North Carolina’s Landon Parker released his debut EP ‘Hits Home’ in December and since then, he’s been building his fanbase and garnering well-deserved critical acclaim.
Earlier this year, Parker released his emotional new single ‘Your Baby Girl’, which has captivated fans and is helping to take his career to the next level. The accompanying video is a tear-jerker and the song is destined to be played at weddings for year’s to come.
I caught up with Landon to talk about the song, discuss the emotional video, and to find out how he’s finding his own voice in the Country music genre…
Your current single, ‘Your Baby Girl’, is a very sweet and emotional song. What’s the story behind it?
I basically wanted to write a song for my wife and father-in-law for our wedding. I told my wife, ‘I don’t know how good it’s going to be but I’m going to do my best’. This was September, I guess a couple of months before we got married in March. I brought it to Skip Black and Matt Nolen, told them I had this idea called ‘A Moment Like This’ or something and they said, ‘why don’t we just call it ‘Your Baby Girl’?’ Basically I just envisioned the day and everything that was going to happen and put it on a piece of paper. We wrote the song probably in two and a half hours. It was probably one of the quickest songs that I’ve ever written. It just all came to me and I put the music to it. I can listen to my voice memos to see how much it changed from the voice memo to the recording and honestly, a lot didn’t change, which is unusual. I played it for my wife and my father-in-law and they both cried. It was just a very special song. I played it at the wedding and everybody cried so I just knew we had something special and I wanted to share it with the world and put it out. Everybody seems to really like it.
Have you heard from fans who have used the song for their own weddings?
Yeah. No one has sent me any videos yet but people have told me ‘hey, I’m gonna use this’. I want to see videos of people dancing with their Dads and people getting to share that special moment. Some people have done videos, and I guess they probably danced to something else, but they do something on TikTok oand they put my song over it to redo the dance, which is very special. That was kind of the intention too. I just wanted a new father-daughter dance. When I was looking for my wife and father-in-law, there’s so many songs out there, but me being a musician, obviously it’s their dance, but I did chime in (laughs). It’s the same thing with mother-son dance. I did write one but it was just not as good. It’s because my Mom’s perfect and it just didn’t fit everything that I think my Mom is.
Artists sometimes worry that if they write something too specific, fans won’t be able to relate, but it’s the dream to have a song that your fans can take and make their own isn’t it?
Yeah, honestly, that was a fear of mine because it was so personal when I wrote it from my perspective. Most father-daughter dances are from the dad to the daughter, but I wanted to write it from the groom’s perspective of, ‘you’re an awesome father-in-law. Thank you for bringing an angel into the world and this is amazing that I get to marry the love of my life because of you’. Without the Dad and Mom she wouldn’t be here.
There’s a lot of archive footage and emotional footage in the video. What was that like to put together?
I did not think we were gonna go back to the wedding venue but we asked them if we could come back and shoot. When I wrote the song, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to put it out or not and I thought maybe it was just for that day. When we asked to come reshoot the video – we probably filmed in four or five hours – and it was just amazing to be back in that room. My wife was there so she got to see me dress back up in my tux and the whole point of the video was the 360 of the whole song being your baby girl and then I had a baby girl. I almost forgot to put that in the end of the video (laughs). I got so into the video, and I was like, ‘that’s beautiful’ and wife goes, ‘aren’t you gonna put Lainey and you at the hospital in there?’ That was the whole point, (it was) the perfect ending. I’m glad my wife reminded me because I’m forgetful sometimes.
What’s your experience of parenthood been like so far?
It’s friggin awesome. My daughter, she’s 15 months old now, so she’s at the point where she is interactive. Starting out as a Dad, there’s a lot of lot of things you gotta learn. Not every baby is the same so you just do what you got to do to keep the baby happy. Lainey is just so sweet. All she does is just walk around and say ‘da-da’ all the time. It makes me feel awesome (laughs).
You’re creating all these incredible time capsules for her with your music and these vides. What an incredible gift for Lainey…
I have a music video, ‘Up For Anything’ one of my other songs, and my daughter was there for that video but she wasn’t in that one. I told her, and I didn’t know what the next single was, ‘don’t worry, baby, you’ll be in the next one’ and she was (laughs).
I’m sure she’ll thank you for it when she gets old enough to be embarrassed about it…
The funny thing is, we showed it to her and she just watches it the entire time. The first couple of times she watched it, she would watch and then look over at me like, ‘is that you?’ and then she’d look at Momma and be like, ‘is that you?’ Recently, when she shows up at the very end, she’ll just go (starts clapping) and she does it every time now so she’s like, ‘good job!’ (laughs).
You put out ‘Hits Home’, your first EP just before Christmas. What was it like putting that collection of songs together?
Three songs – ‘Good Beer Drinkin’, ‘Cuahgt Me at a Good Time’ and ‘Up For Anything’ – I put those singles out because they were all different. I wanted to test the waters (and see) what people like. I love these songs but I want to know the type of vibe that people like. I think ‘Hits Home’ and ‘Beer By Beer’ are also two different songs; ‘Beer By Beer’ is a little more pop and ‘Hits Home’ is traditional rock, fiddle country. I love creating music because that’s the fun, trying to create something unique that doesn’t sound like everything else, and just trying to stand out and make your stay in the music. I also have a song on there called ‘Godsend’ that is also a perfect wedding song I think. I’ve actually played that for a few people at weddings so if you’re reading this check out ‘Godsend’ (laughs).
Maybe you could collate these songs over the years and put out a wedding album?
We’ve been watching a ton of ‘Miss Rachel’ and I’ve actually written probably two or three songs with nursery rhymes. I kind of thought maybe I’ll do a little EP of nursery rhymes. I could do (sings) ‘the wheels on the truck go round and round’ and my daughter would love that, if I put it out in time
She’d get the opportunity to star in more videos too!
(laughs) As far as wedding stuff, I think that’s a huge market to get into. A lot of people can relate to it. Everybody’s at some point going to get married and if they don’t, then I’ve got other songs for you (laughs).
Even if you don’t get married, everyone goes to plenty of weddings in their life…
I’m a sucker for weddings. I’ve been to weddings where I barely even know the people. I’m over there just like tearing up and crying (laughs). It’s just so beautiful!
What’s your plan for music beyond ‘Your Baby Girl’ and the ‘Hits Home’ EP?
We gotta go to the studio and record a few more songs. I have four songs done and we’re gonna put another EP (together), then basically take the first EP and second EP and make it a cohesive album. I’m writing songs at least 2/3/4 times a week, and just trying to create more stuff and stay ahead of the stay ahead of the game. I started competing with Morgan Wallen when he put out 36 songs (laughs).
Morgan Wallen’s album has caused many a debate about the balance between quality control and putting out as much music as possible to keep fans happy. There’s so much pressure on artists to put out new music often, and fans want something new the minute a new song has dropped. Do you feel that pressure?
Yeah, I love it and also I’m just like, ‘I just put a song out’. It does put a lot of pressure on me as far as, I guess the anxiety that you get when you go into a room, because you’re like, ‘oh my gosh, we have to write a song today’. I got to keep writing songs to be able to pick from a big giant catalogue of songs that we’re gonna go in and record. It definitely is a lot of pressure. Honestly, I feel like I do good under pressure so I’m constantly thinking about song ideas and melodies and things to bring to the writers’ rooms. I’m just gonna put out more music here in the summertime.
You mentioned before about social media and TikTok. Lots of artists are writing songs with the hope they go viral on those platforms. What kind of influence does that have on your song writing?
That definitely makes an influence in the writers room. I try not to think about it because I just want to write what comes to my mind and heart. People say (things like), ‘Jason Aldean’s cutting so let’s write a Jason Aldean song or a Luke Bryan song’ and I feel like that gets in my head because I start thinking specifically about that, instead of just focusing on what the day brings. It might not be a Luke Bryan song that the idea’s about or the music or anything like that. I mean, we can try but I think I just do better writing with whatever the day brings.
You talked about needing to find your own path and stand out so you don’t sound like everyone else. With all these pressures, how do you keep your own voice in the mix?
Basically, just staying true to who I am. I have a bunch of influences like Blake Shelton and Travis Tritt. When I first started singing, I was 16 or 17, actually I tried to (sound like) everybody and then that’s when my brother came in and was like, ‘dude, you gotta quit trying to sound like everybody else. You gotta sound like you and you gotta stand out’. That really threw me for a loop. I just sat in my room and I was sad. I was like, ‘I’m not trying to sound like them but I am’ (laughs). All the artists I grew up with have influenced what I write about and who I am.
You grew up on some of the icons of the genre so who better to draw influence from?
Yeah, I always say Brooks & Dunn, Blake Shelton and Justin Moore. Literally, I think I’ve said something different in every interview because I just have so many influences. I probably have like 20-25, I don’t know. There’s just different artists for different reasons. Josh Turner was basically the reason I started singing. I’d sing karaoke at my dad’s house but Josh Turner, I was sitting in my mom’s house and I was like, ‘I want to sing really deep like that guy’. I never got to that deep, but it helped structure my voice.
When are you going to come over to the UK and play for us?
That would be amazing. I have no idea but we can work on it.
What else do you want to pack in this year?
I’m just try to write a number one song honestly. I want a cut from a big artist. That’s kind of one of my bucket list goals. Playing the Grand Ole Opry. Just playing more festivals and creating more music that’s honestly all I want out of this year and gaining more fans and fans become friends and just basically building up my hardcore fan base. You do that by touring and playing shows and getting out there and actually meeting people and getting to know them. You can also check out my merchandise and everything that I got going on on my website, landonparkermusic.com.
Landon Parker’s latest single ‘Your Baby Girl’ and his EP ‘Hits Home’ are out now. Watch the video for ‘Your Baby Girl’ below:
