Chapter 1: How did Parker McCollum's upbringing influence his music career?
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Is this thing on? Hi, babies. Welcome to another episode of Dumb Blonde. Ladies, today we have a special guest that you guys have been asking and begging for. And now he is here. Mr. Parker McCollum, baby.
The dumbest blonde of all.
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Chapter 2: What experiences shaped Parker's songwriting style?
Um, and my mom's side of the side of the family is the same way, but you know, it was more like my grant, my mom's side of the family owned a concrete company. My dad's side of the family, they sold cars. And so two very different worlds, but I just kind of, floated in between those two things for my entire childhood.
So, um, it's, uh, my, I think my background is underwhelming, but I guess it could be interesting to somebody.
I don't think it is. I actually found out a couple of things about you and we'll talk about a little bit more down the line too, that I was like, okay, Parker, like it was really cool. Okay. We'll talk about it right now. I was actually the, the fact that you smoke weed and have done DMT and like, how did you know this? I was like, He's one of us.
I was so happy whenever I saw you talking about it in an interview. And I even told Jay, I was like, have you guys got to smoke weed together yet? Have you got to smoke?
I think we have at some point or another. But I never really drank. Alcohol was never my thing. There was times, I think, when I was younger and going pretty hard on the road and stuff that I would just because... That was kind of just what you do.
Yeah.
But I never really liked alcohol. And I always, you know, enjoy it. And I always just, you know, when I sit there and like weigh the benefits and like which one's worse for you and which one can ruin your life and which one's not going to ruin your life. Right. weed has always been the lesser of the two. Um, and I just, I don't know.
I, uh, I did some of the best songs I've ever written in my career. I wrote just, you know, after taking a little hit and, and just kind of letting it go. It just, it sparks, it's, you know, some of the greatest records of all time are written stoned.
DMT is some heavy shit though. Like that's one thing that I'm scared of.
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Chapter 3: How did Parker meet his wife Hallie Ray?
And I was like, man, I'm not the kind that can hold all this together while living like this. Like I have to get it. I got to get my shit together.
Do you think that was just a part of like being young possibly? A hundred percent. Yeah.
And like growing up in like, you know, these songwriters and these artists that I, that I admired and just thought walked on water. I wanted to be like these guys, like most of them lived very hard and, and,
Live to the songs that they wrote and I like was like fully convicted on that I was like I've got to lives the songs that I'm writing so I think I said a list when I said that live the songs that I'm writing and It just you know, I was so into that and then it just kind of got to the point where I was never a good outlaw if I would ever be referred to as one but I just I don't know.
I was, I was really, really into that. And I thought I had to go do that to write the kind of songs I wanted to write. And I, and I, you know, those songs changed my life. They, they gave me the career I have now. And so I don't regret any of it.
I'm just like, you know, I don't know how entirely necessary it probably was looking, which, you know, hindsight's 2020, but it, you know, there were good times. It's not, it wasn't bad.
Yeah. I mean, memories, you can, memories are priceless. My memories are good. I'm grateful that my memories in life are good. Memories are priceless. Do you feel like you still need to be under the influence to write music now? Or do you write it completely sober?
Not really. You know, like that song, uh, rest of my life that I wrote, um, during COVID, um,
I was dead sober when I wrote that song, like nine o'clock in the morning, got out of the shower, had the melody in my head from the night before and had gone pretty hard the night before and was kind of at that was really, really close to being like, this is like, you're going to blow it, you know, you're going to blow it. And, uh, And I didn't want to do that.
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Chapter 4: What role does nostalgia play in Parker's songwriting?
I really always wanted to make my family very proud. And I just never wanted to embarrass them or go do... I felt a lot of pressure to kind of clean it up and handle it the right way. And I didn't want to get to be like 40 and 50 years old one day and be like, oh man, he was doing it for a little while. He really had it. And so I just kind of became super aware of that kind of stuff.
And it just... That's a long-winded way of saying not really, but I'll take an Adderall to write songs sometimes, and that gets me super into it. Because you can focus. Yeah, and it makes me emotional and super and just passionate and engaged about a melody that I've created on the guitar, and I will just... I mean, I'll be by myself.
I mean, just singing at the top of my lungs, ripping on guitar, trying to write this song. But I've also done it stone cold sober.
Stone cold sober, yeah. My husband prefers to be under the influence when he's writing, which I feel like as an artist, you guys always have some sort of an angst that needs to get out anyways. And I feel like whenever you're under the influence, whether it's weed or alcohol, or when I say under the influence, it means like any, a range of things.
I feel like it helps with the creative with you guys because you guys do have so much emotion inside.
There has to be something to it because I've seen firsthand how many times it's worked for me, but it's just like anything else, Bunny. I mean, it's moderation, especially when you're young and you're doing it and you're trying to go to these places, basically self-sabotage to go write these songs.
It can just get out of hand, and you can start abusing that, and all of a sudden you're not being creative and you're not writing, and you're really just...
Can be counterproductive. Yes.
Absolutely. And so I just kind of noticed when that started to happen. And I was like, all right, what do you really have if you can't do it without it?
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Chapter 5: What are some of Parker's wildest tour stories?
And so once like, and like Halle Rae, like I'm married now. I have a child, like Major, my son. It's like... what am I going to do? You know, there'll be self-sabotage, sad dad songwriter. Like, yes, just only for every now and then for about a week at a time.
Let's dial it back to when you fell in love with George Strait, Amarillo by morning, you have pretty much credited George and your brother for your love of music. Take me back to when you knew that, when did you write your first song?
Oh,
I mean, I was trying to write songs when I was like probably 12 years old, 12, 13, something like that. And then I'd never really, you know, I just didn't know... anything, I didn't know, like I wasn't learning how to play other singer songs. Like I was just playing guitar and trying to write.
And then, so once I started to kind of learn to play like a George Strait song or a Chris Knight song was the first song I ever learned to play on guitar and sing at the same time. Um, and so I'd like, once I started doing that, then I really started like learning how to formulate a song and, um, I write songs now the exact same way I did then.
Just sit down and just make some shit up until something sounds cool or sounds pretty or moves something in you or is an earworm for yourself or whatever. And I've done that since, I mean, even when I was 12, 13, I wrote a song called West Texas Lover.
At 12 or 13.
Yeah, I was like 12 or 13 years old.
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Chapter 6: How does Parker balance his personal life with touring?
And my grandma, my dad's mom, she's 90. And she still asked me to play that song. I don't think she knows any of my other songs. I think that's the only one she knows.
Where did the inspiration at 12 or 13 come from that?
A girl I was dating, and I got dating when you're 12, I guess. My girlfriend.
Had a crush on.
Yeah, like fifth grade, fourth grade, whatever it was. So I don't know. I was just super aware when I was really young. Like I was very aware of the Texas scene, the Pat Greens, the Randy Rogers, the Cross Canadian Ragweeds, you know, and then like the, you know, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell and Hayes Carl and all these just incredibly like –
raw real songwriters I was very aware of like what they were doing and what they looked like and how they dressed and how they toured and when I was very young and so I just kind of started to I was like those are the guys I want to be like would you ever release West Texas Lover I don't think so no it's not it's like name drops like Stoney LaRue Todd Snyder it's very bad it's it's it's yeah I can't remember all the words I could probably remember most of them but it's uh
No, it's not very good.
He's like, no, I can't do it. Do you always feel like you've been more of a cowboy at heart or more of like a crooner at heart? Because you do write such like just romance, like romance songs and like love songs.
I just love sad songs. Like I love evoking that emotion singing. I like to sing those kinds of songs and just like, I mean, just rip on, on a sad, beautiful melody. Like it just does it for me. Yeah. Um, but you know, like, I mean, I worked for my granddad, you know, several summers in my childhood and he was old school. I mean, it was, it was the real deal.
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