This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Parmalee

Get ready, country fans—this week on Backstage Country, Elaina Smith will be joined by one of the hottest bands in country music: Parmalee! From April 14–18, brothers Matt and Scott Thomas, their cousin Barry Knox, and friend Josh McSwain will bring their humor, stories from the road, and, of course, some killer music to the show.

Smith asked the band about their latest single, “Cowgirl,” and why it was the album’s debut single. Matt joked that the album, Fell in Love with a Cowgirl, is autobiographical. “I think every girl that I've ever been in love with was a cowgirl,” he said. “Also, if anybody's ever been downtown, to Nashville, Tennessee on a Saturday night, you're definitely gonna fall in love with a cowgirl, because they're everywhere down there.” 

Matt also shared that singing the song live is “so much fun, because they're already doing the line dances and girls are dressing up. I mean we did some shows where we actually gave away some cowgirl hats and helped the winners design them like trick them out. It's a fun thing and you see [people of] all ages there just dancing and having a good time.” 

After the release of Fell in Love with a Cowgirl on April 4, Smith confirmed with Parmalee that the album was not the end, but rather part of a bigger project. Matt agreed, “Yeah, we just picked our favorite seven songs that we had compiled over our 50 songs or whatever that we're going to contend for an album. We were talking about putting way more and we said, ‘You know what, let's just pick seven, not bombard everybody with it.”  

He added, “We hope our fans trust us to pick our favorite seven [and] that would be their favorite seven too. So, that's what it's all about. We wanted to cover all our bases, have a song like ‘Cowgirl’ [which] is just an up-tempo fun, have a song like ‘Day One,’ which is kind of a nod to the ‘Just The Way,’ Take My Name’ thing, and have a big idea song like ‘God Knew Better’ and some album tracks that we really loved that kind of tip our hat to the rock influences that we had growing up. So, we picked our favorite seven and hope everybody digs them as much as we do.” 

Don’t miss this exclusive week of Backstage Country with Parmalee! It’s your front-row seat to hang out with one of the coolest bands in country music.