With the passing of The Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts on Tuesday, fans across the globe are looking back at the legacy of the legendary rock band. And you can count “Pretty Little Heart” hitmaker Parker McCollum among them.
The Texas native credits the Stones as a pivotal influence, particularly on his latest hit, “To Be Loved by You.”
“Exile on Main Street was my first introduction to the Stones,” Parker explains. “My brother got that record for me when I was, I think, nineteen. The summer I’d just graduated high school, I moved to Austin ten days after I graduated high school.”
“[He] and I were living together and we were in a big-time Rolling Stones phase,” Parker continues. “That whole record’s great.”
A track from the band’s 1994 record even found a regular pace in Parker’s set when he was starting out.
“The one song — it’s kind of off of a forgotten album, I think, or an overlooked album that they have. It’s called Voodoo Lounge. And there’s a song called ‘Blinded by Rainbows’ on there I used to cover all the time in my acoustic set way back in the day.”
Parker even believes you can hear the influence of Mick Jagger and company on his debut album, Gold Chain Cowboy.
“Exile on Main Street was a record we — I think we broke it we played it so much,” he recalls. “And I feel like those songs on that record had a lot to do with kind of how my music’s shaping up today.”
Right now, Parker’s on Dierks Bentley‘s Beers on Me Tour, with Riley Green.
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