Interview: One Night Only

February 2015

We sat down with Dan Parkin of One night only at the Bristol date of the their recent tour and had a quick chat about their return.

Q. It has been a long time since your last album, can you tell us a little about the new album and the direction the band are taking with the new material?

Dan : Yes it has been a long time since the last record,  but we mainly have spent it writing and recording it with  a producer whose had  really big influence on were it's been taken. And where we wanted it to go, so we really have been collaborating with him over it.  He was a big influence on a lot of the guitar work and a lot of the rhythm, he just  just wanted to take it completely somewhere different, his vision for it when we met with him , then  we started to get in the studio, and work with him and went from their. That why it's  taken a long time. You know a lot of thought goes in, how far do we take it? We don't want to alienate old fans.  We wanted it to be inclusive, we didn't want to come out with a John Cage record or a bizarre record of 46 minutes of jazz fusion, so it's just been you know getting all of that right  that sort of thing, new stuff but keeping it kind of familiar.

2. How has the band grown since the last release

Dan: We have obviously  grown with age over the past few years,  we've all grown as people over the last few years, a very formative period, we're all sort of self sufficient now, that's brought us closer than we were probably when we were touring previously. The years have brought us closer together, and now everyone got a real sense  of where they  want to take this and how they want to do than Perhaps in the past,  when were younger.

3. What are the bands biggest influences with regards to this new record, musically other than the Jazz that you mentioned earlier.

Dan: Yeah, we  had a lot of listening sessions and things like that, we sat round listening to old vinyl records and just sort of listened to weird, obscure 70s disco as well and realized  we didn't want to do that because that's was just weird. Stuff like old classics like prince, stuff like percussion, because that is a really strong theme running through the record. Mainly old disco records and took ideas from there.

4. How have the fans responded to this change and shift in direction

Dan:  it's early days, we've only released two singles, as far as it has been it has been positive, there probably be people who don't get along with the new direction compared to the old one but I think what we've seen, tonight and we've only done one other gig- which was London, a comeback gig and it was a small venue.  From the these two, I think it is going good.

5. I hear that the band is now independent and representing yourselves, how would you say that this has effected the band, is it more difficult.

Dan:  well you can look it as more. Difficult or you can see it as having more freedom, probably more work involved in it but you get more final creative say on everything so that's really refreshing for us. I think it's the first time in our careers  as a band. In which we have actually had that, it's been great  to get that now that we have a clearer idea and sort of learnt a bit  as we've gone along, you know bits and pieces in different areas. Yeah, it's really lucky it's come now we've got a clearer idea  of how we are driving forward and we're loving it.

6. What plans do one night only have for 2015 aside from the album and this tour?

Dan: let's get the album and tour out of the way first, but no, we're hoping to take it around Europe perhaps later in the year and a couple  more singles, then into the album , then we'll really see where that takes us, I don't think we can start looking too far past it  I hope there's going to be another UK tour before  the end of the year, I'm sure there will be. It's just. Just literally get the record out and then see what comes really.