Interview with Parachute

Kelly: I know you guys changed your name, you were originally Sparky’s Flow,  so how did you come up with Parachute?

Parachute: First word that wasn’t taken. Honestly, and that we all liked. There’s no meaning to it, I wish there were.

Kelly: The inspiration behind your love songs, is that from personal experience?

Parachute: Always. People call me a pompadour of love. I have a lot of experience from it, the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, so I generally write about that

Kelly: If you guys weren’t in music, what would you be doing?

Parachute: Construction probably. We have a contracting company together. Probably, Dude and Bros Construction.

Kelly: Do you guys ever fight over the creative direction of the band?

Parachute: Yes, but I win [joking]. No we don’t really fight about it, we’re on the same page about a lot. Obviously, there will be disagreements, but for the overall sound we all like what we do.

Kelly: Do you guys ever fight over girls?

Parachute: [laughing] always always [joking] No, never

Kelly: Any pre-concert rituals or superstitions?

Parachute: Pound a Red Bull and do some vocal warmups. We have a chant that we always say, local celebrities, we just get it going. We all put our hands in the middle and pick a local celebrity, and chant his or her name. It’s true.

Kelly: If you could give one piece of advice to college bands, what would it be?

Parachute: Play as much as you can, anywhere and everywhere. Be shameless. You can’t afford to be cool.

Kelly: If you could perform anywhere and with anyone, what would be your dream venue/performer?

Parachute: Pitbull, No Doubt, Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Kelly: What’s been your biggest challenge as a band?

Parachute: Waking up early. Making it onto the 5:15 a.m. flight. The schedule, I think is always the hardest. It’s a lot of travel, which is great cause we like traveling, bad when you don’t get much sleep. But, if that’s the work we have to do, it ain’t too bad.

Interview with Radical Something

Kelly: Explain the three nicknames you guys are given.

RS: My nickname is from my football coach in college, my last name is Lagemann so he called me Loggy. Big Red because he’s big and he’s a ginger. And Josh, he looks like Tom Cruise from the movie Cocktail, so we call him Josh Cocktail.

Kelly: Do you prefer East or West Coast?

RS: There’s no preferred. Wherever we are is what we prefer.

Kelly: Do you feel more success in a certain coast?

RS: No, everywhere you go, it’s awesome and there’s bigger shows in some places but East Coast and West Coast are pretty sizable, like big markets, always.

Kelly: Who would you ideally want to tour/perform with?

RS: You know, maybe a Dirty Heads or 311 or Incubus. It’s kind of interesting, we have a lot of different influences in our sound, so we’re kind of like the odd man out, we don’t really fit into one place, so we can kind of tour with lots of different acts. We toured in the spring with Krewella and that fall we toured with it’s polar opposite, and that’s something that we love. I have no idea who we’re gonna tour with, and I don’t even know who I want to! Maybe X Ambassadors or Parachute. This is such a dope bill though, like it really hits all. We talked to X Ambassadors and they’re super nice and I really like their music.

Kelly: Do you guys have any pre-concert rituals?

RS: Not really. It’s kind of funny, some people get all pumped up and do prayers and stuff and we kind of look at each other and laugh and roll.

Kelly: One piece of advice to college bands, what would it be?

RS: My advice for college bands is that being proactive in terms of right now. Music is so democratic that everyone has the ability to create and do it, and it’s all about who’s going to take the extra steps, who’s going to sleep in the car, who’s going to drive 15 hours to a show where they lose money, who’s gonna be the ones that own their sound and be superstars and drive themselves towards it. We’ve had big breaks and we’ve had horrible horrible horrible letdowns in between, it’s just like be prepared for the rollercoaster that music is.

Kelly: If you guys weren’t in music, what would you be doing?

RS: [Loggy] I would’ve tried and failed for the NFL and then would’ve probably started some sort of tie dye bro-tank company. I’m totally kidding, I have no idea. [Big Red] I think we kind of, we sort of slipped into music in a weird way. We didn’t think this was going to be our lives really, and it sort of happened, so I think we were getting out of college and we were like we don’t know what we’re gonna do and then we were like let’s do music and see if it works for a little bit and now we’re here years later. [Loggy] I would probably…I’d be having fun somewhere. Selling my body. Be a male stripper [Loggy].