Lockdown Rockdown!
Platinum-selling country band PARMALEE has been up to a lot during the lockdown in Nashville, TN. The band just released their latest single, Just The Way, with rapper Blanco Brown, which is hitting #1 on the charts worldwide and is now getting set to go back out on tour… making sure to stay 6 feet apart from their fans.
FHM sat down with the guys to find out more about the music, upcoming tour plans, social media DMs, and what it’s like to be a rockstar in 2020!
FOR THOSE THAT DON’T ALREADY KNOW!
Parmalee is an American country music band consisting of brothers Matt Thomas (lead vocals, guitar) and Scott Thomas (drums), along with their cousin Barry Knox (bass) and Josh McSwain (guitar), who is a best friend since childhood. They are signed to the Stoney Creek division of Broken Bow Records and have charted on Country Airplay.
Why music and what attracted you all to each other and making music together? Music was always around growing up. We all had parents who played instruments and it was always cool to see people’s reactions when they performed. So my brother, cousin and I joined my dad’s band and it all took off from there.
Is it tough holding relationships, being married, etc. while touring around year in and year out? Being a musician definitely takes its toll on any relationship. We’re on the road most of the year, constantly in the spotlight and pretty much at a party every night we are working. It takes two very understanding people to make it work.
Are any of the band members currently single and looking and if so, for what type of women? Yeah, I’m single. I love a girl with a good sense of humor, someone who’s down to earth and isn’t afraid to take it out to the country.
What tips do you have for people who are about to start dating a musician? Just know what you’re getting into. It’s all about understanding the situation and trusting each other.
Do you guys get a lot of DMs and if so, what do some of them say or ask? Yeah, we do get a decent amount of DMs… The majority of them are from our fans talking about the music, but some of them are all over the map and stuff you could not make up even if you tried haha. People are definitely more confident behind a screen that’s for sure.
With your latest single being about loving yourself, what about each of yourselves do you love the most – which personality traits? We all share the same drive. I think that’s what got us here and why we’re still together. Now if you want to talk about personality traits we don’t like about each other I can make a long list… haha.
How important is social media these days to promote yourself and how has social media changed since you first started as a group? Social media is an essential part of being a musician. Having a person on social is just as important as anyone else on the team. I remember first getting on MySpace. It completely changed our promotional game. We went from reaching hundreds to thousands in a few months.
What have you been doing during the COVID-19 lockdown, and what are you looking forward to for the rest of 2020? We’ve been doing a lot of writing, recording and filming content. We’ve also done several online shows and guest appearances. The good thing is we have shows booked from August ’til December and have had some successful ‘socially distanced’ outdoor concerts. People are figuring it out.
What is the best advice as a group you have ever been given? Whenever I would ask my dad what we should do next, he would always say “keep on pluggin” – just keep working at it.
Life on the road is obviously fun too! Got any fun road stories you can leave us off with? When we were on tour with Jake Owen, we heard that he was going to prank us at the last show. We are definitely not pranksters but we felt we needed to have something lined up for him just in case. Every show, Jake would pop out of this road case they would roll into the middle of the arena, so we decided to load it up with hundreds of fishing crickets. He got in there a minute before the show and we heard him yelling “WTF!?” as he headed into the crowd. Of course, we were dying laughing as we watched him onstage shaking crickets out of his pants. Now, what did he prank us with? A new Yeti cooler and a pallet of Busch Light (our favorite beer). Guess we got the end of tour prank confused with the end of tour gift… to this day we all still feel bad about that one.
WEBSITE = parmaleemusic.com
INSTAGRAM = @parmaleemusic