Parker McCollum on Making His Rawest Record Yet: ‘It Was the Album You Always Wondered If You Were Good Enough To Make’

Parker McCollum’s initial attempt at recording his fifth album was half done when he decided to scrap it and begin again. His aim wasn’t to create a project that would necessarily impress fans or the Nashville music industry, but one that would impress himself.

“I got to a point where I was like, ‘I’ve got to go challenge myself again and go find that buzz again,’” he tells Billboard. “It felt like, ‘Just what are you made of? What are these years? Is this to ride off into the sunset now, or is this to go make your best record?”

After thoroughly enjoying working with producer-writer Jon Randall on his two most recent hit-spawning projects — 2021’s Gold Chain Cowboy and 2023’s Never Enough — McCollum decided to shake it up on his eponymous studio project, out Friday (June 27).

He began working with producers Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert, David Nail) and Eric Masse (Lambert, Waylon Payne, Charlie Worsham), and immediately after concluding his 2024 Burn It Down Tour in October, McCollum flew not to a studio in Music City — where he had recorded much of his recent albums — but to New York City.

There, he spent a week laser focused on recording at the legendary Power Station Studio in Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, where such classics as Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. and Rolling Stones’ Tattoo You were recorded.

“Some people hate New York City. I love it,” McCollum says. “It was the first city that came to my mind. I was like, ‘You’re going to be the most confident son of a bitch for the next seven days in the studio.’ It was finally the album you always wondered if you were good enough to make — not for anybody else, didn’t need anyone else to like it.”

But moments of self-doubt interrupted that feeling of confidence, as he was intent on recording raw, unfiltered songs that felt unmistakably Parker.

“I’d record all day, then go to the hotel, call my dad or [his longtime mentor and Texas music icon Randy Rogers]. I’d freak out, like, ‘What have I done? This is career suicide.’ Then I’d go back to the studio the next day and keep recording. You’re forced to sit there and live with the album for several days in a row, so you’re on this journey of ‘All right, this is who I am.’ But I just never enjoyed making a record as much as I enjoyed this one. Being in New York City, being focused and locked in to see what can I get out of myself musically if I really go there and get it? And Frank and Eric were willing to go there.”

The resulting project is permeated with Lone Star State soul and grit, an album with not only the potential to further scale McCollum’s career, but to peel back new layers of his personality and artistry.

“Hope That I’m Enough,” which he wrote with Jessi Alexander and Matt Jenkins, is a look at McCollum’s relationship with wife Hallie Ray, whom he married in 2022.

“It’s how I’ve always genuinely looked at her and [my] relationship,” McCollum says. “She’s just as good as God can make a woman. I don’t know if I’m worthy of anything I’ve gotten to do in my career or the woman I’ve gotten to marry or any of this stuff. It’s just a very authentic feeling. I was sitting next to her, playing guitar, and this song started to just fall out. She’s an easy person to write songs about.”

Some of the songs on the album were written at the Power Station studio, though the bulk of the songs were fashioned in Texas. One of the oldest tracks on the album, “Permanent Headphones,” dates back to when Parker was just 15. He wrote it in his truck, parked outside a Jack in the Box, in a moment when he was “too stoned to go home,” McCollum recalls. The song struck a chord with his older brother Tyler, a songwriter himself, and became the spark that pushed Parker to take music seriously.

“Tyler is six years older than me, and that was the first song I ever wrote where he was like, ‘Hey, okay.’” McCollum says.

He nods to songwriting luminaries Guy Clark and John Prine on “Solid Country Gold,” and welcomes fellow Texas native and country artist Cody Johnson to sing on a remake of Danny O’Keefe’s 1960s hit “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues.”

“I’ve always wanted to cut it. I’ve listened to it for 15 years, and I’ve always thought of Cody when I heard that song,” McCollum says. “I just always thought he was so, so crazy talented and such a good singer, and just so passionate about his business and how it goes about his life, and I just admire that so much. He comes in and just kills it.”

It was also a full-circle moment for the two Texas natives; Johnson is from Sebastopol, nearly an hour north of McCollum’s hometown of Conroe.

“The first time I had ever heard of Cody Johnson and [Johnson’s band] Rockin’ CJB, my older cousin Austin had gotten in a very, very bad car wreck when he was in college. He’s still alive, but later on that year we did a huge benefit for him. Cody Johnson played that benefit show. Somebody in town knew him from singing in a country band and I remember being like, ‘Hell yeah. He’s really good.’ He could’ve only been around 20 years old then. A few years go by, he’s on Texas radio and selling out the bars. I eventually opened for him a couple of times when I started on the scene several years later. He’s always been really good to me.”

Like Johnson, McCollum embodies that stubborn Texas mindset of approaching one’s life and career on one’s own terms, so finding the gumption to do the unexpected is nothing new. When he was first in Nashville and being courted by labels, McCollum was already taking a long-term perspective, in part, thanks to advice from early supporter Rogers.

“We had an offer from every major label in town. I was selling a bunch of tickets and had on my own tour bus and it was going really well,” he recalls. “I had told Universal Records Nashville [now MCA] I wanted to sign with them. Another of the big-time labels, I won’t say which one, the guy that owns it called me and said, ‘I’ll wire you a million dollars right now to not sign with Universal.’ I was like 26, maybe 27. I remember I called my dad and I called Randy Rogers. Randy was like, ‘Look, you don’t want them to be able to buy you right away. If you want to sign there, do your thing, and run your business how you want to run your business. But you’re an artist, and think of it from that perspective too.’

“I didn’t want anybody to think they could buy me in that town,” he remembers concluding. “I thought that was a terrible way to step foot into Nashville and start working up there. And one of the greatest decisions I ever made was [to] turn that money down and sign with Universal Records.”

His new album comes as his label has undergone major changes this year, including the label’s rebranding from UMG Nashville to MCA, as well as a leadership change, with Mike Harris being named CEO of the label.

“I’ve known Mike for years now, since I signed my deal [in 2019],” McCollum said. “He loves music and I think he really wants to see good music win. I told [the label] when I signed my deal, ‘Look, I don’t want some big advance. I want to write the songs I want to write. I don’t want ever want anyone telling me what to do, creatively.’ And they never have at any point in time, whatsoever.”

Since signing, McCollum has earned a trio of Billboard Country Airplay chart-toppers with “To Be Loved by You,” “Pretty Heart” and “Burn It Down.” He also issued the major-label albums Gold Chain Cowboy and Never Enough.

In 2021, he won the Academy of Country Award for new male artist of the year. Last year, his moody single “Burn It Down” earned nominations for the ACM’s single of the year and the Country Music Association’s song of the year (McCollum co-wrote it with “The Love Junkies,” Liz Rose, Lori McKenna and Hillary Lindsey). He’s been opening shows for George Strait and Chris Stapleton, and earlier this year, played his third consecutive sold-out show at one of the Lone Star State’s most prestigious events, RodeoHouston.

But even as McCollum has earned the attention of Nashville’s industry as well as music legends such as Strait, his family’s feedback still reigns supreme.

“We send each other stuff all the time,” he says of his creative relationship with his brother Tyler. “Every record I make, I’m like, ‘Is my big brother going to like this?’ We still write together every now and then. He’s come out on the road with me a couple of times.”

Still, he draws a line between family and business. “I’ve always been very scared of our relationship becoming transactional. Brothers in the music business, there’s just very few of them who still like each other several years in. We’ve talked about him being on the road with me full time and playing. I’m like, ‘I don’t want you to be my employee, dude. You’re my brother.’”

The past year has brought changes on the home front, too. In August, McCollum and Hallie Ray welcomed their first child, a son named Major.

“I didn’t know this side of me existed. It’s just the greatest thing ever,” McCollum says of being a father. “He crawls faster than any baby I’ve ever seen in my life. He doesn’t really want to walk yet; he just knows he can haul ass when he crawls.”

Still, fans shouldn’t expect a wave of baby-themed songs anytime soon.

“I’ve never just sat down and [intentionally] wrote a song about something. It could absolutely happen. Is it going to be the stereotypical ‘That’s my boy’ kind of thing? Probably not. Like Kenny Chesney’s ‘There Goes My Life,’ that is a baller song. And it’s got the dad line in it, and they hit so well on that song. If I were to ever pop [a song out], and it was of that stature of a song, yes, I would cut it.”

But as with all of his music, there’s one rule it has to follow: “It’s got to be real and honest and right.”