Parachute Opens for Gavin DeGraw Tonight
“We love Indiana,” says Parachute frontman Will Anderson. “One of our first sold out shows was in Indiana.”
Parachute are returning to the Hoosier state to open for Gavin DeGraw at the Honeywell Center in Wabash tonight. “The shows so far have been awesome,” Anderson says.
For readers who aren’t familiar with the music of Parachute, chances are you’ve already heard them. The five-piece from Charlottesville, Va. rose to prominence in 2008 when Nivea used a couple of their songs for skincare commercials – before they ever released their debut album.
Since then, Parachute have released three studio albums, each distinctly different from each other. They’ve also toured with superstars like Kelly Clarkson and All-American Rejects. Not too shabby for a bunch of guys straight out of the University of Virginia with a shared penchant for Dave Matthews Band.
Interesting, right? For those who’ve heard Parachute’s latest album, “Overnight,” DMB is probably the last band that comes to mind, but Parachute is from the same place DMB was, and the two groups even share management.
Anderson says when the band was first starting out they got accused of sounding too much like Dave Matthews Band. He thinks the electro-pop of “Overnight” is a reaction to that.
The album, which came out in August 2013, was produced by Oren Yoel with a lot of input from Parachute keyboardist Kit French. “He and our keyboard player set up a synth world,” says Anderson of the production.
“Overnight” was recorded at legendary Ocean Way Studio. “It sounded amazing,” says Anderson.
“It was, for us, a step towards what we’ve been doing live.” Anderson says. “It was a fun album.”
For their latest record, Parachute pushed the electro-pop envelope, going beyond the synth-tinged offerings of contemporaries like Passion Pit or Pheonix, and getting dangerously close to EDM territory.
These dancey tunes caught the attention of DeGraw, who asked the band to open for him on his latest tour. “Opening is like, come out guns blazing,” says Anderson.
This will be one of the last stops for Parachute. Anderson says the band will be taking some time off in mid-May to focus on writing. According to Anderson, listeners could expect a more soulful, rootsy kind of record with the next record.