“Parker Woodland is stopping back in Austin at the midpoint of our September tour so we can play HAAM Day, Austin Peace & Justice Fest, and a Sonic Guild showcase, because the local music community is truly home,” lead singer/bassist Erin Walter declares in an email.
“It’s important to me, having grown up in Austin, to find ways to give back.”
Performing on HAAM Day isn’t the only way the activist pop trio is giving back to the community. The Bandcamp proceeds from their latest single, “Get Me to the Show,” will benefit the nonprofit today through Sept. 24.
“‘Get Me to the Show’ is about loving life as a musician, even when people tell you you should be doing something else, and HAAM is one of the organizations that makes that music life possible,” Walter explains. “Being a HAAM member supports my voice therapy and my YMCA membership, [and was] my source of health insurance when I lost my job during the COVID pandemic. HAAM is also such a community of people who love music. It’s a constant affirmation that music is valued and important.”
The power pop group worked with new collaborators for this single, welcoming a series of firsts for the band. Producer Stuart Sullivan (Butthole Surfers, Sublime) hopped in on drum engineering, and the Belle Sounds’ Noëlle Hampton helped with vocal production and backing vocals.
“I’ll never forget the ‘aha!’ moments, like writing the bridge and finding what feels like an outer space vocal treatment for my voice near the end. This is our first time with Andrew Solin, our guitarist, producing and mixing the song, and our drummer Keri Cinquina and I co-producing,” Walter says. “We’ve been playing together for three years now, and ‘Get Me to the Show’ represents so much learning and evolving behind the scenes for us, sonically, as friends, and as a band.”
Parker Woodland’s 2024 debut album There’s No Such Thing As Time is a 10-song work of Nineties-inspired “sparkly odes to the apocalypse,” the Chronicle wrote at the time. The playfully fuzzy tracks tackle everything from fleeting punk romance to the social and planetary threats of transphobia and climate change with anthemic prowess. Since the album’s release, the colorful trio has been on and off the road and working on new material.
“I love touring, but I absolutely cannot wait to get home and finish writing our next album together,” Walter writes. Wrapped up in philanthropic giddiness, the single’s release and Parker Woodland’s HAAM show homecoming stopover are sure to inspire more revolutionary joy for the act’s sparkly protest music – and energize the rest of their September tour.
“‘Get Me to the Show’ is our anthem for proudly being yourself, at any age, whether you’re going to a rock show, a drag show, or just showing up in your daily life,” Walter writes in the single’s press release. “This is a hard time, politically and emotionally, to say the least. We wanted to offer up a song that feels fiercely joyful in the face of so much oppression in Texas and beyond.”
“Get Me to the Show” is available for purchase on Bandcamp. Parker Woodland performs at ABGB for HAAM Day on Sept. 23.
