Latest / 78 Amped / Otherside of the Planet ft. Parker McCollum

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Otherside of the Planet ft. Parker McCollum · 78 Amped

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Amber.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we are getting country today.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Getting our twang on.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, got the hat, got the boots.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Got the TNs on.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Got the got the TNs, got the got the Chuck Taylors on my side.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm still wearing the Rison Lion scarf from an absolutely mammoth weekend.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't taken it off.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's been living on him.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: He's got uh scarf ch scarf chafe.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, that's hard to say.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: On the back of his neck.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um we are talking to Parker McCollum.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, an artist who is on the upcoming CMC Rocks Festival.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: 20th anniversary lineup dropped.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you what's stacked.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is a big boy.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Rock's done, Eric Church.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Some absolute bangers in there.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: There are.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's Parker's first time in Australia, so we won't we won't jibber-jabber too much here, Maxwell.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get straight to the interview.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially we chat about what his sort of expectations are about heading down under for the first time.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: We talk about how he blends all these different sounds and how he almost doesn't realise he's doing it half the time.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I guess his early influences that led to where he is.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then just a little bit about his journey, I guess his rise to where he's at and how he's gonna you know fit all these different songs from his massive discography into a festival set to a crowd that has never seen him life before.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Also the Royal Wii.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: This one's Sam.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Sam, take it away with Parker McCollum.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: Joining us on the line following the massive CMC Rocks Festival announcement and ahead of his first Australian visit, Parker McClellan, welcome to the show.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, man.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Glad to be on here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a pleasure to have you on.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's an exciting time as well.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: That lineup is absolutely stacked.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: But before we dive into it, we start the show the same way with every guest we talk to, and that's just to get an idea of what you're spinning in your playlist at the moment.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You remember you have you ever heard of Andy Griggs?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I actually haven't, no.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's like from back in the day, uh like early 2000s.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I've been on like a weird early 2000s country music kick lately.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but here in the States, we're like getting into fall and holiday season and hunting season.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, naturally it's like a lot of Randy Travis, uh, a lot of Shenandoah, a lot of Keith Whitley, uh, a lot of George Strait.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, um, I mean, it's it's it's like I call it my dear season playlist.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I kind of add to it every year, but I mean it's everybody from the Juds to Ronnie Millsap to I mean on and on and on.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um all all the all the songs that make me feel like you know I'm 10 years old and and about to get out of school for the holidays again.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: A bit of nostalgia.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can see in the background you've got your little you've got the dear mascot in the background hanging some medals.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't even know what those medals are.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh those are CMA award nominee medals.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it shows you all the times I lost.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's a pleasure to be nominated.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's what they say, isn't it?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: No doubt, it really is.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, let's chat the CMC Rocks lineup first of all, because at the time this episode goes live, the lineup's out, and you're heading down under for the very first time, which is incredibly exciting.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: How's it feel to finally been making the trip down under?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't really know.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm so excited.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just have no idea what to expect, Sam.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I have zero knowledge of how y'all roll down there.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I uh it's it's it's really a wild kind of feeling.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, it's kind of like we're going on tour of the UK at the end of this year, and I it's the same thing.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I have no idea what I'm getting into uh by getting on that airplane and going over there.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and Australia's 10 times as far as as the UK is.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um there's like a part of me that's so excited to to go somewhere that I like I've never been that's so far away from home, and just you know, you kind of feel like you're being thrown to the wolves and figure it out, which will be so fun.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then there's another part of me that's like, Ali, what if we get over there and nobody knows who we are, or nobody shows up, or you know, all the all the worst case scenario stuff kind of running through your mind too.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I just I don't know, I'm looking forward to it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I can guarantee the people of Australia definitely get around CMC Rocks.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge festival down here, and country I don't think country in Australia has ever been bigger.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So you're coming down at a very good time.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad I let everybody else do the groundwork and then we'll just come in and reap the benefits.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_02: You've got it, right?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for our listeners who might not be familiar with your music, you combine so many different sounds across the genre, sorry, particularly on your most recent self-titled album, where you've got everything from you know these heartbreaking ballads to these upbeat Nashville rock influence sounds.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: What were some of the influences that led you to what is now, I guess, the Parker McCollum sound that we're that we're hearing?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I don't have a great answer for that question, Sam.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um people ask me all the time, or people tell me all the time, they're like, man, you you know, we don't really know what it sounds like uh since I very, very first started writing songs.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really known or had a um you know a solid idea of or reference of who I sound like.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think the reason is because I just never really aim for anything.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um I never go into the studio and say, I want to sound like this, or I want it to sound like this, or you know, I really I really just approach it from such a almost a naive, innocent, um kind of perspective of just you know, going there and and and sing however I sing and sound however I sound and do whatever the hell it is that I actually do.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh whether it's good or bad, I don't know.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But um, you know, it's all it's the only way that I know to do it.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um so like I said, I don't have a great answer for that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just, you know, uh hopefully it it's it I I know the the songs are all written from a place that is extremely um thoughtful and sincere, uh and a lot of it's pretty emotional.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of it's dark, um, you know, but it it's it's all just whatever is in my brain and trying to get it out in in melodic form.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's probably perfect timing that um you say that because my next question was going to be about the song Um Wind My Friend, because listening through the the deluxe album with those four new songs, it feels like that one it certainly stood out to me because it feels so retrospective and it feels quite different from the rest of the album.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: What made that song, I guess, so special and worthy of inclusion this time around?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had I had had that song, I wrote that song I think like 2021, maybe.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'd always I would always kind of forget about it and then find it, you know, in my phone or in a file or something, or playing around on guitar, and I'd be like, oh man, what about this?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Forgot about this.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was a song I'd always wanted to cut and just never really seemed to show its face at the right time.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we were cutting the deluxe album, um that song was really kind of pulling at me a little bit, and I just couldn't get couldn't get it off of my mind.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we were cutting the deluxe, and I just said, Man, we just just this this song's pretty stout.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's well written.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I think the melody is beautiful.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and it's that sometimes, you know, you would think that makes it really easy to, you know, be like, oh yeah, let's cut it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But that that song, it took us a little bit to kind of find, you know, the tempo and and and kind of the feel and the idea of that song.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we cut it several times and it just kind of got a little bit better and kind of found its footing a little more each time.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that was just a song.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It had it for a while, and it just like I said, it didn't show its face until we were cutting a deluxe album, and it seemed well written enough to complement the rest of the record, which was pretty important to me when doing the deluxe.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to just slap four songs on there for the sake of of doing a deluxe.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I really kind of told the label I was like, look, I'll only do it if I have you know the songs that you know can stand up to the rest of the record, and and that one's seemed like it certainly did.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it all seems like a perfect fit.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm interested from a from a songwriting perspective, you talk about having to recut um Win My Friend multiple times.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: When you are in the studio and working with producers and I'm assuming like members of your band and things like that, do you know lean on them for creative input or do you sort of always have, I guess, a vision in your mind of where you want songs to go?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know that I I always have a an idea of of kind of where it you know what it will sound like all done up, or or maybe at the end of the recording process.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of times it ends up being completely different, and I don't like it, and then I end up loving it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um because it's hard, once you kind of have an idea of what something's supposed to be, it's kind of hard to get off of that idea, and I do that often.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, the the studio, the way we cut is I we just go in there and we hit record and I start playing the song, and then everybody just kind of listens and you know, kind of just slowly starts contributing.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and and Nier Z was on the drums on that record, and you know, he's just lightly playing, kind of trying to find the groove and figure out what I'm playing on guitar and what I'm singing, and and we'll just we'll do that 20 times in a row, and just kind of letting everybody, you know, no charts, no instruction, no direction, just almost encouraged to just, you know, be too much, play too much, be wrong, take risks, you know, just be super, super vulnerable in the creative process.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, somebody will play a guitar lick or a bass line, or you know, I'll sing a melody a certain way, and it's like, oh, you know, the the reason the rhythm section played this and made me sing it like this, you know, kind of on the spot, stream of conscious kind of thing.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then we kind of have a an idea of direction, and everybody's kind of it's not a lot of talking, it's really about you know, a lot of listening to one another and just kind of seeing where it goes and how it evolves.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's such a fun way to create because you'll just you'll stumble across you know, grooves or or parts or you know, certain things that'll happen just in the moment.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and then just never you never could have engineered that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't have walked in and said, hey, do this, and you and and this would have been the thing.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know that this was an option.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I never would have thought of that guitar like on this song or that tone or that bass line or whatever.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so it's it's truly a collaborative effort, and then everybody's really just you know kind of letting it rip for the the lack of a better expression.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love that.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like, yeah, you can't um all the energy in the room's so key.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're not chewed into what each other's doing, it's it's never gonna work.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: But um look, I mentioned before, country music in Australia has never been bigger, and particularly in the last two to three years, it's it's blown up exponentially down here.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a genre that forever has been loved and so well renowned in the US.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: But for you know, our non-country listeners to I guess understand why it's blown up down here.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'd love to get your insight of what made you fall in love with country music to begin with and what makes it so special being involved in it now.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I just had a crazy connection with melodies from a very, very, very young age.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I would get uh uh hooked on a song at five, six, seven years old and just wear it out.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that and I really can't explain that.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's that's what provides my brain so much dopamine.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is a great melody and a great song.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, with the it just whether it's a great record or a great song or a great melody, what it all of it, I just my brain identified and was with it so young, and I was just so infatuated with some records and some artists and some sounds and and songs that you know from a very early age I remember just kind of thinking, there's why do I, you know, I I can do this.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um not only do I, you know, am I obsessed with listening to it, but it makes me want to sit down and create my own.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I don't know why that is.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why my brain was so attracted to that and still is to this day.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still constantly, you know, searching for a song or a record or an artist that you know will make me feel that way again.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it seems to be less frequent the older I get.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but every now and then I'll hear something that just absolutely does it for me.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I don't know.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it it's the fact that I'm still doing it all these years later uh and and and never even got the chance, you know, initially to, you know, be in a band and write songs and sign a major record deal and have hits and and tour all over the place and and do the thing that I dreamed about doing is is still just you know I'm I'm constantly certain that I'll wake up and and realize it was all a dream.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean it's not gonna be a dream before you come to Australia.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: And you've we spoke off air that you've been on the road um a long time, the tour is just about to rap.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um and like you said, there's you've got hits, there's a lot of tracks to choose from.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: How do you go about adapting, I guess, the current set list to an audience in Australia who might not necessarily be familiar with you on a festival stage?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Do you prov like prioritize energy?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Hits, what's the strategy?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think something like that where you're a hundred percent certain that none of these people have ever seen you perform before.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Energy is is top of mind, uh, and just entertain it value.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you want them to walk away and be like, wow, he you know really came out there and that was a show.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think about that nightly to the we have people that have seen us 60 times.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: I have girls that that that have seen me 60 times.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Insane.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're they're in the front row multiple nights a month across the country.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right in front of there'd be 10,000 people there, and they're right in front of a microphone.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They've been there at 7 a.m.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I still want them to walk away and be like, he was great tonight.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Australia is no different in that aspect.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you still want to go over there and you know what you're I've been doing it long enough.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know, you know, I know how to, you know, accomplish the goal of of you know um getting somebody to buy in and and and believe, you know, what you're up there singing and what you're up there selling.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: So um it all goes back to kind of you know the same way I cut records or write songs is just being a hundred percent authentic and genuine and and sincere uh and going up there and and giving it everything you got.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing you want to do is fly to the other side of this planet and phone it in.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you better go out there and and absolutely rip it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be on the plane home being like, you know, thinking, man, I didn't really give it my all.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I don't think we'll have any problem bringing the energy.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as an Australian, I can tell you they're gonna absolutely love that.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um for listeners at home, make sure to go check out Parker at CMC Rocks alongside an absolutely stacked lineup from the 19th to the 21st of March next year and go and listen to his self titled deluxe album, Wherever You Get Your Music.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Parker McCollum, thanks so much for jumping on.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks, Sam.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate your time, brother.