Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, Cole Shugart and Parker Forbes, supporting Sawyer Hill on The Heartbreak Hysteria Tour, lit up The Sinclair with their funky pop-like rock songs, leaving everyone in the crowd pumped with energy for the rest of the night. I got the chance to sit down with the two, known to their online following as The Criticals, after their set to talk about some of the history behind the band and reflect on where they’ve come from and are now. Their complementary personalities and ways of thinking were enlightening, and accompanied by their exhilarating performances, truly proved just how devoted and deserving they are.

Susana: What are your biggest influences—personally or professionally?

Cole: I think when you see our live shows, you can feel pieces of all we’ve listened to growing up. The Stone Roses is the band that Park and I came together on when we were young. Many people think that writing songs is more akin to “let's write something that feels like this,” but what comes out of you is very different from what you listen to.

Parker: When we were making the record in England, we all lived in an apartment above the studio for the two months that we were there. Every night we would try to decompress a little and have dinner together, and sit and listen to some different music, just to get our heads out of what we've been working on for three days straight, because it'll drive you insane if you don't do that. We were making rock music, or whatever you want to call it, then we would listen to super underground UK hardcore hip hop. That's sort of the only way to keep your brain creative. 

C: We're kind of in a weird era where everything is happening all at once. It's hard to find an identity inside of that world, but at the end of the day, what comes out of you when you're against the blind stone, when you're drunk and you're just with your homie—that's all that matters. 

S: I can tell this bond is really strong. Can I ask how you both met?

P: We met at a summer music camp called Kids on Stage.

S: Okay, so full circle.

P: Yeah. I was born in a really small town in West Tennessee, and when we moved to Nashville, I was super nervous. I didn't play music at all, but I'd always loved music. I got a drum kit for my 10th birthday and started playing a little, and my parents were like, “You need to go to this music camp.” And I was like, “But I'm terrible!” and they were like, “Well, you might meet some people.” Cole and I didn't play in the same band, but we met that first summer there, played a bunch of different projects together live and in the studio over the years. Then, when I tapped out on going to school in LA when I was 19 and wanted to move back home, we got reconnected and started writing songs. 

S: So I'm guessing when you came back when you were 19 and decided to really pursue this, your parents were supportive. 

P: Yeah, they were for sure. But they also, same as Cole’s, didn’t really know—

C: “How does this work?”

P: Yeah. “How does this work?” It’s not like going to school, getting your degree, and being guaranteed a job. For music and all art, you just have to go out all the time and meet anyone you can and try to be good enough.

C: My parents were a little different. They always wanted to support me growing up, but they didn't know how because they weren’t in music. They didn't understand what the scope of the music industry was.

S: So what was it like making that commitment?

C: There is nothing more than playing music with your friends. What are we gonna do? Sit on a desk? We have jobs. We have to gruel outside of playing music, and it makes it so much more worth it. That's all that we've ever known. That's all that we want to do. So, why shouldn't it happen to us? 

S: If you weren’t in a band, what would you be doing? 

C: I would be at National Park. Fucking ranger, probably. 

P: I don't know what I'd be doing. Probably either be dead or I'd be living in like Vietnam or something, just riding mopeds all over the place—farming, hiking, living on $20 a week. 

S: So this was the path that was “it” for you?

P: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Before I started playing drums, I remember getting my first album, Future Sex Love Sounds by Justin Timberlake, when I was six or seven. I was surprised my mom let me get it because I grew up pretty religious, but she knew I was excited about something, so she didn't think much of it. I didn't know anything about music, but I just remember sitting there for hours and hours, and I would open up that gatefold and just read the lyrics, and I was like, “My God, what?” I just started dancing to it, and that opened my mind. By the time I was nine or 10 and I had gotten some more records, all I wanted to do when I got home from school was dance. I felt like this was a part of me, and eventually that turned into wanting to play instruments and write songs. I just felt so connected to it. 

C: As you get older, you start to see more things and more avenues of what you want to do and how that could fruition into a career. Living in Nashville is a lot of that. Getting to see older people who are successful, who might live on the Mansion, the Hill, makes you think, “Okay, they can do it. I can do it.”

FLASH ROUND

S: Go to karaoke song?

P: “All My Ex’s Live In Texas” – George Strait.

C:  I don't do karaoke, but “Slip Away” – Clarence Carter. 

S: Favorite song of all time? 

C: “Babylon” – David Gray.

P: “Levon” – Elton John.

S: Favorite song right now? 

C: “I’m All Fucked Up” – This Is Lorelei.

P: “Baby Be Mine” – Michael Jackson (Demo)

S: Guilty pleasure song?

C: “Dragostea Din Tei” – O-Zone.

P: What would be a guilty pleasure? I don't know. I don't think there are guilty pleasures in music. 

S: I don't think so either.

P: I mean, I love “Rockstar – Nickelback”. 

S: What was the first concert you ever went to?

C: James Taylor at Starwood. 

P: Keith Urban at FedEx Forum in Memphis. 

S: What were you like in high school? 

C: Same as I am now. Just misunderstood. 

P: I was, if you can believe it, a bigger dumbass than I am now. I didn't know anything about the world at all. One of my favorite things that this career has given me is getting to travel and have so many crazy, weird, cool, sad, happy experiences every day for a month. And then we go home for a month, and then do it again. 

S: Can you tease any upcoming shows or any new music?

C: We have a record that we made in the UK coming out this fall, and we're doing Lollapalooza and a festival called Ohana at Sad Betters Festival, and then a headlining tour all over the US, a full North American tour in the fall. 

P: And we’re doing Shaky Knees in Atlanta.

// Susana Demian ‘28 is a DJ and staff writer for Record Hospital.