Arlo Parks is in love. You can hear it in the gentle juxtaposition of sultry, daydreamy pop and unexpected rock-infused moments that permeate her second album, My Soft Machine. (‘I really wanted to hold up a mirror to people,’ she says. ‘I want someone in their sixties to listen and think, “Oh my god, I remember the first girl I fell in love with!”’) But it’s also in her voice today – softly-spoken but assured – as she contemplates what love means. ‘To me, it is this sense of support. It’s moving through life with somebody and feeling understood by them. It’s about light and shade: you grow together, while allowing each other the freedom to be their own person, to have their own dreams.’
Towards the end of last year, Parks celebrated her one-year anniversary with her partner and fellow musician, Ashnikko. It had been a landmark 12 months in myriad ways. A native Londoner, she moved from Hammersmith to LA. And she was nominated for two Grammy awards: Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album for 2021’s Collapsed in Sunbeams. ‘The highest honour you can receive as a musician is to be nominated for a Grammy,’ she says. ‘To be nominated for two... I didn’t expect it at all. It wasn’t even something I was secretly crossing my fingers for – it was a complete surprise.’
Parks is speaking to me from Paris, where she’s just flown to attend the Acne Studios show – her last of a packed fashion month. She says the experience of sitting front-row at SS Daley, Ahluwalia and JW Anderson felt worlds away from 2020, when she virtually attended her first shows at Valentino and Dior during lockdown. Her career has escalated in the years since the Great Pause, in tandem with the world’s re-awakening.
Last summer, she supported Harry Styles in Dublin, which was the first time she’d set foot inside a stadium, let alone played in one. There was little time to take it all in: she left straight away to play a set at Glastonbury, before travelling to London to support Billie Eilish (who has described Parks as one of her favourite artists). ‘It was incredible – her command of those stages is unparalleled. I felt like a student watching that show.’
She left the Eilish show to return to Glastonbury and perform two more sets as a guest with her friends Phoebe Bridgers and Lorde. ‘I was giggling the whole time,’ says Parks, though her schedule ultimately took its toll. Having toured Europe and the US extensively, in September she cancelled a run of American dates, citing mental-health concerns. ‘I don’t take decisions like this lightly,’ Parks shared in a note on Instagram, ‘but I am broken and I really need to step out, go home and take care of myself.’
When the shows resumed, she made sure to prioritise her mental wellbeing. ‘When I’m on tour, I spend a lot of time reading,’ she says. ‘I work out almost every day, which I find super grounding: sometimes I’ll be in the venue doing it with my guitars, and we have battle ropes and weights on the bus. I go for little walks to get a coffee and I try to spend as much time in nature as possible, even if it’s just sitting in the park.’
Parks was still just a teenager when she released her debut EP, Super Sad Generation, in 2019. Deeply candid, most of the lyrics came from poems that she wrote in her bedroom to help her make sense of the person she was becoming. When the pandemic hit, and the world was confined to its bedroom, she quickly grew a cult following of fans who found her introspective pop soothing. Two years later, in 2021, her debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams won the Mercury Prize. Sold-out shows and celebrity endorsements from pop stars such as Taylor Swift soon followed.
She’s now 22 and on the verge of releasing her second album, and the world looks a lot different – but Parks is feeling calm. ‘It’s become really easy to make music in a way that is detached from expectation. This time, more than ever, my ethos was around play. Making music is my idea of fun, so I’ll do it for- ever, no matter how people see me.’
Arlo Parks’ new album 'My Soft Machine' is out now. Listen to her on ELLE’s podcast ‘Why I... Move’ now.
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