‘Other Arrangements’
Oklahoma native Parker Millsap returns with eclectic, electric new album
Parker Millsap had a strong reaction the first time he and his band played the title track of his new album live.
“I was like, ‘Hell, yeah, I gotta write more stuff like that,’” he said with a laugh during a recent phone interview from his home base in Nashville, Tennessee. “So, that definitely informed kind of the direction the rest of the record took.
“When we first started touring, it was just acoustic, and so you go in and people expect, like, lyrical tunes and things like that. But then eventually, I just didn’t want to be so sad.”
The native Oklahoman who literally sang about the end times on his 2016 album “The Very Last Day” — which earned him an Americana Music Association Album of The Year nomination, a national TV debut on “Conan” and a showcase of the venerable series “Austin City Limits” — took a new approach and ended up with a new sound on his new album.
Aptly titled “Other Arrangements,” the eclectic and (mostly) electric12-song collection is out Friday via Thirty Tigers.
“For me, all the albums have been very different, because I’ve been a different person while I’m making ‘em. Especially just where I am at in my life: The difference between making a record at 19 years old and 21 years old and then 24 years old, that’s kind of big leaps when you’re that young. So, I always feel like I’m changing and my music has to, as well, or else I’m not being honest with myself,” said Millsap, who turned 25 in February.
“I feel like on the last records, I was writing lyrics that were very much stories that I could very much hold at arm’s length and say, ‘Well, that’s not about me. This is a character.’ … But these songs are just, I think, a little more literal and a little less abstracted.”
Not only are the songs more direct, but they also lead straight back to Millsap’s home state, as he opens his album release tour with three Oklahoma shows: Friday and Saturday at Norman’s Sooner Theatre, which was expanded from a one-night event to twoafter Friday’s show quickly sold out, and Sunday in Perkinswith the Cimarron Breeze Concert Series, which also rapidly ran out of tickets.
“That’s pretty rad. I feel pretty grateful, pretty lucky,” Millsap said. “It’s great every time we come home and play. It’s a blast. I always see tons of people that I don’t see any other time. It’s like a little homecoming.”
Trusting his voice
“Other Arrangements” was the first album the Purcell native penned since he and his bandmates— fiddler Daniel Foulks and bassist Michael Rose— relocated in 2015 to Nashville, Tennessee, where co-writing is the go-to approach for crafting songs.
“It’s kind of a different experience. But I enjoy it every time I do it,” Millsap said.
“Other Arrangements” closes with the deceptively pretty kiss-off “Come Back When You Can’t Stay,” which he and co-writer Jillette Johnson jokingly nicknamed after a popular dating app because the lyrics are “like if you went on a Tinder date and it wasn’t that amazing.” It is one of the new songs on which Millsap swiped past his signature growling vocal style.
“I’m learning to just trust my voice how it is and not have to
try and sound like I’m emoting all the time,” Millsap said. “I like trying to get different textures out of my voice. I don’t think of any instrument as just making one sound or one kind of sound. A lot of my favorite singers are capable of a wide range of vocal noises, like Mick Jagger or Tom Waits or even like Ella Fitzgerald.”
Electric and experimental
His voice wasn’t the only instrument that Millsap experimented with on the album, which is markedly more electric and less acoustic than his previous recordings.
“I’ve played electric guitar for about as long as I’ve played guitar. For a long time, I just was focused on songwriting, and it seemed easier to write songs on acoustic guitar. But once we started playing with a drummer, I started writing some songs I wanted people to move to, I just started playing electric guitar ‘cause I like it,” said Millsap, who has been working with Tulsa-based percussionist Paddy Ryan. “It’s loud, and it’s fun. You can get more sounds of it, and there’s pedals and amps to play with.”
After rising to national prominence as an Americana artist with two albums noted for their religious imagery and literary lyrics, Millsap said he was ready to have some fun with “Other Arrangements,” which he likens more to a great 1970s rock radio station. The new album jumps irrepressibly from the
straight-up rock of the lead-off track “Fine Line,” to the bluesy groove of “Tell Me,” to the sexy acoustic ballad “Good Night” and the pointed pop-punk musings of “Some People.”
“I listen to a lot of different kinds of music. I hardly ever listen to Americana-type music. I listen to a lot of jazz and R&B and soul and old blues music and, like, The Beatles and whatever,” Millsap said.
“My favorite compliment is like, ‘I listen to your CD every day on the way to work.’ I think about, ‘Well, if I was going on a drive, I wouldn’t want to listen to the same kind of thing for 12 tracks. I’d want to be taken through the range of emotions.’ And that’s the way a good radio playlist works: They get you hopped up for a few songs, and then they pull you back.”
Building confidence
Like 2016’s “The Very Last Day,” “Other Arrangements” was co-produced with Grammy Award-winning engineer/ producer Gary Paczosa and Grammy-winning engineer Shani Gandhi. But Millsap and his bandmates went into Echo Mountain Recording in Asheville, North Carolina, with a different approach.
“‘The Very Last Day,’ we rehearsed almost exactly what was on the album … and this record, about a third of the songs we had been playing live and then about a third of them we had played like a couple times but never really tried them
live. And then the other third were just kind of brand-new to me and everybody,” Millsap said. “I think that provided everybody enough wiggle room to really just play— and make it not feel like work.”
Considering the acclaim he received for “The Very Last Day,” some might consider Millsap’s choice to shake up his style risky. Along with the television showcases and the Americana Music Association nomination, he was invited to perform with Sir Elton John at the Apple Music Festival in London. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer even declared that one of Millsap’s shows “restored my faith in music.”
Instead, Millsap said he’s excited to shake up his shows with his fun new songs.
“I think that those things provide like confidence for me. Those things are wonderful, but for me, the goal was not necessarily to rack up a bunch of ‘Well, I check this off my list; I check that off my list.’ It’s more about expressing myself instead of impressing myself. I try to stay focused on that, and I’m just grateful for any opportunities that come our way. If I wasn’t singing songs at ‘Austin City Limits,’ I’d be singing them at The Deli,” he said, referring to the tiny Norman venue where he’s been a frequent performer.
“A lot of these songs, we’ve played them live, but just not a lot. So, I’m excited to get ‘em out there and whip ‘em into shape.”