Southern Rock Reborn - the Journey of the Parker Barrow Band

Southern Rock Reborn

Welcome to the Trout Show. Today, we are stoked to chat with the Parker Burrow Band, Nashville's own southern rock revivalists known for their gritty riffs, soul-stirring vocals, and high-energy performances. Fresh off their hometown scene, they are gearing up for their first ever European tour this summer.

Join us as we dive into their journey, creative process, and what's in store for this electrifying band. Now here's the Trout. Are you ready to take control of your financial future? Meet David Smith, your trusted Edward Jones financial advisor.

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Your first album as a band was what, two years ago? Almost two years ago, right? About two years. August of 23, I think I read. Yep. So let's start out with... I can say this because my wife and I both work together.

You're still married, are you? Are you still together? Yes, we're still married. I like how they're going, yeah, well, I've seen it. I've seen it all.

I know what's going on. We were in corporate America and worked together, so it was different. When did you guys actually physically start the band? Yeah, so Dylan and I, we met in February of 2019, so about six or seven years ago, however long, six years ago.

We met then by chance and started touring almost immediately after that together and spent four or five years looking for an Alex Bender. We ended up meeting him, I guess that's been two years now, and that's really when things started kicking off for us. Dylan and I, we did a bunch of, you know, like back in the cover band scene, we did that.

We started Parker Barrow back in, that was 2020. From then on, we kind of just been trying to release more and more original music, releasing Jukebox Gypsies and now working on album number two. So yeah, it's been about six years, three years.

So you've been doing your gig. Alex, you came in a couple of years ago, right? Yes, sir. So you've been doing this for a while.

So, and I assume Alex has obviously played with a lot of different people. Of course, he wouldn't be that good, you know, if you don't show up. And I'm going to talk to you about Capo.

I'm going to talk about that Capo. I caught that. I saw that.

I'm going like, those cheaters. Anyway, so you started, you've had a lot of history. In other words, you've gotten some traction.

What do you think is the main thing right now kind of holding you back? Not musically, but where do you, I mean, everybody has kind of a dream. You know, it's going to, I know you're going to Europe this year, correct? Yeah. Okay.

I got some information about that. You'll like playing over there. It's completely different than America.

But what is the good news you hear about your band and the bad news that you hear about it? Or the not so happy news? Yeah, you know, I don't know if I would say there's really anything holding us back. I think we've chosen a specific path in this that is not so much. Maybe sometimes we don't always get the instant gratification you could get from, you know, some of like the social media bands or bands that have chosen the route of releasing music first and then going out and touring.

I mean, like for us, it's always been about the live show. That's what we love. That's where our passion lies.

And I think we've chosen a route where we've decided we will go out and play, you know, any and every bar that will have us and try to develop a real genuine connection with people out on the road. And, you know, I think it makes for a long road, but I think it makes for a very rewarding and fulfilling road. So I don't know if there's really anything holding us back.

I think it's just kind of the way we've gone about this. We've tried to stay true to, you know, the way that we feel some of those bands, like you mentioned, like the Allman Brothers went out and did it. And, you know, we try to try to honor those guys and, you know, the old fashioned way of doing things.

So I think it's just a long road for us. But we're happy to be on it and thankful for every mile we get to get to travel on it. What I think that you're different because how many people are in a band? I forgot, five, six of you? Six.

There's six. When you go out and play, how many are there? Six of you? Yeah, there's about six. There's six of us.

And most of the time in all our bands I've been in, everybody's in a hurry. We've got to get this. We've got to get there.

Where's the label people? Where's the A&R people? You know, all that stuff. Yeah. So you've taken a different approach to it, which is probably a good idea.

You're young. You've got music that's well known. And what's the point of being in a hurry? Yeah.

You know, and unfortunately what some people don't do is they don't build up their home base for people to know who they are. And you guys have obviously started doing that already. And the fact that you're already doing that makes a big deal because then you can just obviously build on that.

Alex, what was the thing that got your attention to them? I think probably what it was was their plans and sort of what they were hoping to have achieved in the next few months or years. So I think that's what was really sort of attractive about the situation to me, because prior to talking with them and meeting with them, I was kind of working with some stuff around town here in Nashville and just sort of stuff like this. But it was that December prior to going out on the road with them that Dylan and I talked for a while.

And he said, you know, we're kind of we have some opening dates coming up next year. And then we got this other stuff we're hoping to do. We got a record.

And it was a lot of stuff that to me was like, you know, I'd love to be a part of that. And it seemed like from them and the ideas they had were very much in line with where I want to be musically, what I want to do musically and where I hope to one day be musically. And I think, you know, kind of hearing how their ideas and mine aligned, it was sort of one of those things you never know.

No, no, you don't. I mean, it's all about what chemistry is in a band. Exactly.

So you kind of got to throw a little caution to the wind and just go out and do it. And, you know, that's what it was. I think it was like, you know, whether or not this ends up being what at that time it says it was.

You don't know. But it doesn't really matter, you know, because it's like, it sounds great right now. Let's just run down that dream and see what it is.

And that's kind of, I think, what it was for me, you know, was having those ideas and those talks and stuff and saying like, that's it, man. If we could do that, that would be cool. Well, I think it all really comes down to what you do on stage.

And if you're not having fun, what's the point? Right. I mean, it's a slog. I mean, let's face it.

I mean, it's not an easy gig. I mean, everybody wants to be doing this and then it's like, it's work. Right.

And it's very rewarding. And I mean, every night when people go, yeah, more, can you do it again? You know, again, I'll buy these shirts for $50 this time. Yeah.

They were $25. Yeah. But now we're known.

It's $50. That's it. Well, the other night after one of our shows we had, you know, I was talking with this gentleman who saw us and was saying, you know, I love the show, you know, this and that.

And was trying to talk about, you know, he had some ideas for what the band could be. You know, a lot of folks you talk to are gracious enough with their thoughts and all that. And, you know, he was trying to tell me and I was like, I appreciate it.

Slow down a little bit, you know, because the way you got to look at it from the musician and performer standpoint is that hour and a half or hour, however long you get to play on stage. Yeah, that's for us. You know, that's our stuff.

That's that's what we dream to do all the time. And that's why I think, you know, you know, our shows and music, I think, is is, you know, one of the reasons I like is because it's always been to me authentic and true, because it's we're doing what makes us happy and joy and, you know, all the other stuff you have to do because because you have to, you know, get into the gig. You know, all the other stuff.

But but the hour and a half or whatever that you're on stage and stuff, that's that's what it's about. And that's where it's like the magic happens, because that's that's what it is, you know. So, I mean, it's it's it's a cool feeling and cool thing to be a part of, you know.

So, Megan, tell me a little bit about your musical background, because I know some I know somebody actually referred to as you sound like Tina Turner. Yeah. Now, you have a great voice, by the way.

Just I'm just telling you that. Tell me a little bit about your background, music background. Yeah.

So mine is my background is much different than theirs. I grew up in South Burma, Alabama, which does mean I grew up on old country music. And my dad was a big old country music fan.

So I mean, they're kind of nasally kind. Well, they don't open their mouth. They're like that.

OK. Yeah. Yeah.

So I grew up on that. And really, like, I think for me with country music in general was the songwriting aspect of the whole thing. And and the storytelling of what that what that time period was like with the Waylon Jennings and the Willie Nelsons and Johnny Cash's of the world, like hearing that.

And my dad was a songwriter, so he would sit around the house, play guitar and write songs. And so that really attracted me at a very young age, finding something to to talk like for music is just an outlet to talk about things that you don't really want to talk about or stuff like that. And as a kid, I really grasped onto that, started playing guitar around, like, I guess, 12 and started singing and writing songs pretty much immediately after that.

So it was it was a bit of a different journey. I didn't grow up on the rock and roll or the blues or the roots or anything like that. But as I got older, you know, I started not connecting as much to country music just because of the I think the path it's taken.

It isn't what I grew up on anymore. Not that it's good, bad or anything. No, it's completely different now.

Yeah. So it's just it's it was just different now than what I grew up loving. And then I started finding bands like the Black Crowes, thanks to Dylan and all those bands Led Zeppelin, Allman Brothers.

And you just they had the same soul and intent as that old country music, but it comes from a different place. And I feel like it's it's but it gets across the same emotion. These people, all they did and all they thought about was the music and that's what they sought out to do.

And ever since I got involved in music or wanted to sing, my only goal was to do it for the rest of my life. And I do think that is where I found a common ground and all the music that we listen to and all the music that inspires us. It's because they never stopped and they never left like those hardships or the stuff that, you know, they never let it get in the middle of it.

And for us, like that is the biggest thing. We we can't stop and we won't stop. We really just it is what it is.

We we take we take it all graciously. And every time you get a little bit of that high, the world has a way of humbling you and then you just repeat the cycle. And so, yeah, that was kind of like my main thing.

I started hearing bands like the Black Crowes and really felt like that's where my voice would excel. I think I'm not in any way, shape or form comparing myself to Tina Turner or any. I mean, that's a great compliment.

I don't know who wrote it, but it's a great compliment. But I do think that as a band and with our sound and everything that we have, we work towards it. It's living in the right spot right now for all of us to to excel, for all of us to show the things that we do best.

And I think that's what makes a great band. And that's what we're just trying to do is is you can highlight everybody in the way that they shine. That's only going to make for more success.

Well, at the end of the day, you're still a band and you have to get you have to get together. But we have an awesome producer that we work with. He's out of the Philadelphia area.

He produced our Jukebox Gypsies record in 2023, and he's also producing this next record that we're working on now. That was another big thing. When we met him, it just kind of opened a whole new world to us.

And, you know, it was a lot of, you know, us bringing in thoughts and ideas and him kind of just elaborating on those things and bringing them to a to a new space. So it's it's been a blessing to get to work with him. We love every chance we get.

We're actually we're heading back to the studio this week to work on some finishing some stuff up for this second record. But to your point, you know, having a good producer goes a long way for a band. And we're very fortunate to get to work with Stephen.

So Dylan, I have to ask, was John Bonham one of your favorite drummers? Yeah, there's like honestly, like my list of drummers is not as long as some guys. It's like there's really two guys for me. I mean, there's more.

But my two biggest influences are John Bonham and Steve Gorman from the Black Crows. I can hear the Bonham. That's why I asked.

I can hear the Bonham. Yeah, I love I love John Bonham. The more triplets, the better.

So that's always kind of been my thing. But yeah, I certainly am a huge Bonham fan. The thing with him is and something that I will for the rest of my life aspire to try to capture is the melodic nature of his drumming.

Like if you listen to the isolated drum tracks from all of that Zeppelin stuff, it's like he's playing melodies on the drum kit. And it's just like it's always like, you know, even with how busy some of his stuff is, everything he plays is always complimenting the rest of the band. Even when his it's his time to be, you know, here in the forefront, he's still complimenting everything else that's going on.

And it's just, you know, really one of a kind type of player that can have his thing and make it fit into everyone else's thing. And, you know, Alex, he talks about a lot with Zeppelin, just like all of those guys every night. We're going out and contributing to the show and just making this beautiful noise together.

So, yeah, Bonham is definitely a huge influence and love just about everything he's ever done. So, Alex, I was looking at your couple of videos. What do you play normally? Do you play a Les Paul? What do you play? Yeah, that's usually what I'm more of a Gibson kind of guy.

That's usually it. Yeah, it's usually the Les Paul or something. And sometimes some of the open tunings, I have a junior.

What's your favorite open tuning? I'm an open G6. That's kind of where I live there. That's all that grows.

And just all that stuff is in that open G stuff, man. And we were talking about the capo there and stuff, and it makes it so easy if we need to, you know, change. I know.

I just I give people that crap all the time. I know. I know.

Only because I remember how hard it was to learn how to play an F chord. Just play an F chord. I was like, how come I can do that? And now it's like, you know, it doesn't matter.

I've been playing decades. Exactly. And the thing with the open tunes is a lot of times you want to get those open strings ringing out because they take a traditional triad.

It can put like, you know, suspensions or like these really rich and beautiful notes on top of something that's really not pretty straightforward. Right. So by putting that capo on there, you can change keys while still getting some of those really beautiful notes and, you know, make it, you know, make it work and not just have to do like, OK, now I'm playing an A. So I do these block chords up here and kind of lose some.

And that's part of that sound, too. I think that, you know, we gravitate or chose to gravitate towards on, you know, this this record here. You know, let's talk about your songwriting approach.

Do you all does everybody kind of do you have one or two of you? Does somebody come with an idea? How many they do? OK, well, I'm just curious. How does that work? It's it's it's been really cool writing this record because I feel like it's been, you know, very like I don't know what the word is natural or organic, I guess, you know, either he'll have a riff that's literally just bugging him to death in his head. And it's like, I got to get this out or I'll have some ideas for some lyrics that are completely separate from each other.

And when we get together, you know, we've been fortunate enough that things have kind of just fallen into the right place. It could be an idea I had for years or an idea that he's had for years. You know, when we bring those two ideas together, somehow they they have worked out.

So it's been it's been really refreshing. Sometimes you can get frustrated with writing and, you know, it can be, you know, a hard hill to climb. But with this record so far, the songs have kind of just fallen right into place.

And it's been a lot of fun to to create them and tweak them. And, you know, and then we get our producer involved as well. And he kind of can elevate certain things with melodies.

And, you know, watching him and Alex work together is always a blast. Two great musical minds. So it's you know, it's I wouldn't say we have like a standard thing like this is how we write a song.

I think it's just like, you know, somebody brings something to the table and then, you know, if we all dig it, we find a way to fill the rest of it in. And that's kind of how it's been for this record. Megan, do you have a particular range you like to sing in a particular key? I think I mean, like working with our producer on Jukebox Gypsies, we kind of found where where my sweet spot is range wise or key wise.

But, you know, like we've we've talked recently of like just, you know, there's no limits, really. Like we can we can find keys and there's obviously every singer has their box that they like to stay in. But one thing with the music that we're doing and the music that we're trying to make, we're trying to get all of ourselves out of our own boxes and explore other things that may not be natural to us, but try and find other sweet spots that may not be super like, you know, comfortable, but allow ourselves to kind of open up and do things that might not be super comfortable so that you can you can find a new avenue with every song.

So that's kind of I do definitely have my my range. But sure, we all do. Yeah.

And and our producer would like to push me out of that. So, yeah, so it's always fun trying to figure out where I can sing and how far we can actually take something. But you know what's also interesting about you guys? Historically, it's always been the first album for a new new band.

Well-known band is usually the best. The song or album is bad, not bad, but it's not as much because you've had usually your whole life to write songs for the first album. Yeah.

So then you got your second album. You're like, well, now, of course, you're doing your own thing. But when you're with a label, they press.

Yeah. Guys got to get going here. And you're like, OK, I'm not expecting to have Grammy winners every time.

But you guys haven't got that really. You've been a band for a while. I know you two have been together for a while, but you still bringing Alex and the other members in to a certain degree.

You've got that chance where you kind of all knew. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, it's it's exciting for us because I do think that with bringing Alex in for the second record, we do kind of get another first chance. And I mean, with you, Bucks Gypsies is still a record extremely proud of. We still have a lot of life left in it.

One of our favorite bands is Whiskey Myers. And I think their first album that they released in 2011 just went platinum. And that's like that's that gives us hope that, you know, with all all the music you release, people, when they invest in a band, they invest in the entirety of that band.

And with this, we do get to bring in another mind, a very, a very different mind from the both of us and be able to give this next record a fresh sound from Jukebox Gypsies. But also give it, I think, a more more power behind it, because there's more than just I mean, Jukebox Gypsies was Dyl and I trying to figure out chords in our, you know, our house and bringing it to our producer because we didn't know how to play any of the songs. And just kind of putting that in front of him and having him do with it as as he did.

And now we can kind of hash a lot of that out prior to going to the studio and get get a lot more focus on the actual production of the song and making it sound different than anything we've done before. Well, I'd be remiss not to ask you about something that it's interesting to me that you guys have no problem telling people about your faith. Yeah, not at all.

Which is not, you know, and I'm right there with you. But, you know, it's not something in our music ability. People don't think people are that way.

Right. You know, it's not Christian music you play. You know, you play that other stuff, you know.

But I admire you for that, because it's almost like politics. Right. Yeah.

You know, I don't talk to politics, any musicians at all. I don't care where they are. I did with my people in the UK when they kept changing prime ministers.

I'd laugh. You got a new prime minister today? You know. Yeah.

But I stay away from it. And if people start moving that way, I go, no, no, no. Because you just know when.

Right. Yeah. I bet you've been getting some positive feedback from that.

Yeah. I mean, for us, like, we don't do it for any feedback. No, no, no.

I understand. You're just that. I mean, yeah.

I think I think the big thing with it is, you know, if we if we're talking about on the on the music end of this, you know, the bands like the Rolling Stones and the Black Crows and the Led Zeppelins, I think the reason that all of them were as successful as they were is because no matter what, they were always authentically 100 percent themselves. And I think that's the thing that made them stick out. The reason it's cool to smoke cigarettes and stick it in the headstock is because Keith Richards did it.

He wasn't doing it because someone did it and it was cool. He made it. He made it cool.

And I think that's how we feel about our faith and about chasing our dream the way that we decide to chase it is we're not trying to to be cool. We're just trying to be authentically ourselves. And, you know, we're not going to hide that or be bashful about it.

We are who we are. We're humans. We're people.

We just happen to be musicians. So, you know, I think it's very important no matter what you do in life to try to chase being authentically yourself and staying true to yourself and your beliefs and your morals. And I think that's the most important part of all of this.

So, you know, right, wrong or indifferent, that's what we aim to do. And people will either like it or they won't. But, you know, we're not in the business of being the most likable people on the planet.

We just do what you do. We do. We love music.

We love the music we create. Like Alex was talking about earlier, like we do this stuff musically that makes us happy. And if anyone else in the world hears it or sees it and it makes them happy, too, that's enough for us.

That's that's why we do it. So, yeah. Who's the social media person? Mostly her.

Yeah, that's mostly me. I just it's one of those things that drives me nuts. Do you like doing it or is this something you feel like you have to do? You know, like I do.

I like creating stuff. I like creating, you know, I do like some of our posters and stuff. I love I love that the graphic design side of things with social media.

It's hard because, again, it's like one of those things like I feel like we're always trying to be ourselves and be, you know, authentic in who we are and what we do. But I I never want to compromise any of that for us, for a like or a share or follow or anything. So there's a balance between how to do it, when to do it and what's worth doing it for.

And really, for us, the way we use social media is for information. Oh, yeah. Our shows to know what we're kind of up to, where we're going.

You have to. Yeah, you have to. It's definitely one of those things that like, you know, you just have to find the balance in it and and get across what you have to and you have to connect with, you know, your people who come to your shows.

They spend a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of miles coming to see us. And the least we can do, you know, is is offer them some form of connection, whether it's at the show or online. All that's very, very important to us.

We have made a million friends and I'm more likely to remember your name on social media. And that's I forget faces all the time. And I can I can associate the two.

Well, in your business, that's what happens. You meet so many people and you're like. And you're just one of you.

Right. Yeah. So it's I mean, it's fun.

It's it's it's, you know, just one of those things you got to do at this point in our in our society. So you got to you got to be thankful for the opportunity to share with the world what you're doing. I mean, you guys are planners.

You got to know this. Tell me what you kind of envision in your future, how to keep things going, because you've got to feed the cat, the dog yourselves. You've got to pay for rent.

Ladies dog food. It costs more.