May 9, 2026 • 8 mins
Wes Parker came by to play in the DC101 Sound Stage and it was really fun getting to hear his music and talk to him with our live audience!
We talked about how the tour has been going great aside from a few minor van mishaps, not being shy and having fun with the videos that he posts, how hard it is to sing underwater, the excitement of his new album 'Super Rare' that's coming out in June 5th, being on the All Things Go Festival at Merriweather and what we'll be seeing soon and down the road.
Big thanks to Wes and his band for coming to play at the Sound Stage. I hope you get to check out his music and see the show. Wes is ready to take it to the next level!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you. Wes.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Parker's here in our DC one on one sound stage.
Thank you Wes. Thank you guys for coming out today.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Yeah, thanks for having us, y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Absolutely, guys give it up for West Parker. You're on
the tail end of a pretty long tour going on
right now. How's it been out on the road for
this run.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It's been good. It's been really actually, it's been great. Yeah,
I will say yeah, it's always a bumpy start getting
back on the road after like the winter and I
have to like get my road legs back, But once
they're back, it goes pretty smoothly.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, no catastrophes, no disasters on tour or anything.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's been good.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, if you have any good catastrophe or disaster stories,
we love.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
To hear them.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, we had van trouble. We blew Well, I'll just
say this. We spent a whole day trying to figure
out how to replace the van that we took seats
out of and left in Richmond, and we wound up
at the Charleston Airport in South Carolina, and it was
like we were sneakily sneaking the seats into another van
and I don't know it's we finally had it figured out.
We pulled up to the venue like we did it, like,
(01:08):
can't believe we pulled that off. And then we got
out of the car and had just realized we ran
over a screw. So I was like, oh shit. But
I saw this guy working on his car down the street,
so I went and asked him and he just fixed
it for us.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Oh okay, well very convenient.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Then.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, the road gods smiled upon you that day for
sure and balanced out. You guys are here tonight in
DC at Songbird and some of the other places you've
gone to, Phoenix, Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado, Seattle, Chicago, Columbus.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Would you have been some of your favorite places you've
gotten to hit?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We were out in Joshua Tree. This was last year,
but like, the whole West Coast is just really pretty.
But I really liked our time in the desert. Yeah, uh, Chicago,
We love Chicago, but it feels really good to be
back on the East coast. Like we kind of celebrated
last night just because we pulled into DC and we
were like, let's drink some wine.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
No place like home.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, truly exactly exactly, and also along the way too.
If you guys haven't been watching, West does really funny
videos while he's out on tour. I don't want to
say no shame, but no holding back at that's a
better way to say it. But he's got some really
funny stuff on Instagram at fat Underscore, Wes dancing into
dsw pulling up on friends and a pontoon boat out
(02:24):
in the lake. You're at a median strip in the
middle of the road, singing your song with a recorder
in there and everything. Do you just see stuff and
you're like, I've got an idea, boys, give me five minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Sometimes on tour I feel like we don't really. I
actually am not able to film probably as much as
I should for like the amount of music that we
have coming out. But yeah, it's more so at home.
I don't know we film really anything on tour. Have
we filmed anything? I don't think so. No skits, a
lot of photos. It's always I always need photos, Gotta
take pictures, social media. It's like the way of the
(02:58):
music industry now.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, well, all your focus on the music right now
and the tour and everything, so lakes can wait.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Till the summer.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You can get drink to coming out of the lake,
like the Creature from the Black Lagoon in the middle
of the summer. I did want to talk about though,
there was I guess you put.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
It up in a couple of videos.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You're underwater singing a song and you said you almost
drowned doing that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, Brian was with me. He filmed that on a
go Pro and yeah, I don't know, like we were
trying to lip sync it underwater. In my head, it
seemed like it was going to be easy, but it
was way more challenging than I thought it would be because
you have to blow out all your air to be
able to sink for the filming to work, and then
you don't have any air and you're trying to lip sync.
It's terrible, and.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That's you're you're at the bottom of a pool.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
You're like, all right, I blew on my air out,
But now I got to do my song too, and
do a couple of minutes of this. But people are
calling you Nirvana baby for it, which is pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, And I could see West Parker naked on an
album cover down the road. Yeah, yeah, that might happen.
At something, I hope.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So talking about albums though, and it's actually right there.
There's the cover of the new album. They're super rare
with that cow of the bonfire and everything. Wes has
his first album coming out in a couple of weeks. Man, excited, nervous,
a bit of everything.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm proud of the record. I think
it's it's like a real kind of slice of me
or something. It doesn't feel like it feels kind of
in a way, piece together from like old stuff, new stuff,
stuff recorded in the studio with these guys, stuff recorded
at home in the apartment. It's just a little bit
of everything in that way. It feels kind of like a,
(04:32):
you know, a bunch of puzzle pieces for my life
kind of in one So I feel good about it
in that sense.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
How long, like, how long did it take to put
it all together?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Was there recording back in the fall, stop for a
little bit, back and forth, or all at once.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, some of the songs on there are off of
the first two EPs that we recorded, so there's some
of that technically, if you're factoring that in, I guess
it's a couple of years in the making. But I mean, really,
we put out an ep in on hell of last
year and then this album was finished, I guess last month,
so it's it's kind of an I don't it's somehow
(05:08):
turned around really fast. But some like I said, there's
some old stuff that's going on there and some old
stuff that's never been heard. So yeah, I don't know.
It's a couple of years to answer your.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Question, right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
But also you said finished last month, so good you
don't have to wait like a year until it comes out.
Because there are some bands that say we're already done.
This Incubus comes to mind. They said they've done their album,
but it's still not out yet, so at some point.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It will be.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I don't like sitting on music for too long.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Waiting has to be the worst part.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And with the new album, you got all the shows
going on, like I said, tonight at Songbird in DC,
Philly's coming up, New York, Kansas City, all things go
too big news there. You're gonna be at the festival
in September back here at Merriweather So that's huge.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's a big it's a big deal. I
didn't like I was talking to some of ell earlier.
I don't know. I didn't know that it was a
big deal. I don't know much about festivals, but having
done the release the other day, or because they they
don't show you the lineup beforehand at all, so I
didn't know. I was like, all things go cool, I
don't I don't know. I don't really know what that.
I've heard of it, but I didn't know. And then
when they the day we announced, they dropped the flyer
(06:09):
and I was like, oh, this is like I see,
I see, this is like yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
They kept you guys in the dark about it too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So like yeah, totally, I I mean right, like I
don't know. I'm sorry. I'm like looking at my manager,
I'm like, we didn't know the lineup until the day of.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So like Hayley Williams is on there, Brandy Carlisle, Lula Young,
Rainbow Kitting Surprise.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Huge Week had to be a part of too.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Wes is going to be playing on Friday, right, Yeah,
Friday on Friday, So if you guys want to go
to all things, go get the Friday tickets.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
That's gonna be the best day of the whole weekend.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It's absolutely it is. It is what uh wes? What
are some of your like your goals? Right now?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You got the album coming out, the tour is going
to wrap up and probably a lot more shows coming.
But short term for right now, what's the goal? And
then long term over the next couple of years.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Short term is uh finished this tour out with no
more van tires blowing out? And I mean long term
is is you know, I hope people like the record.
I'm excited, I'm proud of it. I'm excited to just
put it out. But yeah, long term is is write
another record. I'm I'm already excited. I think a lot
of musicians feel this way. It's like got one coming out,
(07:16):
already excited for the next thing. I'm excited to start
writing again. I'm in this place where like when you
when you're sitting on an album, it's like promotion, promotion, promotion.
It's just like you have to you know, if you
want people to hear it, you got to promote it.
But it's starting to feel like that sweet spot of like, oh,
like writing music feels like I'm breaking the rules a
little bit, like I have to sneak away to write music.
So I'm starting to have the like the I'm starting
(07:37):
to drool over the thought of songwriting. So yeah, I
think the long term it's it's another record.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Getting the bug again and maybe it sound check? Guys,
I got some ideas.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
What do you Yeah? Oh, the sound check is the best.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And I know you're gonna be uh in a couple
of weeks when the album comes out.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
June fifth, you guys are playing did I see Kansas City?
Is that? Is that right that night?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Something like that?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Are you what when you get back home?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Or you're gonna have an album release party with your
friends and everything back in Richmond?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yes we are. We're playing at in Richmond at the
camel On I guess June twelfth.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, bring it on back home, do this blowout for everyone.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wait, that'll be awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well we got you guys tonight at Songbird back here
in DC for all things go later this year, you guys.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Want some more music with Wes.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Let's get some more Wes Parker's here in our DCTO
one soundstage.
Thank you. Wes.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Parker's here in our DC one on one sound stage.
Thank you Wes. Thank you guys for coming out today.
Really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
Yeah, thanks for having us, y'all.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Absolutely, guys give it up for West Parker. You're on
the tail end of a pretty long tour going on
right now. How's it been out on the road for
this run.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
It's been good. It's been really actually, it's been great. Yeah,
I will say yeah, it's always a bumpy start getting
back on the road after like the winter and I
have to like get my road legs back, But once
they're back, it goes pretty smoothly.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
No, no catastrophes, no disasters on tour or anything.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
That's been good.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Okay, if you have any good catastrophe or disaster stories,
we love.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
To hear them.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, we had van trouble. We blew Well, I'll just
say this. We spent a whole day trying to figure
out how to replace the van that we took seats
out of and left in Richmond, and we wound up
at the Charleston Airport in South Carolina, and it was
like we were sneakily sneaking the seats into another van
and I don't know it's we finally had it figured out.
We pulled up to the venue like we did it, like,
(01:08):
can't believe we pulled that off. And then we got
out of the car and had just realized we ran
over a screw. So I was like, oh shit. But
I saw this guy working on his car down the street,
so I went and asked him and he just fixed
it for us.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Oh okay, well very convenient.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Then.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, the road gods smiled upon you that day for
sure and balanced out. You guys are here tonight in
DC at Songbird and some of the other places you've
gone to, Phoenix, Denver, Fort Collins, Colorado, Seattle, Chicago, Columbus.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Would you have been some of your favorite places you've
gotten to hit?
Speaker 3 (01:40):
We were out in Joshua Tree. This was last year,
but like, the whole West Coast is just really pretty.
But I really liked our time in the desert. Yeah, uh, Chicago,
We love Chicago, but it feels really good to be
back on the East coast. Like we kind of celebrated
last night just because we pulled into DC and we
were like, let's drink some wine.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
No place like home.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, truly exactly exactly, and also along the way too.
If you guys haven't been watching, West does really funny
videos while he's out on tour. I don't want to
say no shame, but no holding back at that's a
better way to say it. But he's got some really
funny stuff on Instagram at fat Underscore, Wes dancing into
dsw pulling up on friends and a pontoon boat out
(02:24):
in the lake. You're at a median strip in the
middle of the road, singing your song with a recorder
in there and everything. Do you just see stuff and
you're like, I've got an idea, boys, give me five minutes.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Sometimes on tour I feel like we don't really. I
actually am not able to film probably as much as
I should for like the amount of music that we
have coming out. But yeah, it's more so at home.
I don't know we film really anything on tour. Have
we filmed anything? I don't think so. No skits, a
lot of photos. It's always I always need photos, Gotta
take pictures, social media. It's like the way of the
(02:58):
music industry now.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah, well, all your focus on the music right now
and the tour and everything, so lakes can wait.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
Till the summer.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You can get drink to coming out of the lake,
like the Creature from the Black Lagoon in the middle
of the summer. I did want to talk about though,
there was I guess you put.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
It up in a couple of videos.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You're underwater singing a song and you said you almost
drowned doing that.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, Brian was with me. He filmed that on a
go Pro and yeah, I don't know, like we were
trying to lip sync it underwater. In my head, it
seemed like it was going to be easy, but it
was way more challenging than I thought it would be because
you have to blow out all your air to be
able to sink for the filming to work, and then
you don't have any air and you're trying to lip sync.
It's terrible, and.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
That's you're you're at the bottom of a pool.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
You're like, all right, I blew on my air out,
But now I got to do my song too, and
do a couple of minutes of this. But people are
calling you Nirvana baby for it, which is pretty funny.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, And I could see West Parker naked on an
album cover down the road. Yeah, yeah, that might happen.
At something, I hope.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So talking about albums though, and it's actually right there.
There's the cover of the new album. They're super rare
with that cow of the bonfire and everything. Wes has
his first album coming out in a couple of weeks. Man, excited, nervous,
a bit of everything.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm proud of the record. I think
it's it's like a real kind of slice of me
or something. It doesn't feel like it feels kind of
in a way, piece together from like old stuff, new stuff,
stuff recorded in the studio with these guys, stuff recorded
at home in the apartment. It's just a little bit
of everything in that way. It feels kind of like a,
(04:32):
you know, a bunch of puzzle pieces for my life
kind of in one So I feel good about it
in that sense.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
How long, like, how long did it take to put
it all together?
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Was there recording back in the fall, stop for a
little bit, back and forth, or all at once.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Well, some of the songs on there are off of
the first two EPs that we recorded, so there's some
of that technically, if you're factoring that in, I guess
it's a couple of years in the making. But I mean, really,
we put out an ep in on hell of last
year and then this album was finished, I guess last month,
so it's it's kind of an I don't it's somehow
(05:08):
turned around really fast. But some like I said, there's
some old stuff that's going on there and some old
stuff that's never been heard. So yeah, I don't know.
It's a couple of years to answer your.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Question, right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
But also you said finished last month, so good you
don't have to wait like a year until it comes out.
Because there are some bands that say we're already done.
This Incubus comes to mind. They said they've done their album,
but it's still not out yet, so at some point.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It will be.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I don't like sitting on music for too long.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Waiting has to be the worst part.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And with the new album, you got all the shows
going on, like I said, tonight at Songbird in DC,
Philly's coming up, New York, Kansas City, all things go
too big news there. You're gonna be at the festival
in September back here at Merriweather So that's huge.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, yeah, it's a big it's a big deal. I
didn't like I was talking to some of ell earlier.
I don't know. I didn't know that it was a
big deal. I don't know much about festivals, but having
done the release the other day, or because they they
don't show you the lineup beforehand at all, so I
didn't know. I was like, all things go cool, I
don't I don't know. I don't really know what that.
I've heard of it, but I didn't know. And then
when they the day we announced, they dropped the flyer
(06:09):
and I was like, oh, this is like I see,
I see, this is like yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
They kept you guys in the dark about it too.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So like yeah, totally, I I mean right, like I
don't know. I'm sorry. I'm like looking at my manager,
I'm like, we didn't know the lineup until the day of.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So like Hayley Williams is on there, Brandy Carlisle, Lula Young,
Rainbow Kitting Surprise.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Huge Week had to be a part of too.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Wes is going to be playing on Friday, right, Yeah,
Friday on Friday, So if you guys want to go
to all things, go get the Friday tickets.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
That's gonna be the best day of the whole weekend.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
It's absolutely it is. It is what uh wes? What
are some of your like your goals? Right now?
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You got the album coming out, the tour is going
to wrap up and probably a lot more shows coming.
But short term for right now, what's the goal? And
then long term over the next couple of years.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
Short term is uh finished this tour out with no
more van tires blowing out? And I mean long term
is is you know, I hope people like the record.
I'm excited, I'm proud of it. I'm excited to just
put it out. But yeah, long term is is write
another record. I'm I'm already excited. I think a lot
of musicians feel this way. It's like got one coming out,
(07:16):
already excited for the next thing. I'm excited to start
writing again. I'm in this place where like when you
when you're sitting on an album, it's like promotion, promotion, promotion.
It's just like you have to you know, if you
want people to hear it, you got to promote it.
But it's starting to feel like that sweet spot of like, oh,
like writing music feels like I'm breaking the rules a
little bit, like I have to sneak away to write music.
So I'm starting to have the like the I'm starting
(07:37):
to drool over the thought of songwriting. So yeah, I
think the long term it's it's another record.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Getting the bug again and maybe it sound check? Guys,
I got some ideas.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
What do you Yeah? Oh, the sound check is the best.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And I know you're gonna be uh in a couple
of weeks when the album comes out.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
June fifth, you guys are playing did I see Kansas City?
Is that? Is that right that night?
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Something like that?
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Oh yeah, yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Are you what when you get back home?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Or you're gonna have an album release party with your
friends and everything back in Richmond?
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yes we are. We're playing at in Richmond at the
camel On I guess June twelfth.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Okay, bring it on back home, do this blowout for everyone.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wait, that'll be awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Well we got you guys tonight at Songbird back here
in DC for all things go later this year, you guys.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Want some more music with Wes.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Let's get some more Wes Parker's here in our DCTO
one soundstage.
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