Biography

With a sound that's equally influenced by garage rock and early post-punk bands and indie pop, while having a unique lyrical and vocal perspective that came across as childlike without being twee, the Australian quartet Parsnip recorded two promising singles before 2019's When the Tree Bears Fruit, an album that sounds like the audio equivalent of a vintage children's book about forests, wee tigers, and lots of giddy dancing. Initially made up of bassist/lyric writer/vocalist Paris Richens, drummer Carolyn Hawkins, guitarist/vocalist Stella Rennex, and organist Sequoia Harris, the band formed in early 2016 in Melbourne and played their first show in June. The four musicians had previously been in, or were still in, bands separately -- Richens in Hierophants, Hawkins in Chook Race, Rennex in the Dandelion -- but they wanted to play in a band together. Harris left the group after a few months and was replaced by Rebecca Liston of the darkwave duo Buzz Kull. This lineup recorded a self-titled single in late 2017 for the Anti Fade label, then went on an Australian tour as part of Gizzfest. They released the very bouncy "Feeling Small" single for Anti Fade a year later. The bandmembers continued to play in other groups even as Parsnip began to gather a following. Hawkins started School Damage, Richens continued with Hierophants, and Rennex was part of the psychedelic pop combo Bananagun. Parsnip signed up with Chicago's Trouble in Mind label and released their first album, When the Tree Bears Fruit, in August of 2019. ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi