This Week’s Backstage Country Host: Parker McCollum

For this week in Backstage Country, Elaina Smith will be joined by none other than Parker McCollum! The country crooner who’s had four number one songs, won two ACM awards will talk about his latest self-titled album and what fans and listeners want to know about how it is to live the life of a country music star. 

Smith asked McCollum about “Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues” featuring Cody Johnson and how the collaboration happened. He chuckled, “It was me very nervously wanting to ask him for a while to sing this song with me.  I have so much respect for Cody, and I pay really close attention to how he runs his career, and how he carries himself. I just pay attention to how they do things, and I try to emulate them. I don't try to emulate their music or their songwriting or anything like that. Just the way that they’re such high character individuals and they represent themselves so well.” 

He continued, “So I've always been such a fan of Cody, and now he's a buddy of mine. I've been open to him for years, especially back home in Texas. Cody's always kind of been a little bit older than I am. Someone I've looked up to.  I just love his voice. It's one of my favorite voices in country music ever.  

I just always would listen to the song [and thought], ‘Man, Cody would just murder that. He would kill it.’ And he did; he really brought it on this track. But I was so nervous to ask him, just because I don't want to be annoying.” He laughed, “You don't wanna be the guy that's bugging him to do a song. And in this one I knew it could kind of be a deep cut song, and it wasn't like, ‘Hey, I'm trying to advance my career by having you on a song, that's not what it is at all.’ I don't even think like that. I just always like to be very considerate of his time and what he's done and everything, and who he is. So, I was pretty nervous to ask him.”  

Smith told McCollum that she finds him humble and simply grateful for everything. It's something he admitted his father often points out, saying, “You're too humble. You just gotta hang it out there a little bit more sometimes.” But McCollum added, “I don’t like that. I never want anything about my career to be about me. I just want it to be about the songs.” 

As this week’s Backstage Country host, he’s giving us a front-row seat to the stories behind the music, the lessons he’s learned, and the passion that drives every track. Don’t miss out! Listen to Parker McCollum’s latest self-titled album here.