Interview: Emer McParland

Interview: Emer McParland (15th November – James Bond BBC Big Band, The Grand, Leeds)

by Ken Powell

For one night only, the internationally acclaimed BBC Big Band will appear at The Grand Theatre & Opera House, Leeds, for an evening celebrating the incredible music of the iconic James Bond movie franchise.

The renowned 17-piece BBC Big Band orchestra will be conducted by the legendary Barry Forgie and feature the vocal talents of Emer McParland and Iain Mackenzie. The concert explores the very best of Bond, including classic numbers such as Diamonds are Forever, Thunderball, Goldfinger and Live & Let Die along with the more recent themes from Skyfall and No Time to Die. There will also be a selection of music inspired by the film genre, such as Mission: Impossible and Austin Powers.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Emer McParland to chat about her career and what the night holds the audience at The Grand. It quickly became apparent we both love James Bond.

Emer is one of the UK’s most versatile vocalists. Her CV is as eclectic as it is vast. Regularly soloing with the BBC Big Band, she’s performed around the world at some of the top venues including guest soloing at the world-famous Aldeburgh Festival in the UK. 

Emer has appeared to sell out audiences at the world-renowned London jazz venue, Ronnie Scott’s, worked with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra and many others, and had several performances in front of the Queen at the Royal Albert Hall for the annual Festival of Remembrance.

But if you’re a movie fan, there’s a good chance you’ve heard Emer’s voice many times without stepping into a concert hall.​ She sings on the soundtracks to Sleepy Hollow, Tomb Raider, Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, The Mummy Returns, Tomb Raider and several soundtracks in the Harry Potter series of movies. She has also provided vocals for the live action versions of Disney’s Aladdin and Cinderella and is the featured solo vocalist on Avengers: Endgame.

​If you’re a rock and pop fan, you’ll know many of the names she’s worked with, such as Peter Gabriel, Bjork, Jarvis Cocker, Mika, Kylie Minogue, Gary Barlow, not to mention the greats like Dame Shirley Bassey and Andrea Bocelli.

With such a huge and crazily diverse range of musical experiences, I knew it was going to be fascinating chatting with Emer. It turned out she was lots of fun too!

Ken: Okay, so we’ve got this wonderful concert at The Grand, Leeds on the 15^th November. Before talking about that, tell me something about your background. Your CV is really interesting because it reads like a who’s who of my favourite artists you’ve worked with. You’ve done some of the best movies too. It’s like – wow! – what a really interesting and quite fun kind of CV. How did this happen?

Emer: I always sang from about six years of age. I sang pop music – all that sort of stuff. Growing up, I just did music. The whole of my youth was music. When I looked for something to do after school, I naturally went to music college, but you couldn’t do contemporary courses like you can now.

My first study was the piano. This was at Trinity College of Music. My second study was violin, and then I changed that to classical singing. So, my whole background there was classical, but my heart was never in it. I was never going to be a piano player. You can’t grow your fingernails for a start! So I just thought, ‘No, I’m not going to do that’ and I went back to singing pop.

I know this sounds crazy, but I just thought to myself, ‘You know, I don’t want to be famous. I want to be one of the backroom girls who get to do absolutely everything’. Nobody knows you. You can keep singing forever. You can dip in and out of so many different worlds. And so I got involved in the session world where I sang on movie soundtracks because I’m a very good sight singer.

I got involved in singing with big bands at music college because they had a fantastic big band, so I just joined in. Then I carried on going with that. I sang backing vocals for crossover artists, doing backing vocals for Andrea Bocelli and then some pop stuff like backing vocals for Kylie Minogue and things like that.

So I dipped my toes into all sorts of different worlds and that’s why my CV looks a bit crazy. It’s wide-ranging, but also I’ve been doing it for a long time now and I’ve got a reputation. People know that I’m a big band singer, so when it came to Avengers: Endgame, for example, and they needed someone to sing the big band vocal solos for that movie, I got the call. You end up getting called for the stuff that people know is your speciality.

I’ve had – I’m having! – a wonderful career. I’ve just sang the vocals for the final Harry Potter movie in the Royal Albert Hall in London – they showed the movie and an orchestra played the soundtrack, with the singers performing alongside. You get to do all kinds of things when you can sight sing, and I ended up falling into lots of worlds and getting involved in tons of really good projects because of this.

Ken: It looks like it has been really great fun to do all this kind of stuff. There’s a stuffiness about classical and opera but you’re doing James Bond and Harry Potter – that’s just too cool!

You say you’re known for big band. I associate big band automatically Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington and so on. I feel that this is a different kind of big band that that that you’re talking about. Is that right? Or is it more that you love Jazz music like you were doing with Ronnie Scott’s?

Emer: Big Band is the one I love. Doing this gig with the BBC Big Band is my idea of heaven. That’s my dream. Now I do quite a few different programmes with them. You do get the traditional Glenn Miller, Harry James, Duke Ellington – that style of big band – but also there’s lots more contemporary stuff as well. You get to make a big band sound with more contemporary songs that sound amazing. I mean, I do an arrangement in the concert of For Your Eyes Only, the Sheena Easton song, and this was done by a member of the Danish Radio Big Band who are a great big band. It’s fantastic. The audience absolutely love it – but it’s not Sheena Easton’s arrangement. It’s got a totally different groove and a totally different feel to it. And at the end of the programme, I do Billie Eilish’s No Time to Die. You’d think that’s never gonna work for a big band! To be honest, the first time we played through the arrangement we all said, ‘Okay, let let’s give it a go. I’m not sure if it’ll work.’ By the end of it, we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘Yeah, that works!’ It’s just a different texture, different colours, but the song comes across. I do Skyfall as well. Does that work with a big band? Oh, it does, yeah!

Ken: I could well imagine those two songs working, especially the Billy Eilish one. I think she’s got a real orchestral feel to her music, even when it’s just her ‘ordinary’ pop stuff. There’s something big about her sound all the time.

Emer: Yes, and the songs, even though they’re quite kind of intimate, are very epic.

Ken: Yes indeed. You said you’ve effectively been being picked up for your style and you’re doing the main parts instead of actually being in the background with the other backing vocalists. You said originally that you didn’t like the whole ‘in the spotlight’ thing. How do you feel about that? Is it something that you’ve grown to love? Or is it that your heart is still preferring the background work?

Emer: Well, when I say I don’t want to be a star, what I mean is I love walking and being able to walk down the street and go to the shops. I can stand out the front and sing something and people will enjoy it that evening, then they will go home and I can still carry on my life.

So I will walk out to the front – absolutely, that doesn’t faze me at all. Some backing singers prefer to stay backing singers, but I don’t mind being at the front. I love that. But then, it’s never just about me: it’s about the project. Yes. I’m stood at the front, but it’s about the whole programme. I think that’s what I love. I see myself and Iain, who’s singing with me that night, as members of the band, we’re musicians. We’re members of the band, not somebody who’s out at the front, demanding. It’s not all about you – you’re just one of the team.

Ken: We’ve talked a bit about various tracks from the Bond movies but who’s your favourite bond? Who is James Bond for you?

Emer: Well, it’s got to be Daniel Craig because I live on the Wirral, which is Daniel Craig’s stomping ground. That’s where he was brought up, so it’s got to be Daniel Craig. I mean, listen, they’re all fab – like Sean Connery, who was wonderful. They’re all great, but I like the more edgy, contemporary Bond. I’m a bit sorry Craig has gone. It was an amazing ending to the last movie though.

Ken: I have to admit, mine was Roger Moore. I grew up with him. James Bond was just lots of fun for me – like Moonraker being set in space and so on. They got the little boy in me going! I feel it was a great time for the songs as well, but I’m getting ahead of myself because the next thing I want to ask is this: What’s your favourite Bond movie? I’m going guess it’ll be one of Daniel Craig’s. Or is there a different movie that actually is the best for you?

Emer: I thought Skyfall was a great film. I love Goldfinger, all the old classics, you know, Diamonds are Forever, all that sort of stuff. I love all of those. But Skyfall I’ve seen a few times now and it’s incredible. I think Judy Dench at the end of it – heartbreaking! Brilliant ensemble of actors. It’s definitely my favourite one.

Ken: I think mine would have to be Live and Let Die because I just love the whole voodoo magic aspect. It’s just great, great fun and Jane Seymour was my first broken heart. She was so beautiful. I love that movie as a result.

That brings us to the most important question in respect to this concert: What’s your favourite Bond song and will you be singing it on the night?

Emer: You know, that’s really that’s really hard, isn’t it? Honestly, they are all brilliant songs. You can tell by the amount of Oscars the songs have won. All Time High is a really simple song, but it’s gorgeous. Diamonds are Forever, Goldfinger, all great.

I think my favourite one is Skyfall – I like Adele, and in the soundcheck I always end up singing Skyfall (Emer sings in a hilarious mock-Adele manner). At the concert I behave myself but at the soundcheck I do a little bit of an impersonation just to make the guys in the band smile. The verse is so simple and it’s the same with No Time to Die, that Billy Eilish one, is really simple, but in those few bars they absolutely get it. There’s something in the flavour of a Bond song. Skyfall is great fun to sing, and I know the audience enjoy it because every time I do it, I hear a little rustle of excitement from the audience.

Ken: It is a true big band number with the original – it’s very clearly in the Shirley Bassey style of Bond songs. I imagine it’s electrifying to perform.

Emer: Yes, and part of the problem with that is the same with the other Bond songs: they’re so well known, you can’t make a mistake because everybody knows them. If I split a note on a Goldfinger – you know that very final note is a killer and Shirley Bassey had an amazing voice – if I make a mistake, everybody knows it. So, it’s best foot forward, behave myself and just do a good job!

Ken: I’m sure it will be pitch perfect Emer, every time! I get the feeling you might be a big voice kind of person. Are you a Shirley Bassey type of singer?

Emer: Yes, I’m a big mezzo voice. I’ve never been a soprano – I don’t go up the dusty end of my voice! I avoid it at all costs. There are singers who are way better up there than I am. I’m a mezzo, so I have a big voice. Oddly, when you perform, you don’t always use it. Just very rarely, maybe once in a concert, will you go to 95%. The rest of the time you’re just keeping it under, otherwise you just end up shouting for the whole concert, which is a nightmare for the audience. You need the light and shade in your voice.

With Shirley Bassey it wasn’t just the voice, it was that persona as well. When you watch her sing, it’s not just a fab voice – it’s the arms, it’s the fingers, it’s the head, it’s everything that made her Shirley Bassey. There are unbelievable nuances and I can do that, but I didn’t ever want to do a pastiche of Shirley Bassey. So, I sing these songs as me but with the type of gravitas they need to be performed well. Does that make sense?

Ken: Yes. it does, absolutely yes. So you make it your own but in keeping with the style and the spirit of the original.

Emer: Yes, the spirit. Exactly that.

Ken: As you say, the Bond songs are big numbers, in general, and it’s all big band on the night. You can’t be bellowing them all out all the way, though can you? Where are we going to see the light and shade? What’s going to be a bit calmer and chiller?

Emer: Well, Iain sings All the Time in the World, the Louis Armstrong number. I sing All Time High, which is a lovely Rita Coolidge song. Then Iain sings From Russia with Love, which is another one that’s really calm and reflective. And then You Only Live Twice – another kind of reflective one as well. The arrangement of that actually is beautiful.

So there’s light and the shade. Iain sings, You Know My Name, which is a full-on Chris Cornell song – very much a rocking out song. But the song before it is All The Time in the World. We do try and keep the different colours going throughout. Iain also sings A View to a Kill, which is really full on. But then the band plays Pink Panther after that, which just brings it down with a bit of a smile on your face. That’s really beautiful. They also do Soul Bossa Nova from Austin Powers, which is, again, a total change of feel, dynamics and drama.

Ken: I notice there’s a couple of songs I love that you’re not mentioning. My second favourite song is McCartney’s Live and Let Die. Are you doing that one?

Emer: Yeah, the band are doing it.

Ken: Thank goodness! I was worried for a moment. My very favourite though is a complete contrast: Nobody Does it Better – sublimely sung by Carly Simon. Is that going to be in the show?

Emer: Oh yes! That is in there. Now, Iain does it, I don’t do it. He does it – a Jack Jones arrangement of it. It’s a classic song, but this version is swung and it’s really fabulous. Iain’s a great swing singer, really super.

Iain and I are best friends but, when it came to sorting this programme out, we nearly fell out because there were songs he wanted to do like this one. ‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry – that’s my song!’ But he had a fantastic arrangement, that was just a bit different, and Barry Forgie said, ‘No, Iain wins’. We’re a big band. We should be doing something that’s just a little bit quirky whilst keeping the spirit of the song. That’s what we do with Nobody Does it Better, but Iain gets to sing it.

Ken: Do the two of you split the pieces equally between you? Are you singing all the time or does the band get some instrumentals in there too?

Emer: Basically, the band will do their opening – James Bond theme – and then Iain will do a song, I’ll do a song, then the band will do another tune and so on until the band plays out for the first half. It’s the same in the second-half. Iain and I have got the same number of songs and the band get seven instrumental tunes, like Mission Impossible, Pink Panther, Peter Gunn and the theme from Shaft as well.

Ken: It sounds like it’s going to be an absolutely brilliant night. I’m very jealous that I’m not going to be the one reviewing it. I have done my duty and given it to another Northern Arts Reviewer, Helen Kelly, to do. She’s going to have a fabulous night! I love the fact you’re not going to be doing just carbon copies of the originals but do your own thing with them whilst keeping absolutely in the spirit of the James Bond sound. Is this concert going to happen again elsewhere, or is this just a just a one-off?

Emer: We perform these concerts throughout the year in various theatres. I must say I’ve never been to The Grand in Leeds, so I’m looking forward to it. We’ve sung this programme all over the country actually. We’ve taken this up to Edinburgh down to Devon, Wales as well. We don’t tour, as such, we don’t do a back-to-back tour. The reason is that the musicians in this band are some of the best in the country and they are in the recording studios in London where they record most of the Hollywood soundtracks. Then Iain and I are doing other projects too, so to try and get us all to do a 25-date back-to-back tour would be really hard.

So we just do concerts dotted around, and we’ve been doing this programme now for around two years, on and off. It might seem like a one-off, but it’s not. The next one we’re doing is in Lichfield, the Garrick Theatre, on the 19th of February. Miles away from Leeds!

Ken: So, the basic message is people need to get their tickets for the Leeds if they want to have a cracking James Bond time really!

Emer: Yes, definitely – we’ve got no plans to bring it anywhere else in the area, so definitely they need to book!

Ken: Well, thank you very much Emer for that. I’m sure the concert will be fantastic and I shall look forward to reading the review from Helen.

Emer: Thank you very much, Ken. That’s really kind of you.

Emer McParland will sing with the BBC Big Band at The Grand, Leeds on the 15th November. For more information click here.

Ken Powell is chief editor for Northern Arts Review and is also a bestselling author and writer for various publications around the world. A former school teacher, he continues to write educational books along with fiction and travelogues. You can find all his books and various websites here including his popular TEDx talk about the Global Village. He lives with his family in a wonderfully isolated village in West Cumbria where he enjoys drinking tea, chatting with the birds and winding up his dog. You can support his work (or just buy him a coffee) here.