From the canyons of Utah comes a band with a deep mountain sound and a fresh outdoorsy energy. This band, called The National Parks, is one big happy family of talented musicians, and I was lucky enough not only to see them perform live but also to have a wonderful conversation with two of their members.
Brady Parks and Cam Brannelly, both from Salt Lake City, Utah, got their start in the music world pretty early on. The young musicians began jamming out on their own at about 13 years old until their initial collaboration in 2013. Just a short three years later, The National Parks was born. Parks mentioned that even when they perform today, it isn’t much different than their first show all those years ago.
“I think that’s what I love about it is because you still have that same feeling that you did when you first started, but you have more experience and more confidence,” said Brady Parks, the band’s frontman.
Inspired by artists such as Coldplay, Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons, Maggie Rogers, and The 1975, The National Parks combines folk-pop and warm campfire sounds. Speaking of campfires, let’s talk about the great Campfire Tour of 2020. To wrap up 2019, the band had just finished working on their album, Wildflower, which was released in June 2020. It was a project they were extremely proud of, rightfully so, but the release was pushed back several months because there was just no way to introduce this album to the fans in person the way the band wanted to. So they got creative.
“When places started opening up to groups of like 50 around the country, we did this tour that we called The Campfire Tour and we played in people’s backyards all around the country in groups of 50 like around a campfire.” Parks continues, “It was a really magical tour in a lot of ways, and we still kind of put some acoustic elements into our set because it was such a unique thing for us to learn how to do those songs.”
Believe it or not, I got to see some of the incorporation of those acoustic vibes into their live set later that night. The band quickly wrote “Campfire Song,” backstage and performed it with the help of the audience around one microphone with two guitars, a banjo, a harmonica, and a fiddle. It was truly an amazing performance to watch because you could see the pure joy spreading from the faces of the band to each person in the audience that night. Describing the tour for their most recent album, The 8th Wonder as “a new day, like a new sun rising, and [feeling] very alive again,” the wholesome camaraderie each member brought to the stage truly emulated the themes embedded into each track on the album.
Taking the two back in time a bit, I asked them what their 2013 selves would say if they got the chance to watch the band perform today. Brannelly immediately said, “I actually think about that a lot…if I’m ever just not feeling good or the show didn’t turn out how you expected it was going to be, I always picture playing to my younger self. And just to put it in perspective, my younger self would be pumped. Like, ‘Oh look at you go!’” Parks visualized the evolution of the band and said that his younger self would appreciate them taking “a step back into [their] roots,” staying consistent in some respects but showing growth in others. My final question came from the fangirl in me when I asked them about the writing process of their song “1953,” which I constantly had on repeat at the age of twelve. Parks responded, “That song is actually about my grandparents. So, um, after my grandpa passed away, my grandma had severe dementia, and so I remember just feeling kind of intrigued by their story and I called my mom up and just asked her to fill me in on their life and how they met and started dating and started a family.” About halfway through the song, you can hear these two voices talking, which are actually Parks’ grandparents, speaking about their story from a recording that Parks’ brother had done several years earlier:
“And you were my brother’s friend. Years later, my father said, ‘You know, I think he’s coming to see you.’”
“It could be true.”
“It is true!”
“We landed on the right path, I really feel…it was a good life, we’re all very happy.”
Exhibiting humility and passion for their craft, Brannelly and Parks gave me a glimpse into the life of their band, to which I am forever grateful. Watching them perform showed me how much they truly love what they’re doing, and I wish them luck in all the years to come. Check out some photos we took at their performance here.