The Parade Exclusive Interview | Sweden’s Mystery Band on City of Dreams

Last Updated on 2026-04-05 by a-indie

Musical Roots

-yabori: This is a question we ask every artist we interview. We’ve found that the answers reveal something that no press release ever could. What are three albums that represent the musical roots of The Parade? And if there are any stories about how each one influenced you, we’d love to hear those too.

The Parade: We dont have any three albums like that, we all listen to Pop, Jazz to the most under ground Techno to avant-garde Rock, but what we do imagine when we have the The Parade hats on in the studio is the approach to the music how it was before streaming and socialmedia wish is a very romantic inspiration, once you start thinking about how it is now its like getting a ton of steal on your shoulders, So we are try to dream away to the UK music scene 1987 – 1994, with an the open mind that everything goes in like a DIY approach but in a serious way, it just have to feel right.

ABBA’s MiniMoog

-yabori: The press materials mention that a MiniMoog, the same one used on ABBA recordings, was featured on this record. How did that instrument end up being part of the album?

The Parade: Haha yes, it has been in John’s studio for ages, I guess ABBA was bored of the synth many million years ago and sold it, I think they had many MiniMoogs but its fun it has some history., its a adress tag stil on it.

The Full Recording Story

-yabori: “City of Dreams” was released on March 13, 2026. Before we get into the individual songs, I’d love to hear about the overall recording process. Where did you record it, how long did it take, and who was involved in the production, mixing, and mastering?

The Parade: Both John and Jonas have 2 great studios to work in, so it has been back n forth and final production and mix in John’s studio. We did all the production, recording, mixing ourself, the mastring was made by a mastring called Michael Feiner who is next door to John’s studio so it was really fast and great.

“Im A Dreamer” was the first thing we did, and it was on hold on a famous record label for over 1.5 – 2 years, and during 2023 when the summer was closing in once again as we felt we need to release this as a summer singel, so we simple took back the track same day, same day we sent it to Major label wish got back direct and love to play it on the big A&R meeting later that week, but we kindly told them we won’t wait if anyone grabs it first, so we sent it to Magnus at the label Dumont Dumont (a record label based in Stockholm, Sweden) and 5 min later he called up and wanted to have a coffee and we signed the deal in the studio about 1h later. So once we took back the track and signed the deal it took about few month to finnish the album, as we slowly been writing music for fun, but we kind of started 4 years ago on this project.

The Album Cover Concept

-yabori: The cover of “City of Dreams” is a low-resolution photo of two people kissing. It’s a really striking image. Can you tell me why you chose that photo for the cover and what the concept behind it is?

The Parade: We just liked the feel of the image, and also that its a nice low-resolution feel to it everything dont need to be high-resolution if the feeling is right.

Why They Keep Their Faces Hidden

-yabori: You haven’t released any artist photos, and there’s almost no information about you online. The only thing on Bandcamp is a blurry photo where you can’t make out anyone’s faces. If you’re comfortable sharing, I’d love to know why you’ve chosen to keep your identities and images private. Feel free to skip this one if you’d rather not answer.

The Parade: Everyone is screaming for attention, look at me, look at me, We feel people totally lost the sense of what music should be about, and hoped people could like our music and not be to told of what they should feel and think about the music, we love that you can feel the space yourself and over time know more and more of your favourite band instead of get everything thrown at you at once, there nothing left then and all magic gone. We don’t mind doing interviews and talk to people we are very open for that but its just nothing more un romantic to get all at once, or try to sell something with anything you can for any cost.