Parker McCollum’s fifth studio album is out today and his first self-titled record. He was on The Bobby Bones Show sharing stories and inspiration behind the project.
McCollum admitted this new album is the album he always wondered if he was good enough to make. It’s a super personal record and really raw, it came together easily in the studio for him. He didn’t have a title that he really loved, and as it was so personal he felt like it being self-titled made sense. McCollum isn’t a big fan of having co-writers, he likes to write songs himself. However, he has one on there as a co-writer “Hope That I’m Enough” that was inspired by his wife. Their dog was laying on the couch and she said she could hear him breathing on her. That inspired him to start writing this particular song, and then finish it with his co-writers. His wife joked asking if he would ever write a love song about him actually being happy.
Another song on the album is the first ever song he recorded. When he was 20-years-old, he cut an EP in Austin, Texas and recorded the song “Permanent Headphones.” He was asked to cut this song officially, but he kept saying no. He wrote it in a Jack in the Box parking lot when he was 15-years-old, his brother told McCollum that song is what made Parker a songwriter to him. McCollum never thought the song would have another life after his EP, but he handed it off to his producers to do whatever with it. It made this record, and when he listened to it for the first time in December, it made him teary eyed. He always wanted to write songs that his older brother would think was good, and this was it. His newest written song is next to his oldest ever song the record, next to “Permanent Headphones” is “New York Is On Fire.”
In recent months, McCollum did a collaboration with Tim McGraw called “Umbrellas,” which was a really cool moment for him as he’s loved McGraw his entire life. As for the songs that get the most reaction out of McCollum fans on tour, he said “Handle On You” is by far the biggest. His favorite lyric of his is in “Hell Of A Year” it reads “I smoke you away, then you drink till you drown.” It was a lyric that fell out of him and it’s the “lyric bar” he holds all of his other lyrics to. McCollum also admitted the iPhone has saved his songwriting career, he’s even thought of putting out a record of just his iPhone recordings. A lot of times, they are a full song just sitting in there.
With his new album and tour, he’s about to be a busy guy so hasn’t had a lot of time to go out to his farm, but admitted he’s on his way to being a “true dad” because he’s gotten really into cutting his grass. In talking about the least cowboy thing about him, McCollum said he really loves fast cars and has a few of them including a corvette and a Hellcat Dodge Charger. He’s also a big fan of Buc-ee’s and has spent thousands of dollars there every year while touring, he always orders a chicken burrito when he’s in there.
McCollum has two big influences in his career. Randy Rogers did the same for McCollum as his brother did. After a show he opened for Rogers, Randy came up to him and said he wanted to manage him telling him he could be a star. While doing his own career, Rogers managed McCollum for 3 years. He also revealed if he could steal any song from one artist it would be George Strait’s “Nobody in His Right Mind Would’ve Left Her.”
Looking at his life now, one would think he had a lot of people cheering on his success. However when he was in school, McCollum admitted he wasn’t a very ambitious kid. He was like Randall ‘Pink’ Floyd from Dazed and Confused, he was the youngest of his siblings, pretty lazy, not very good in school, his parents split when he was young so he was living with his mom, and he didn’t really get in trouble, he was just “kind of a punk.” Adding that he didn’t think anyone saw any potential in him at the time.
