Annie Sparrows has done quite a bit of band hopping since her lead role with the hard-touring Soviettes, part of an impressive early-2000s lineup of punk-flavored bands on the Fat Wreck Chords label. Sparrows has since performed and recorded with Twin Cities acts Awesome Snakes, God Damn Doo Wop Band, Green/Blue and, most recently, Bermuda Squares. And while Panel is indeed a bona fide band, Sparrows does all the songwriting on its debut LP, A Great Time To Be An Empath (Don’t Sing)—a first for her.
“Solid Start” is Sparrows’ attempt to make death a more palatable topic of conversation. “I wrote it when I was in a pretty sarcastic, depressed state of mind, with the idea that I’d write a dance number about things people might say about you at a funeral—how they gloss over any nasty real-life stuff and keep it really surface level most of the time,” she says. “Family members tasked with putting an unexpected memorial together, in my experience, write a short biography mostly focused on what the star of the funeral was like when they were a kid. Then they play ‘Wind Beneath My Wings,’ instead of talking about the reality that the person had a complex mind, was probably very creative and maybe died a truly horrifying death. It sucks for everyone. And it happens all … the … time.”
All of which lends itself quite nicely to the empathy Sparrows frequently taps into throughout Panel’s new album. “People don’t know how to talk about death and often don’t want to—and I don’t blame them,” she says. “Still, I hope the sarcasm gets through and people can party to ‘Solid Start.’ That’s life, after all.”
We’re proud to premiere Panel’s “Solid Start.” A Great Time To Be An Empath is due June 13.
—Hobart Rowland
