What Parmalee Really Does After the Show

From January 5-9, Matt and Scott Thomas, Barry Knox, and Josh McSwain, collectively known as Parmalee, are Elaina Smith's co-hosts. For a band that spent 2025 touring, they disclose their post-show routines and rituals that have become essential to surviving life on the road and how they decompress once the lights go down.  

Parmalee’s post-show routines include food, lots of food. Scott said, “You’re pretty wired. I mean, you just can’t help it. The energy just takes a couple of hours, but usually lately, our tour manager just puts a lot of food as soon as we get on the bus. Your kind of hungered in that’ll kind of slow you down.”  

He added that their routines have now changed from when they were starting. “We stayed up later, a couple of years ago. Now, we’re trying to wind down a little earlier.” Josh piped in that when they were touring in 2014, they usually stayed up until three or four in the morning after they got off the stage, “Depends on the load in, was the next one.”  

Now, Scott disclosed they go to bed at 12:00 midnight to one-ish AM. Josh joked, “The clock on the bus is never right, so it’s hard to tell.” Scott added, “Different time zones. We’re crossing time zones, so you really don’t know.”   

Smith asked the band about their criteria to bring someone with them as part of their touring team. Scott said it’s important that they’re easy to hang out with. “A great attitude, no Debbie downers. No drama. No one that is aggressive, like very aggressive.” He chuckled, “Cleanliness. Deodorant, we got you. We need foot spray, that’s very important. Soap? We got ya.”  

Smith asked if that happened to people they were touring with. Scott quipped, “Yeah. How do you think we got to this conversation? Sometimes there’s 12 pairs of sneakers,” Matt added, “And it’s summertime.”