions cuz they interested me.

[00:06:44]But, I think it can just be a lot more intimate than people think. I love that you're sort of in it and outside of it at the same time.

[00:06:50]>> Always. Cuz like in I did folklore in school. So, in folklore terms they call it an emic or an edic perspective. An emic means I'm of a culture.

[00:06:58]Um and therefore, I only know things about I know things about the culture that only I could possibly know because I was born into it and I am of it. And an edic perspective is I am an outsider observing the culture. And so, therefore there are actually only things that I could ever know because I'm an outsider observing the culture. I love how you seem to be both of those things.

[00:07:16]>> What the DJ [laughter] culture >> it's it's an it's an oscillation. And I think I think it's also because I'm a student at heart. I love to understand the kind of inner workings of things and the context as well. So, I can't help but be lost in something and then need to zoom out and understand how it works and the history. What's the most surprising thing you learned about DJ culture and house culture when you were doing your research? Mhm. Anything shock you? Anything that shocked me?

[00:07:39]>> Or surprised you?

[00:07:41]I mean, I think it was just beautiful how every single culture has some kind of version of coming together around music.

[00:07:48]Like I think and and that comes in terms of like shows, not necessarily just clubs, but I loved being able to research, you know, clubs in Manchester and in Glasgow and then moving into, you know, New York 70s Paradise Garage into Latin America and like the way that there is this kind of sense of community and magnetism that kind of crops up in every kind of part of the world and in every era. Yeah, no matter where you are, something you need we we seem to need.

[00:08:14]>> We need that. Yeah, how essential is?

[00:08:16]Let's listen to some of the records.

[00:08:18]>> [music] [music] >> Talk to me a little bit about this song.

[00:08:29]Yeah, so it was inspired by going to a night that I love called Midnight Lovers in LA.

[00:08:35]Under the 6th Street Viaduct Bridge, my friend Kelly Lee Owens was supporting Caribou and it was this kind of secret set.

[00:08:41]>> Canadian, by the way. Exactly. Come on.

[00:08:43]Get out of here. Get out of here. Get out of here. My light [laughter] bulb just Get out of here. My favorite Back home we say go lie down after we get back. Yeah, yeah, come on. Go go lie down. I love that. Okay, I'm going to steal that.

[00:08:55]I'm going to steal that. 10% 10% net though publishing.

[00:08:59]>> [laughter] >> So, okay, so you go to this I can only imagine what this is like. I imagine cool people in leather jackets smoking.

[00:09:04]That's what I'm imagining right now.

[00:09:06]>> [clears throat] >> But also it was it was kind of a little bit of everything. Like I kind of loved the way that it was, you know, like older folks colliding with like, you know, like techno nerds into just people who had kind of wandered in not knowing what to expect and people who had never really been to a club like I could feel that it was all this energy colliding.

[00:09:25]And it was just a magical night. Like she dropped this remix of Everything in Its Right Place, this Gigamesh remix. It just blew my mind.

[00:09:38]>> [music] >> That moment.

[00:09:44]>> Yeah.

[00:09:44]That moment. And [music] it just kind of transformed me. I think the best nights kind of leave you leave you changed in some way.

[00:09:52]>> [music] >> And so I went home afterwards and kind of wrote down all the fragments. You know, my friend was wearing these pink Adidas shoes and she's kind of small, so I was looking over the crowd I couldn't see her and she was like Okay, look down low, look for the pink Adidas. So that's why it's Adidas and gasoline and this sense of, you know, I wanted it to be a world that was really lived in and I think you can feel how fresh off the dance floor I am when I wrote that song. So I I know of you as a poet as well.

[00:10:22]Um for people who don't know who just getting to know you through this interview, you're you're a published poet as well and came up in poetry and like the story I read was uh someone gave you I think you grew up with a lot of literature in your life. I read that um you had like an unfinished Bonnie and Clyde essay or a story you were writing when you were a kid. Is that right?

[00:10:40]>> Yeah, yeah. I was always writing short stories and essays and my dad loved audiobooks. So he and he would just play the audiobooks that he wanted to listen to and when we were like six or seven, so it would be like Moby Dick and Steppenwolf and like Treasure Island and so I think my first impression of language was it being this kind of impenetrable puzzle. So so and doesn't a teacher give you Sylvia Plath?

[00:11:03]>> Yeah, Sylvia Plath.

[00:11:04]>> teacher?

[00:11:04]>> The teacher. My English teacher actually, Miss Adams. Um shout out and if she was listening. Um she happens to be listening to Canadian It's a Canadian radio. Canadian radio today? Who knows?

[00:11:14]She's a mysterious lady.

[00:11:16]>> Yeah. Anyways, um I was just was really fascinated by writing short stories and she sensed that I was kind of interested in, you know, more kind of fragmented prose. Like it was very much about, you know, beautiful word choices rather than like forming a real plot.

[00:11:34]She was like, you might like poetry.

[00:11:36]This feels like something you would enjoy. And I read some Sylvia Plath poems, moved into reading kind of Ali Allen Ginsberg and Burroughs and yeah.

[00:11:45]And then that's when I started my journey kind of moving into poetry which which then moved into lyrics. My feeling around poetry is that it's something that is contemplative and takes some time. You get removed from something. I think about like someone like Leonard Cohen writing Hallelujah and it taking him took him like eight years, you know, constantly reforming and and and rethinking. And even friends of mine who are poets, I'll talk to them today and you know, I'll say like, "How is your how you know, how how's everything going?" "I've been working on one poem for like three months." They'll say to something like that.

[00:12:13]>> I just don't think that's my personality.

[00:12:15]>> [laughter] >> Because I was thinking I don't know if I'm that patient and if I'm like I don't think I ruminate in that same way. I think for me poetry is a place to kind of put a flash of feeling down and sometimes it just kind of comes out as it's meant to be. Cuz I wondered if it was incongruent with with club music which feels so immediate. Club and house music feels like it's all about immediacy like, you know, it's sort of bypassing the brain and going right to the heart and the central nervous system. I wonder if if that would feel incongruent with with writing poetry.

[00:12:41]No, cuz I think that's how I approach poetry. It's less of a cerebral thing.

[00:12:45]Interestingly, lyrics feel a lot more cerebral to me because I'm thinking of the form of a chorus and a pre-chorus.

[00:12:52]For me, poetry doesn't necessarily need to have a specific shape. Like I'm not writing based on a specific, you know, rhythm or rhyme scheme. I'm just kind of like letting it flow, which is why I love a poem like Howl, which is like one enormous stream of consciousness. Why do you love that poem? Because it for me it it kind of it's almost similar to what you were talking about. That feels like just this flash and ramble of feeling that is kind of shapeless and shifting and visceral and changing that I was like, "Oh, poetry doesn't have to be a sonnet." You know, it can be it can feel like a letter, it can feel like an essay, it can be three lines. So, that poem I think taught me to kind of you know, ignore form and structure kind of and just do what felt right.

[00:13:36]>> Let's uh listen to some more music.

[00:13:42]>> [music] [singing] [music] >> I know [music] this is not what you were doing, but I'm imagining you in the corner of the club like writing notes like a like an old journalist, you know?

[00:14:00]Yeah.

[00:14:01]>> [laughter] >> Like like an anthropologist being like >> me. I'm thinking in a past life.

[00:14:05]>> Oh, they're oh, they're interesting.

[00:14:06]They're moving their arms. They're No, I genuinely am the intro interesting. And I was like, "Can you not just sit and enjoy this?" And I'm like, "I am. This is me enjoying."

[00:14:14]>> But it also sounded like you were. It also sounded like you did get out of your head and you you danced. You had a bit of both.

[00:14:18]>> Yeah, I think it's important I think as a very cerebral person there were moments where I was like, "Okay, I need to just feel this in my body." Thinking about it is like where I go to naturally. I also think there are certain DJs that kind of bring that out of you from their style of DJing and the music of their choosing and curating.

[00:14:36]So, I think there were definitely certain nights where I was able to kind of release a little bit more. Tell me about that song we just heard. Well, that's a song called Jetta. Um and for me it kind of encapsulates a lot of the kind of core of the record. This sense that the night is this moment where you can kind of be whatever version of yourself you want to be that night and that there's something about being able to kind of shapeshift and express and be in these nocturnal spaces that's kind of both a return to yourself and you're also releasing and you're also kind of coming out of yourself, coming out of your shell. It's a song about how when you go into these nocturnal spaces like somewhere between like midnight and 5:00 a.m. you can get out of your ego, you can get out of your you can get out of your mind or you can be who you really are? Yeah, it's like you can try the night on. You can be whatever version of yourself or have whatever night you feel like having, and there's a real power to that, I think.

[00:15:31]Well, one of the books you read is is it called Raving by >> Yeah, McKenzie Wark. Um she she in that book writes about something called the rave continuum. Well, didn't are you familiar with that? Yeah, definitely.

[00:15:41]>> What's the rave continuum? I think so, the way that I understood it at least is the fact that there is this kind of sense of release that you have to kind of surrender yourself to in order to kind of keep the spirit of raving alive, like personally and also as a community.

[00:16:01]And the way that, you know, there is this sense of kind of beginnings and ends and loops. And I love the way that she talks about clubbing as an older person who's kind of rediscovered it.

[00:16:11]How, you know, in her 20s she was clubbing a lot, had this period of time where she didn't, and then had this return to it in her 50s, you know, after her transition. And so, I just love the way that she talks about it, cuz she also blends theory and also this kind of memoir diaristic style in that book. Can Can you go to bat for it for people, cuz I think there would be people who would think not think about the and not that kind of self-help buys everything in this in this world. But I would I would imagine that there's people listening to this who've never thought about the idea of going to a club being similar to like any like it's almost like a therapy session or or or to have some sort of like cathartic good emotional um release. Yeah. Can Can you Can you Can Can you talk Can you talk to that for people who are maybe who are listening to this who've never gone to a club? Yeah, that makes sense to me. I guess the way that I would compare it is you know, this sense of being able to kind of have this experience where you're around people, so you feel held, so it's not this kind of like lonely kind of despairing solitude that you have when you kind of like lock yourself away and just feel. But there is a sense of being uninhibited that kind of provides this kind of contrast to being surrounded where you can cry, you can move. People are kind of lost in the music and lost in their own little kind of pods of socializing. So, no one is really paying attention to each other in this kind of deep laser-focused way. You can dance and you can have your eyes closed, be at the center of the crowd.

[00:17:45]You can be, you know, like me with your little journal on the side and kind of observe. There is a sense where you can just be. And I think that's what feels therapeutic to me because you feel both unobserved but also this kind of mutual witnessing of just being with other people. What about you? What did it give you? Did Did it deepen some understanding of yourself for you or Definitely. I think it got me out of my head and into my body. Um which is kind of the main thesis, I guess, of this record about being present and how it feels to, you know, be really in a moment and then almost be distracted by that idea that it's going to end.

[00:18:22]Um so, just learning to like be here and enjoy the moment and, you know, accept the person that I am today. And it worked? Did you find it good?

[00:18:31]>> It did. Yeah. I mean, not, you know, it's a process. But But I do feel like I got like I've arrived at the end of this process feeling a lot more kind of confident and happier in myself, I think. I think you made a beautiful record. Thank you, Tom.

[00:18:44]>> I was You're welcome.

[00:18:45]>> I was uh I was reading about You're in LA now, right?

[00:18:47]>> Mhm. And I saw it in an interview someone asked you I think it was a very quick question, but it was like, "Well, you know, you're going out to clubs, you're raving. You know, what's what's the best hangover cure for a big night out?" And you said a full English breakfast.

[00:19:00]>> Yes.

[00:19:01]How do you How do you find getting a full English I'm I'm asking this for my friends who are Irish and English who are living in Toronto who complain to me about the Oh, I would have to make it myself.

[00:19:09]>> accessibility of rashers in >> Oh, I make it myself. Yeah. How do you find the supplies in LA? The supplies are pretty good. I feel like there's a pretty good like community of London expats who have made It's hard to get the baked beans, though.

[00:19:22]Really?

[00:19:24]>> the Heinz specific baked beans. Cuz they do the beans and I'm like, that's not the beans I'm talking about.

[00:19:28]>> Yeah, cuz in Cuz in Canada they have the Heinz British style baked beans. See? And those are the ones I buy. Hold on, take me What's What's on your full English breakfast? What What needs to be in it if you're making it?

[00:19:38]>> there's no mushrooms and no black pudding. No! I don't need I don't need I don't need that. Oh, I love black pudding so much. Okay.

[00:19:45]>> need this. I just go for simple. Just scrambled eggs, I just do a sausage, bacon, beans, and just delicious bread.

[00:19:53]How about the tomato? Mhm. I don't like the tomato. Are your beans in a cup or are they on the plate?

[00:19:58]>> Separate. Separate in a small little bowl.

[00:20:01]This is going to be This is the most controversial part of this entire interview. Yeah, because you can choose to add it to the rest. You can also save some to have on its own. It's just perfect. I think you made Thank you for that, by the way.

[00:20:13]I think I think you made a really beautiful record and I really appreciate you that your perspective is both someone who is interested in like the again, the metaphysical transcendence of this music, but also with sort of an academic rigor around it. Um and and listening and I'm looking forward to listening to the record again with that sort of with that sort of lens around it.

[00:20:33]>> I like talking about it. I like people, you know, understanding that it's a well-studied record, but it is also just about freedom and feeling. And those two things are hard to do at the same time.

[00:20:43]That's true. That's true. That's why it took me so long.

[00:20:46]>> [laughter] >> But you you I think it was it was well worth the wait.

[00:20:49]>> Thank you.

[00:20:51]>> [music]