Parquet Courts is an American rock band from New York City that formed in 2010. The band has consisted of Andrew Savage (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Austin Brown (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Sean Yeaton (bass, vocals), and Max Savage (drums) for its entire duration. The band have released seven studio albums to date; the most recent, Sympathy for Life, was released in October 2021. The band has been inactive since 2022.
History
Band members Andrew Savage and Austin Brown met in Denton, Texas while both students at the University of North Texas, in a student club named Knights of the Round Turntable, where they listened to and shared new records. Andrew had a number of musical projects during college, including Teenage Cool Kids and Fergus & Geronimo. Andrew and brother Max Savage, Parquet Courts' drummer, were both born and raised in Denton. The three relocated to Brooklyn after college and soon started Parquet Courts.
The band released their debut album, American Specialties, as an independent, limited cassette release in 2011. The album was later reissued with Rough Trade Records in 2021.
The band's second studio album, Light Up Gold (2012), was initially released on Savage's Dull Tools label and later reissued on What's Your Rupture? in 2013. Light Up Gold received critical acclaim, and entered the UK Record Store chart.
In 2014, the band reached number 55 on the UK albums chart with its third studio album, Sunbathing Animal. In May, the band made their network television debut with a performance of "Black and White" on Late Night with Seth Meyers; they were joined by the show's bandleader Fred Armisen on rhythm guitar for the performance.
Later in 2014, the band released "Uncast Shadow of a Southern Myth" as a single under an alternative name, Parkay Quarts. The moniker was carried over onto the band's next studio album, Content Nausea; this was done due to the album being created solely by Andrew Savage and Brown while Yeaton and Max Savage were occupied with other projects.
The following year the band released a collaboration LP Ramsgate with PC Worship under the name PCPC. They also released a mostly instrumental, experimental EP, entitled Monastic Living.
On February 4, 2016, the band announced their fifth studio album, entitled Human Performance. The album was released on April 8 through Rough Trade. Savage received a Grammy Award nomination for his work on the album's artwork, marking the band's only award nomination to date.
On October 13, 2017, Andrew Savage released his first solo album Thawing Dawn through Dull Tools, under the stage name A. Savage. That same month the band released Milano, a collaboration album with Daniele Luppi featuring Yeah Yeah Yeahs lead singer Karen O.
Parquet Courts at Solid Sound Festival, 2015
On May 18, 2018, the band released their sixth LP, Wide Awake! It was named Album of the Year by Australian radio station Double J. Their song "Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience" is featured in the video game EA SportsNHL 19, "One Man No City" was featured in an Episode of The Blacklist, and "Wide Awake" appeared as soundtrack in Konami football game eFootball Pro Evolution Soccer 2020. The band performed the title track of the album on The Ellen Degeneres Show on April 24, 2018, a television appearance that Pitchfork described as "unexpected". They were joined by Mary Lattimore and members of Destruction Unit, Woods, The Ukiah Drag, and Drawing Boards on backing vocals and auxiliary percussion.
The band's seventh full-length album, Sympathy for Life, was released on October 22, 2021. In January 2022, the band released the stand-alone single "Watching Strangers Smile", a previously-recorded version of which had only existed as a B-side to the "Black Widow Spider" 7-inch. They returned to The Ellen Degeneres Show to perform the song, as well as a seven-minute version of "Stoned and Starving" that featured snippets of "American Specialties" and "Light Up Gold".
Between February and March 2022, Parquet Courts headlined a North American tour, with Nigerien afro-psychedelic guitarist Mdou Moctar as their opening act. The band played their final show to date in August 2022 at Green Man Festival in Crickhowell. The following year, Savage resumed his solo career with the album Several Songs About Fire. In an interview with Post Trash, he also confirmed that although the band had entered a hiatus, they had not broken up.
It's different being in a band when we're the age we're now, compared to when we started. When we started three of us were 24, and Max was 18. Our twenties were spent touring. I'm 37 now, and I'm probably the one that's most eager to tour. The other guys have wives and children, and children get older and need a bit more attention. We're all artists outside of the band who do other projects, as well. I'm not the only one kind of doing their own thing here. [...] We will definitely do something again. Rest assured.
In October 2026, when launching a new project dubbed Iconic Fugues, Savage noted that Parquet Courts were "not active at the moment, but still a band."
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