This time, we get to know Danny Parkin. His track "Be Free" is featured in the New Artist Spotlight Family of Playlists.
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𝟭. Where are you from and what are your hobbies?
I'm from Kitchener, Ontario. Big surprise here, it's mainly music right now, haha. Outside of that, probably fishing, hockey and snowmobiling/motocross/mountain biking to name a few.
𝟮. How did your get into music?
I didn't find music too interesting until I eventually discovered the classics and started to realize there was more to rock than Green Day. I was probably about 13 at the time. When you're listening to music like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, picking up a guitar became an easy decision at some point. Once I started playing the guitar my interest really started to ramp up and soon all my free time was going into anything to do with a guitar.
𝟯. Who are your biggest influences?
I would definitely have to give a big shout out to Eric Johnson. I studied his stuff a ton definitely adopted a lot of his tendencies and mannerisms into my own playing. As far as producing and songwriting goes, U2 and Metric are definitely up there as notable influences.
4. What are your goals in the music industry?
Honestly, I never started writing and producing music with the purpose of releasing them. I'm currently sitting on 7 fully produced tracks, with only one of them released (Be Free). At this point, I'm just wondering if there are people out there who want to hear the sound I'm chasing.
5. If you could choose a location to perform at, what would it be?
This may sound underwhelming but I'd actually go with the KEXP studio in Seattle. It's a comfy little studio with amazing production and sound, Kevin Cole is also splendid!
6. What is your all-time favorite song?
My taste is always changing as I continue to explore new genres. My current favorite band and song right now for example might be Oh Wonder's Without You, by next week it'll probably have changed already. The productions are really amazing, and mixing in the indie pop genre as a whole are super strong. Big soundstages with lots of smaller melodic elements coming in and out, good use of samples and sounds that make things interesting.
7. Most embarrassing moment?
A screwed up a guitar solo at one of my first bigger events I was performing at. It was all improvisation and I played it off, but it was a bit disappointing personally at the time. A few years later at the Kitchener Blues Festival I had a similar incident. Both songs were in A major, so .. I've come to the conclusion that the key of A is cursed....
8. Proudest accomplishment?
Whatever the latest song I produced is almost always my proudest accomplishment. It's part of what keeps me going. Even if nobody else on earth heard the track, I'd still go and produce it all over again.
9. What is something about you that might surprise someone who knows you the best?
I don't talk about myself much, so probably many things as silly as that sounds. I've always had a bit of a reputation for randomly whipping out a skill or interest nobody knew I had. For example, I used to work in a bakery as a baker while in college, I'll never talk about it, but I still do practice baking. So one day you might receive an amazing birthday cake out of nowhere before we go kayaking for the weekend or something completely random like that.
𝟭𝟬. What is your dream collaboration?
I'd be really curious what working with Teal Douville would be like. You can hear his work on Ryan Caraveos stuff and it's amazing.
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