Eight years ago, Australian electropop band Parcels performed at Paris’ Accor Arena. At the time, they were working on their debut album and were the opening act for French indie band Phoenix. Two weeks ago – three albums and seven million monthly listeners later – Parcels returned to the Accor Arena for their own headline gig, performing a sold-out show for over 15,000 French fans. 

Ahead of the concert, band members, including guitarist Jules Crommelin, bass player Noah Hill, keyboardists Louie Swain and Patrick Hetherington, and drummer Anatole Serret, were able to connect with a few lucky fans. Backstage, in a sparse industrial space, 15 fans had the opportunity to meet the band, where one longtime supporter recalled seeing them perform in the same venue while touring with Phoenix back in 2018. 

It was a touching scene during a day filled with moments of connection. Earlier that morning, the band had bonded with an impromptu bedroom jam session. The five of them took over a room at Paris’ SO/ hotel to record a live jam – the ideal warm-up for a major tour stop. You can see what happened at the meet and greet here, or read on as we catch up with Jules Crommelin about life on the road, the writing process and his favourite fan interaction. 

Below, guitarist Jules Crommelin spoke to us about life on the road

What part of the world are you in right now? 

Jules Crommelin: I’m in Toronto, Canada. 

How’s the tour going? 

Jules Crommelin: Yeah, good. We’re in the thick of it. There’s a certain point of the tour when you start to get really tired and get used to playing every single day. That happened yesterday in Chicago – we were all like “OK, we’re really on tour now.” 

How do you push through that? What’s the key to surviving life on tour? 

Jules Crommelin: Sleep is the biggest thing, then exercise. But also just hanging with everybody. Realising that this isn’t just a tour, it’s life. Spending time together. Yesterday a bunch of the boys went to Niagara Falls, and the day before we all played golf together. It’s recognising that this is life and enjoying travelling the world. 

You just put out your third album, LOVED. Can you tell us about your starting point and inspirations? 

Jules Crommelin: The starting point for us was recording in Mexico. We did the biggest show we ever played – there were 60,000 people watching the show. I’ve heard 80,000 too but I can’t believe that. We booked a studio after that show in the hills of Mexico City, and that was the first time we recorded – we recorded “Leaveyourlove”. We recorded a few tracks there, and then we did some recording in Berlin, then in Paris, and then we finished the record a year later in Sydney. The process was different this time because we let the album come to us rather than chasing it. The inspiration was mainly looking at our own skillsets. We wanted it to be us playing live in the studio, doing what we’ve learnt to do over the past ten years and doing it really well. 

What’s your ideal set-up when you’re writing new music? 

Jules Crommelin: It’s a funny thing because we’re usually always writing alone. Then we bring those songs to the band and arrange them together. Our methods are always changing, and our approach to every record that we make is different. Now that we’ve done this album, it will be different again next time. But the song and the words always come from an individual; I don’t quite understand how to write a song with a bunch of people. I’m an introvert. 

Well, it’s a very personal thing…

Jules Crommelin: Yeah, and it requires me to have space. I think it’s more natural to write alone. 

You recently recorded a bedroom jam session at SO/ Paris hotel with ALL Accor in Paris. What’s the best part about a jam like this?

Jules Crommelin: The best part is when we don’t have to think about it at all, we just enter a room and start playing, which was the case. We did that so DIY. It was a really intense day in Paris; we’d had so much to do. But the essence of the jam is just going with the flow and not thinking about it, some real magic can happen. You just go off of whatever is happening and see where the music is going, all of a sudden you get into this flow and something amazing happens. It’s like you’re all driving at the same time. It requires really deep listening, it’s like a meditation where you’re connecting with other people. 

You mentioned before about playing to a crowd of 60,000 people in Mexico, but what does it mean to you when you get to meet individual fans? 

Jules Crommelin: It’s really important. It’s hard to connect when you play to lots of people, but when you meet one individual, you get to hear their story and realise that our music can mean something very deep to them. It might be attached to a really hard time or a really important time. So then when we play the show, we feel so much more connected. I might be thinking about that person who’s in the crowd. 

Are there any of those fan moments that stick in your mind? 

Jules Crommelin: There’s one of our top fans, she wrote this beautiful book of messages and images explaining how she discovered the band and how she bought this sweater and somehow buying this sweater connected her to getting her first job. She’s been listening since we started and when we met her she’d knitted us a little pencil case and had this book. There were so many stories in this book about her life and how it connects to our music. She was honestly so sweet.

Head above to check out the band’s bedroom jam session.