Each month, we invite artists to Greeny’s rehearsal space to lay down a stripped-back live session. One take. No do-overs. This month features City Parking – a band who shot into the spotlight with their debut single, only to find that momentum and mental health don’t always move at the same pace.
City Parking begin their Red Light Session with a Sheffield classic – a cover of Pulp’s ‘I Spy’. “I just think it’s a great track,” Jade Cook says simply. “So, yeah, I thought we could give it a go. Hopefully we’ve done it justice.”
Their take stays faithful to the original’s skeletal tension, though there’s a noticeable bite to it. “It’s our take on it, without trying to make it too much of our own,” Dan Baird explains.
Jade adds: “It’s a bit more aggressive. It’s hard to hold back the aggression, because it is already quite an angry song – it’s got like a dark, saucy energy… I think it adds a bit more grit to it.”
From there, they move into their debut release, ‘It’s Mad Round Here’ – the song that quietly detonated everything. “It’s kind of the track that kickstarted all of this, really, and none of this would probably be happening if it weren’t for that little song,” Jade reflects. For a band with what she calls a “very tiny discography”, it became a calling card that travelled far beyond their expectations.
After that came ‘Carl’, released in 2024 – a wiry, groove-led track that drew some flattering comparisons. “It got the Talking Heads comparisons,” Jade laughs. “Which was quite nice… I really enjoy doing ‘Carl’, it’s got a nice groove to it. We all enjoy doing that one.”
What’s striking is how quickly all of this escalated. ‘It’s Mad Round Here’ was their first release, yet it found its way to BBC 6 Music tastemaker Steve Lamacq via Richard Hawley’s manager, Graham Wrench. The band didn’t even know it was happening. “We didn’t know we were getting played until after it happened,” Dan recalls. “Someone messaged on Instagram… and we were just sitting there like, what’s going on?”
Suddenly there were invitations to showcase gigs, The Great Escape in Brighton, a slot at The Lexington’s birthday party in London and festival offers rolling in. “All off like one song,” Dan says, still sounding slightly stunned. There was even a homemade City Parking T-shirt gifted to Lamacq – “the only City Parking T-shirt to ever exist” – which he later wore at The Great Escape.
Then came Tramlines. The band opened the festival in one of the tents – a huge moment, especially so early in their story. But with the buzz came something more complicated.
“There was quite a lot of imposter syndrome,” Jade admits. “It kind of felt like, what did we do? Some of the offers that we got and some of the things that happened, some bands have to wait a long time for that to happen. Or it never does.”
Behind the scenes, the pace was taking its toll. Long drives. New cities. Little time to process what was happening. “You don’t realise how far away some of these places are until you’re actually physically doing it,” Jade says. “I’m quite an anxious person and I was dealing with quite a lot of anxiety at the time.”
Jade remembers having panic attacks on the motorway on the way to gigs, only to arrive and step straight onto the stage pretending nothing had happened. To cope, she created a persona to inhabit under the lights. “I tried to become somebody else,” she explains, “it was just a way of getting a bit more confidence.” But the mask wasn’t always easy to maintain. “I’m not very good at pretending to be something I’m not,” she admits.
Eventually, after pushing through Tramlines, they were booked to play Rock N Roll Circus. On the day of the show, Jade made the call to cancel.
“Something in me just snapped – I can’t do it anymore. I’m tired, I’m worn down… I’m not enjoying this anymore. It’s not fun.”
Part of that struggle was OCD – something Jade speaks about with a frankness that feels both brave and necessary. “I had really bad OCD,” she says. “And OCD isn’t just what people think, right? It’s a lot more than that.” Her intrusive thoughts centred on catastrophe. “My OCD was about thinking, ‘I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die.’”
The disruption to routine – constant travel, unfamiliar places – intensified it. “I’m a routine person and that routine being broken was throwing a massive spanner in the works for the OCD.” The band stepped back. From the outside, it looked like momentum had stalled just as it peaked. In reality, it was survival.
Now, though, there’s perspective – and a sense of reclamation. Jade has done the therapy, put in the work. “The OCD has kind of taken a backseat, which is nice,” she says. In its absence, the band has come back into focus not as pressure, but as purpose.
“This has kind of become my lifeline now,” she explains. “When you get depressed, it’s nice to have a place to put those loads and to escape into a different reality… it’s nice to do that again and to be able to enjoy it.”
The new material expands the same slightly off-kilter City Parking universe – night-time scenes, strange characters, inner monologues. “It’s kind of all set in the same universe as the other stuff we put out really,” Jade says. The band are currently working on their debut album, building on those early singles and shaping them into something more cohesive and ambitious. Dan reckons it’s a step forward: “It’s got a little bit more substance to it.”
Their first gig back is supporting Pale Blue Eyes at Hallamshire Hotel on 12 March, which is already sold out.
For a band whose story so far has been defined by sudden acceleration, City Parking’s Red Light Session feels like a reset. Three songs. One take. No do-overs. But this feels a lot like a second take for the band – and with a debut album on the horizon, the next chapter looks set to unfold at their own pace.
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