After more than two billion streams, six No.1 country hits and more than two decades together, Parmalee are finally heading to the UK. Ahead of their debut at Country Calling, Finnegan caught up with the North Carolina band to talk family, finding their own lane, the songs that got away — and the possibility that country music might just have found its first “cowboy band”.
For a band whose career has increasingly become defined by very big numbers, there is one statistic surrounding Parmalee that seems almost impossible to believe. Number of UK shows: zero. At least, for a few more days.
More than two billion streams, six No.1 country hits, five arriving consecutively, multiple platinum singles and a catalogue that includes Take My Name — Billboard’s most-played country song of 2022 , should probably have brought the North Carolina four-piece across the Atlantic before now.
So, when Rockshot catches up with Parmalee ahead of their Country Calling appearance, there is an obvious place to start.
Parmalee
What took them so long? “That’s a great question. The golden question,” they laugh. “I think at first our label was an independent label. They just weren’t servicing internationally. So our music really wasn’t there. And the rest of us — our fault. We should have, you know, just been chomping at the bit to do it and it just didn’t fall in place. “But now we’re coming. Thank God. Especially after Cowgirl did so well over there. It’s time. It’s time.”
And, perhaps, the timing couldn’t be better. Country music in Britain has changed dramatically over the past decade. Festival crowds have grown, tours have moved into bigger rooms and the once fairly rigid borders between country, rock and pop have become increasingly irrelevant. Parmalee have noticed. “I think it booming over there has a lot to do with it,” they say. “To be honest, in general, the genre’s gotten massive worldwide and streaming really kind of rolling out and getting bigger and bigger and people discovering and all that. “I think it’s all of it combined together really.”
There is excitement about finally making the journey, although mentioning the particular intensity of British audiences — and their tendency to hang onto every lyric — briefly introduces a new thought. “Hopefully good. Hopefully good,” comes the response when I ask how they expect that first UK crowd to react. “We’re trying not to psych ourselves out.”
Then I ask whether there is any anxiety about stepping onto a British stage for the first time. “Well, there wasn’t.” A beat. “No.”
Then another voice jumps in. “Absolutely not. But now I’ll think about it.”
The laughter tells you plenty about Parmalee. Brothers Matt and Scott Thomas, their cousin Barry Knox and lifelong friend Josh McSwain have spent years together in vans, studios, backstage rooms and on stages. Strip away the streaming numbers and chart positions and there is still something reassuringly uncomplicated at the centre of the band. They like playing music together. “We’re going to be so excited,” they explain. “I think it’s more excitement. We’ve been doing this for a long time and we’re just ready to go over there and show everybody what we got. “We just hope everybody likes it over there like they do over here.”
That doesn’t mean the UK gets a radically reinvented Parmalee. “We’re adding a few songs. And we also have some new songs we’re playing. So we’re kind of changing it up just a little bit.”
A correction quickly arrives from elsewhere in the band. “We’re not changing anything.”
“We’re adding to it.” It is another small exchange that reveals how the band works. Four people, plenty of opinions, but ultimately one show.
And that show has been built to work whether you have followed Parmalee for twenty years or discovered them yesterday. “We treat our shows like, you know, a lot of times people who don’t know who we are, it might be their first concert. We make sure they get to know us throughout the set.
“That’s one thing we make sure to do in our set, is to introduce ourselves to the audience and bring them in and make them feel like they’re part of the family, like we are.” That word, famil, comes up repeatedly.
Not simply because members of Parmalee literally are related, but because they have built their fanbase around the same idea. “We’re family, if everybody didn’t know. So we call our fans the Parmalee family. We’ll introduce ourselves and talk to everyone and just try to bond, make a big bond actually.”
The Pressure After No.1
Of course, family doesn’t remove pressure. Five consecutive No.1 singles might look like an extraordinary run from the outside, but success has a habit of changing the question from can you do it? to can you do it again? “Yeah. I mean, the pressure’s always there,” they admit.
“I think sometimes when it’s coming fast, things might get easier, but now we’re chasing it and it gets tougher as tension gets out. I mean, it’s always a cycle, man. It’s always going to be like that.
“But we’ve been through so much together that it’s just part of it. You just gotta keep grinding and keep focused and don’t focus on negative things. Kind of look forward and try to move forward together.”
After six No.1s, surely they must know the formula by now? “I wish I knew that.”
There is no secret Parmalee hit machine, apparently. “I know what feels good, what you feel in your gut is right. And then you can kind of get, a lot of times, the songs will raise their hand, especially if you’re playing them around your crowd and people like that.
“One song will kind of stick its hand up, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to be the one. I wish I knew that magic formula.”
Cowgirl came close. The track eventually spent four weeks at No.1, becoming the band’s longest-running chart-topper, and even before its success there was something about it that felt different. “I had a feeling that it had something to it. We knew. We all knew when we heard it that it was like, ‘This has got something.’
“I never call a song a hit or a smash until it is. But that one, it just felt right. And we just took a chance and it took a minute, but we knew in our gut, if people get to hear it, then they’re going to want to hear it.
“And that’s exactly what happened. Stayed four weeks, I think, at number one, which is crazy.”
Welcome to Parmalee Lane
Trying to neatly categorise Parmalee has never been particularly easy. Country? Absolutely. Rock? Definitely. Pop? Sometimes. Bluegrass, blues and soul? They’re all hiding in there too. “Well, we’ve always been in Parmalee Lane,” they explain.
“Before we got to Nashville, we were too country for the rock label to sign us, and we were too rock for the country label to sign us, and we were too pop for this, and too not-pop enough.
“We’ve always been in this little lane of us.”
Country eventually moved towards them. “When Eric Church and Big & Rich and Jason Aldean brought a little bit of edge to country music back in the, you know, 2010 or whatever, that area, we were kind of starting to come up and it worked out good for us.
“We were raised on all of it. We’re from the country. We talk country, we grew up country, we listened to that. But we’re also a four-piece rock band. And we also listened to a lot of pop music growing up. Josh grew up on bluegrass and we grew up on blues and soul. Grandma listened to George Jones and things like that.
“So I think we’ll always have that hodgepodge, which makes our sound us — a little bit of everything in there.”
It is at this point I offer another possible genre. Cowboy band. “That is how we’ll take it.”
They laugh. “I love it. I love it.”
Country-pop, country-rock, cowboy band. Maybe Parmalee really are better off staying in Parmalee Lane. For the band, country itself hasn’t necessarily become better during its recent explosion. It has simply become bigger. “I think it’s always been these aspects of country where it’s kind of moving now. And I just think it’s just doing its thing, like it always does.
“It’s just gotten bigger with people being able to stream and getting accessibility to it. And also blurring genres. It’s called country, but it’s using other genres. There’s more rock and hip hop and everything in country now than it was. And now more Western, to be honest with you, than it has been.
“It’s just blending of everything. And there’s so many subgenres. But I think people are really connecting with it. And it’s awesome to see, to be honest with you.”
“It’s Always Been Let’s Just Keep Going”
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Parmalee’s current success is how long they were prepared to chase it. Two decades together inevitably means there were opportunities to stop. Did they ever seriously consider it? “It’s always been let’s just keep going.”
“Keep going.”
The goals have changed with time. “The more you get along, the idea is to have it be more fun and less stressful and easier, and finding that is sometimes difficult. But that’s more the goal these days.
“The goal was to get a record deal. Let’s get a hit. Let’s tour. And it’s about trying to find a peace and the fun in it, but also still moving forward and being excited and wanting to put out new songs and connecting with more people.
“Coming over to visit you guys for the first time, this is a brand new thing for us. So this is great. It’s a great, great chapter.”
Then comes perhaps the simplest explanation of Parmalee’s entire career. “We just got together to play music for a living and we’re doing that. That’s all we want to do. So that’s making us happy and get to come to England and rock out. It’s a dream come true.”
And Country Calling isn’t intended to be a one-off. “Oh, we’re coming back.”
“We’re going to ramp it up because this is something that we’ve been working on and we know we should have been coming over there and things just didn’t pan out just right.
“So this is the kickstart.”
Parmalee
Bringing The Emotion
UK audiences can expect the hits, but Parmalee are also making room for something a little more emotional. How Do I Let You Go is being added specifically after the band saw how strongly listeners over here were responding to it.
“We’re actually bringing in more. Bringing all the emotion.”
“How Do I Let You Go is one that we’re adding to the list. And it’s really an emotional song for all of us. And due to being able to see the streams and stuff like that, it’s streaming well over there. So we’re thinking we’re going to add that to the set.”
There is another song, however, that still feels like unfinished business. “Roots was a great song back in 2016. We put it out as a single and it just defined us as a band.
“It was one of those songs that just didn’t quite get the shot. We went after it, chased it for like a year. And then all these other big artists put out these slower tempo songs at radio. So it never quite got heard.
“It was just one of those songs that I felt like never quite got its due, but it’s a great song.”
Then there is what comes next. The band reveal a new track, Tomorrow’s Problem, is waiting in the wings. “We have a new track coming out. It’s not dropped yet. It’s called Tomorrow’s Problem. And I cannot wait for people to hear that song.”
As for potential UK collaborations, Parmalee are keeping their options open.
“This is the thing how this stuff happens. You get over here and you meet people. I think the collabs, a lot of times, that happen, that end up doing great are all happenstance.
“That’s the thing I’m looking forward to, coming over and meeting the artists over there that we haven’t had a chance to meet yet.”
Then they throw out a slightly bigger name. “I ain’t gonna lie. I’d love to do something with Harry Styles.” Harry, the ball is apparently in your court.
The Song That Changed Everything
For all the hits that followed, there is one Parmalee song that occupies a different place in the band’s history. Carolina. Asked which song first made them believe they’d found what Parmalee was supposed to sound like, there is little hesitation. “Carolina.”
“It was Carolina. When we finished that song, I think we all collectively said, ‘Okay, this is the sound we’ve been looking for.’
“Because we have a wide range of influences, putting it all together to make all four of us happy was quite a job. But with Carolina, we figured it out.”
That shared decision-making has remained central to the band ever since. It doesn’t mean they always agree. “I think we have our moments, as anybody, any business owners and family people do sometimes,” they admit.
“But I think the more we do this, the less we want to argue and fight over anything and do all that stuff. We kind of learn a lot of lessons, but it still happens. Sometimes you just gotta figure it out.”
“It’s all about communication.”
“You’re never off. You’re always at work no matter where you’re at.”
There is, however, an important line they don’t cross. “If we are arguing about a song or how the set list is going to go or something like that with us, it’s never personal. We don’t have personal beef.”
Maybe that explains how four people can survive decades of touring, recording, successes, disappointments and all the decisions in between. “We Don’t Take Any of It for Granted”
Towards the end of our conversation, I ask what they want someone discovering Parmalee for the first time at Country Calling to understand when they walk away from the stage. The answer strips away the charts, streams and platinum records. “Just know that we appreciate more than anything on this earth to be able to get on that stage and play music and have people work all week and use their paycheck to come pay to see us.
“And I know it takes parking and hotels and babysitters and all that stuff, and we just appreciate it so much.”
Above everything else, though, Parmalee want people to enjoy themselves. “We want them to have fun at the show. That’s the main thing — to leave with a smile and know that we appreciate everybody from the bottom of our hearts that come out and support us and allow us to live this dream.
“We know and we appreciate it.
“We don’t take any of it for granted.”
After more than two decades, six No.1s and billions of streams, Parmalee are finally bringing that dream across the Atlantic. And if the band get their way, this weekend isn’t Britain’s one chance to see them. It is simply the beginning. “We will be back.”
Interview with Parmalee by Henry Finnegan on 11th August 2026. Instagram: @finneganfoto | Facebook: @finneganfoto.
Share Thing