Parade is an experimental pop-rock trio based out of Toronto, Ontario. “Do You Know Where Your Friends Are Right Now?” from their brand new album, Lullabies After Storms and Floods, was inspired by the social media fueled mental health crisis. 

It has been extremely distressing, in my work as a music educator, to see how badly young people are struggling with anxiety and depression and I feel that there is a responsibility as an artist to advocate for solutions.

The song title is a throwback to a time before social media when we weren’t hyper aware of our friends whereabouts and activities at all times. If you couldn’t reach your friends on the landline, you’d have to find them in the REAL WORLD! – Stefan Hegerat (drums, compositions)

Drawing on their diverse backgrounds in jazz, classical, and electronic music, Stefan Hegerat, Chris Pruden (synthesizers) and Laura Swankey (voice, electronics) and Patrick O’Reilly (guitar) of the experimental pop/rock trio, Parade, push the boundaries of genre and form by blurring the lines between improvisation and composition to create unique and immersive sonic landscapes.

Lullabies After Storms and Floods was largely inspired by band leader Hegerat’s work as a grassroots organizer during the COVID-19 pandemic, the compositional content of the album provides both a critique of the institutions and systems which threaten our very existence, and utopian imaginings of a healing world. The hope behind Parade is that the music dwells on all we have to celebrate, while acknowledging all we have to mourn.