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Mar 21, 2025 Web Exclusive By Mark Moody Photography by Aleiagh Hynds

The bulk of Victoria Park’s expanding catalog seeks answers in gently reflective ways. That is unless it doesn’t. Her second album, Nothing Sticks (recorded as Pictoria Vark), releases today on Get Better Records. The introspective lyrics and melodic passages of both of her albums each give way to its own face melting moment. “Out” on her 2022 debut, The Parts I Dread, and the equally doom-laden “Lucky Superstar” on Nothing Sticks. The songs may seem out of place and out of character for the bass player turned bandleader, but Park insists she has a penchant for the darker side of rock. Citing Japanese sludge metal purveyors Boris, Black Sabbath, and The Replacements as inspirations.

“I like heavy music,” Park explains. “I love Boris and Black Sabbath is super good. I don’t always listen to them, but they are definitely a big influence when I’m thinking about darker sound palettes. Both of them are using genre to express feelings. My live music idols are The Replacements. They had some softer, sensitive pop songs and then they had the really heavy punk stuff. I heard that if they had an audience that was mostly teen girls they would play the heavy stuff and if the audience were punks they would do the softer stuff. Pushing people’s buttons isn’t entirely my vibe, but I like having that dynamic range.”

Just like the musical juxtapositions described above, Park’s mother’s family was deep into music while her father had his own tastes. Park’s aunt went to Juilliard for classical piano and her father was “really into The Clash and showed me a lot of music,” Park says. Park quickly went from piano lessons, to guitar, to her axe of choice, the electric bass. Raised just across the George Washington Bridge from New York City, in Bergen County, New Jersey, Park has stayed mobile starting in her teens, both in where she lives and by playing in touring bands. “There’s this kind of East Coast competitiveness that burned me out by the time I was done with high school. I wanted to go far away to college,” Park says.

Park ended up at central Iowa’s Grinnell College. With a small, but thriving music community, Park quickly made friends. “We had a really cool concerts program and I met Ella [Williams of Squirrel Flower] there. She was a senior when I was a freshman, and spring of my freshman year I started playing bass with Squirrel Flower. Those early shows were super cool. We opened for Big Thief at Grinnell and then we opened for Julien Baker at a music festival. When Ella signed with Polyvinyl, I took the spring 2020 semester off to go on tour. We made it five days before the COVID stuff hit,” Park says. Park did reconnect with Williams for tours in 2021 and 2022, but she also began work on solo material.

While at college, Park’s parents relocated to Wyoming for cheaper living and wide open spaces. It ended up being a safe spot for Park and her family to quarantine after the Squirrel Flower tour was scuttled, if not a jarring change from her urban upbringing. Much of Park’s debut deals with the geographic disorientation in that time of her life. Now settled in Chicago, Park started working on Nothing Sticks in 2022 before her most recent relocation. If The Parts I Dread focused on finding her place on the planet, Nothing Sticks seeks to find her own center.

One of the album’s most open-hearted moments comes towards the record’s end on “Where It Began.” “The song is about having a friendship in your life, but the friendship has changed. When you see [the person], you’re reminded of what the relationship used to be, but also accepting it for what it is now and to let it go,” Park explains. “One of the big themes of the record is that I have a hard time letting go of things that aren’t working. On the song ‘Sara’ I mention one of my exe’s names, Jack, and he’s not in my life anymore. Then I started dating someone else and he’s mentioned in the credits, but then we broke up after the final production. But that’s in line with the theme of the album. These are moments in time that still exist and they still have meaning, but you can also let them go. I was listening to an episode of the Modern Love podcast where Andrew Garfield was the guest. He was talking about love and loss and losing his mom. And he said [something to the effect] that life is just one long letting go and I think that’s really true.”

Another standout track, “San Diego,” deals with Park addressing a crisis of conscience or maybe even confidence. Park wrote the song on guitar, which is rare for her. It lends the song’s opening moments a certain tentativeness which fades as the track progresses. “I was on tour and having a tough time. I went on a five mile walk in San Diego, which isn’t the most walkable city. It was a moment where I had a really big decision to make and the feeling of being on the precipice of something or standing up for yourself. My music is for walking around and I think it’s just a great walking around soundtrack. ‘San Diego’ reminds me that when I’m having a bad time, I have a tendency to walk longer. So if I’m on a really, really long walk it’s like, ‘Oh, something’s happening,’” Park says while also laughing at herself.

Though many of Park’s songs explore turmoil, whether in place, emotion, or the chords themselves, one thing that has anchored her has been her musical companions. Whether that be Squirrel Flower’s Williams, who befriended Park as an underclassman, or her musical companion across both albums, Gavin Caine. “Gavin and I grew up playing music together. We were in middle school and high school band together. He’s someone who knows me really closely musically and he’s so talented. He can play every instrument and sing and just has a great ear for harmony.”

“We recorded [Nothing Sticks] over the span of one week at Big Night Studio in Rhode Island,” Park continues. “Gavin and I were basically living in the studio. We would wake up, record these songs, and then the engineer and everyone else would leave. We would go on a walk, eat dinner, pick up some beers and play some pool while listening back to the songs on nice speakers. It was like summer camp. It was the most fun I’ve had making a record. It was just so smooth and easy.”

www.victoriaparkbass.com

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