Parmalee got to spend a lot of time with Walker Hayes in 2022, when the group was invited to open for Hayes on his Glad You’re Here Tour, which wrapped up in November. The four-man band is well-versed in headlining their own shows, but happily served as Hayes’ opening act, learning plenty about the “Fancy Like” singer, both on and off stage, as a result.

“It was the best tour ever,” lead singer Matt Thomas tells Everything Nash. “He’s easygoing, laid back. Walker kind of came from the same spot we did. You get out there and then everybody shuts you down, and you keep doing your own thing. And now we’re back at it. So, we share that kinship in being artists. He had his family out there. It was just fun. That’s our audience. His audience is our audience as well. It was just fun every night, seeing him with all his kids all running around, everywhere we went.”

Not only did Parmalee get to join Hayes for the concerts each night, but the band members also got to work out with him during the day as well.

“We got to work out with him just about every day, just hanging out and shooting the breeze,” Thomas recounts. “He’s just cool and laid back, and we really needed that. It’s been a long time since we’ve been on tour with somebody. And to get out there in front of five or six or  7,000 people every night and play our songs and win those fans has really been a big, big catalyst to why we’re going out and doing the same too. We’re gonna hit some of those same markets and hopefully, we’ll see a lot of those fans back at our show.”

Parmalee had two back-to-back No. 1 singles with “Just the Way,” their collaboration with Blanco Brown, followed by “Take My Name.” The latter not only landed at the top of the charts, but was also the No. 1 song on Billboard‘s year-end Country Airplay chart.

“I don’t think anybody in our camp, label or writers, I don’t think anybody could have seen that coming,” Thomas says. “We all felt like we had something good. The song felt good when we wrote it. We knew we were tapping into the wedding thing … There was a period of time when it was at country radio, and it started jumping spots, like five spots at a time. And then within like two or three weeks, it jumped like ten spots. And then it was like, ‘Something’s going on here. It’s out of our control.’ We had slated to go to radio, and it went later than we thought.

“We were just kind of trying to project when it could be moving up, and it just kind of started snowballing,” he adds. “Once that really started happening, once it got into the teens, it really started moving. That was a surprise.”

Parmalee’s latest single, “Girl in Mine,” is in the Top 30 and climbing. The song is from a forthcoming new album. Parmalee will embark on their headlining Take My Name Tour on February 2 in Champaign, Illinois. Find music and tour dates at ParmaleeMusic.com.