Joe Parrish James interview

Ron

Joe Parrish-James of Albion. Welcome to Alphen.
Joe, Albion returned to ParkVilla and Alphen today. This is September 4th, 2026, and you were here before during the tour for ‘Lakesongs of Elbid’. What do you remember about that evening?

Joe
I remember it quite well, and it's kind of a strange déjà vu because obviously everything's kind of the same here, and because it's a small town, nothing really changes, I guess. I think we're even in the same hotel room. We went to the same restaurant last night that we did the first time. I think we even sat on the same table just by chance. In the same chairs, perhaps. But the main difference is we've now got my sister Rhiannon singing with us. She wasn't there two years ago, so she's a more recent addition to the band. But I just remember it being a really enjoyable evening, and I guess this style of music, just prog more generally, just seems to be much more popular in the Netherlands, Germany, places like that, than it is in the UK. The Alphen show that we did two years ago was the most well-attended show of that run of shows. Even more than the ones we've done in the UK. We enjoyed playing to an international crowd and it was great.

Ron

You just mentioned progressive rock, and Albion of course have a very distinctive sound within the genre, combining folk rock, prog, and even Celtic influences. How would you describe Albion's music to someone who has never heard the band before?

Joe
I'd say that first and foremost musically we're a folk band really. That's what comes first. The prog, the metal, the rock, that's all secondary. The thing I really want to get across as the main sort of core essence of the band is the folk element and the Celtic element specifically. So that's why lyrically as well we draw upon British folklore, Welsh folklore, mythology, all that stuff. Not that I'm not interested in others, I just think for this band and the sound I'm trying to create. I'm truly trying to purify and sort of refine a sound that is very much Celtic and kind of British in its character. And then the prog and the metal and all that, I love all that too, but that kind of happens after. So, the initial idea is usually like a folk or a Celtic-esque kind of melody or chord sequence or whatever it is, and then I kind of elaborate on that, and that's how it becomes what it is.

Ron

Is that also why the flute plays a prominent role in album music? What appeals to you about combining a traditionally sounding instrument like the flute with heavier rock and progressive music?

Joe

When I think about the bands I like and what I like about progressive music is the contrast. I don't think you can really call yourself a progressive band if you don't have big contrast in some form, whether it's section by section, a really quiet bit and then a really loud bit, or whether it's in terms of the production, maybe acoustic instruments combined with electrified instruments. Contrast is what I love. Opeth, for example, go from death metal moments to classical guitar moments and that's what I love really, because I want the music I listen to and the music I make to encapsulate everything, the whole world, not just one note.

Ron
Your new album is called ‘It Was in the Month of May’. What was the starting point for this album, and in what way is it different from your first and previous album, ‘Lakesongs of Elbid’?

Joe
It's probably easy to answer that in the reverse order. Musically, it's different because I think it's actually less heavy. There's more of a sort of acoustic vein running through the whole thing, even on the bigger songs. It's kind of brighter in tone as well. It's more major key folk sound, whereas ‘Lakesongs of Elbid’ still had a bit of that, but it was more of a serious, sort of melancholic, heavy folk sound, really. This is more bright. I mean, because it's about spring and May and all that stuff, so it's a brighter, more old-fashioned sound. I think actually it’s more old school. It's more akin to the '70s folk rock bands, you know, like Steeleye Span, that kind of thing. We always liked that, but it's more prominent now on this album. And then the first part of your question, it all kind of started really because about two years ago my grandma passed away and I found a poem that she'd written in the '80s called ‘The Hawthorn’. In a lot of cultures the hawthorn is considered quite a mystical kind of tree. People equate it as like the home of the fairy folk or the home of ties to magic and stuff like that. And it's the same in Celtic mythology. It kind of got me going, and I wrote a short acoustic piece that used the text she'd written to be played at her funeral. The other songs sort of blossomed from that - no pun intended. I kind of had a May concept in my head and a sort of an atmosphere, a May springtime atmosphere, I wanted to evoke in the music. That's what evolved into two albums. The second one we've not released yet, but it's all done and it's ready to go. I thought rather than release a double album of an hour and forty minutes of music we’d release two separate albums. People nowadays struggle to digest one album, let alone two. So I thought, let's release them separately so people can actually appreciate the songs on both. Problem when you release loads of material at the same time is that good songs get forgotten about because there's just too much stuff. I'm hoping that we'll actually release part two at the end of November.

Ron
The artwork on the album was created by Travis Smith, who is known for his Opeth covers. How did you get to have him work for you?

Joe
Trevor Smith has done loads of, usually metal bands, album artwork. Quite big bands like Opeth. He's done a lot of death metal bands and stuff like that, but his artwork is really — it's not quite painted, it's not quite drawn, it's just a sort of an amalgamation of different media. I just e-mailed him. I just thought, oh, he's probably really expensive, but you don't know unless you ask. So I told him what the concept was and stuff. And then he came back and the price he quoted me actually wasn't too bad for someone of his stature. Then what he sent me, I just loved it. And I think because it has a tree on it as well. He'd done a tree on the Heritage album for Opeth, but that's a more dark sort of look than what we're going for. I like the fact that we have by far the most un-metal cover he's ever done, a white blossom hawthorn tree. And it's got a little dog on it as well. When you look through his portfolio, it's like metal, metal, metal. Opeth are one of our favourite bands, they never do what's expected of them, they just do what they want. They have a lot of integrity as artists, and we like that. We are very happy with the artwork!

Ron
You also played with Jethro Tull. To what extent does playing with Jethro Tull influence your work with Albion, or maybe even vice versa?

Joe
Albion started a few months before I joined Tull. Albion kind of evolved out of other bands that we had beforehand. It became Albion, in the summer of 2019. I officially became a member of Tull at the very start of 2020. When Albion started, I was already sort of auditioning for Tull and meeting up with the band and getting to know them a bit and stuff like that. In terms of influence, it's hard to tour with a band a lot and not be influenced by it. Probably in ways I'm not even fully aware of. Like a lot of influence things have on you, you're not actually conscious of. It's kind of just buried in there. But I was a Tull fan before I joined the band. Not all of the material, particularly the folky stuff, ‘Songs From The Wood’, ‘Heavy Horses’, mainly those albums really. So they already had had an influence on me by that point. But if anything, I think in a more practical way, it just gave me a lot of confidence playing live and touring, traveling internationally and all that stuff. It just gives you a boost and it gives you a kind of confidence, even if the situation isn't perfect, if there's something wrong with the sound or if there's something about the venue you don't like or the stage or anything, or you're tired from traveling or whatever, just still just go on and just go for it and just do it regardless. Ian Anderson will always just go on and do what he does, he won't let other things affect him. I sort of try and do the same thing, because things always go wrong with live performances. It could be technical, it could be personal, emotional, anything, practical, physical... But if you just think, fuck it, I trust that I'm good enough to still give a good show, even if I'm half dead.

Ron
Tonight Albion will perform two sets of approximately an hour. What can audiences tonight expect from the live show? Is it mainly a concert or a kind of musical journey?

Joe
It's definitely a concert. I like to talk a lot of shit to the crowd as well. I think a lot of especially metal bands or rock bands take themselves a bit too seriously. We're very serious about the music, but in terms of how we present ourselves on stage, we're not trying to give across this mysterious mystique or whatever. That hopefully comes through in the music, we don't need to dress up. It is more of a concert, and I like to engage with the crowd in a slightly dry way. But we still try and pack the thing with music. I don't just talk the whole time, you know. But we're all different personalities, and how each of us behaves on stage is quite distinct. As you'll see, like our bass player is extremely animated. I'm kind of stuck to the mic a lot of the time because I'm either singing or playing flute. The others move around a bit and we've got such distinctly diverse songs as well, it could go from a very soft acoustic song where it's more relaxed and a bit of a respite to suddenly a big prog heavy kind of epic thing. So what to expect? Just talking a lot of shit, a lot of ups and downs musically, and hopefully a few laughs along the way as well as a few chills.

Ron
If you could choose just one song to introduce someone to Albion, which would it be?

Joe
I suppose the first song that comes to mind is a song on the first album which is called ‘Pagan Spirit’.
It's kind of the song everyone sort of gravitates to. It's our sort of hit, if you want to use that word. It encapsulates everything we do, really. It manages to pack it into eight minutes, which is obviously not very condensed, but as condensed as we're able to do. Heavy, soft, it's got the epic touch, a bit of orchestral elements to it. It's just got a bit of everything in it, it's sort of got an anthemic thing. It's got a big chorus that's kind of memorable, I hope. That's probably the song that most people are drawn to by us.

Ron

Joe, thank you very much for this interview.

Joe

Enjoy the show!

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Joe Parrish - James
Albion

Interview by Ron 'Brew' Brouwer