Parker McCollum has been making his presence in country music known the last several months. With hits like "Pretty Heart," and "To Be Loved By You," it's hardly a surprise. He stopped by The Bobby Bones Show to talk about his recent success, plus the inspiration behind some of his latest songs.
McCollum shared some exciting news that he has a new album Gold Chain Cowboy coming out this Summer around July. The album was named by his fans via Twitter. McCollum asked his fans to choose between a few different album names and Gold Chain Cowboy was the clear winner. The album will feature his latest single "To Be Loved By You," which came out of a drive with his merch guy. McCollum confessed that he and his girlfriend were going through it at the time, and he said out loud "Man, what do I have to do to be loved by this girl?" His merch guy encouraged him to write that down, but despite the encouragement, McCollum never wrote it down. But he did record the first verse to the song right away, which is exactly what will show up on the new record. Fast forward days later and McCollum was tired, but had a write with Rhett Akins. He wanted to just get on with the write and ended up focusing on the song what is now known as "To Be Loved By You."
Despite pushing through some writes, McCollum actually has a whole vault of songs he's written. His song "Drinkin'" that he recently dropped is one of the songs that came out of his vault. This song was written in the summer of 2018, so to him it's an old song. He admitted that at the time of writing this, he would self sabotage himself in situations to be able to write good country songs out of it. This song came out of a situation where he was up late, doing things he shouldn't be doing, and was writing songs. With this song and all of the other songs he's ever written, McCollum confessed they're all true, all of the songs are about real people and real situations in his life.
His personal life is definitely going just as well as his career. McCollum shared that his girlfriend just moved in with them in their new house in Nashville. They did 2 years of long distance before this, and she originally didn't want to live together before marriage. However, she wanted to move to Nashville to pursue her nursing degree and things worked out best for them to live together. His girlfriend, Hallie Ray Light didn't actually want to date McCollum at first. He shared the entire story and song about his now girlfriend. McCollum's buddy told him about a girl named Hallie Ray Light that he really wanted McCollum to meet. Ignoring the girl, McCollum immediately thought her name would make a great song title. Fast forward to when McCollum and Hallie Ray Light finally met, she had come to one of his shows to meet him and she was not into him. She ignored all of his attempts to pursue her for around 9 to 10 months. So he started writing the "Hallie Ray Light" song anyways. A few months later after his chasing her, Hallie Ray Light finally decided to give McCollum a chance and the rest is history.
Parker McCollum performed his song "Pretty Heart" and "Drinkin'."