We were lucky to catch up with Marshall Parks recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marshall, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I’ve always been one to take a leap of faith and commit to big changes; the best rewards always have a lot of risk on the other side. I had spent the majority of the early 2020’s living in Indiana for work, and while the money was great I didn’t see much room for growth in my music career. So at the start of this year I packed up my studio and drove across the country to join two close friends in Santa Monica, who I owe a lot of thanks to for helping support the decision. So far I’ve been more productive then ever, lining up releases and producing a ton more content. I’ve also met some amazing people in the local scene and seen artists I’ve always looked up to. As far as it will end up leading, who’s to say? But the positive impacts in my daily mindset are very tangible, and I’d advise anyone thinking about it to take the jump as long as they have a solid plan in place for the journey. Don’t think too much about the negatives, you only get one life!

Marshall, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The current state of my brand, where I’ve opted to forego stage names and embrace techno, has been a long time coming and I’m very excited about this new chapter. I’ve been producing for almost a decade, with some early success as “Vaydr” with the song Heights. While the song itself was a good one, I was so new to the music world that I had no concept of how to market or capitalize on that success and spun my wheels for a good while before making music more of a hobby. I fell in love with the genre again post-COVID and have taken a lot of the elements I love from dance music and thrown them together for the Marshall Parks sound. I like to say I combine the best parts of house and techno, drawing liberally from both palettes. It’s a little melodic, a little hypnotic, and the sound design is very modern, lots of fat basses, rolling synths, and tight percussion. In a live setting I try to play no more than 2-3 minutes of a single song and regularly have 3 tracks going, so things move a lot quicker and hold your attention better. I also like to post mixed I did in beautiful locations, so be sure to check out my socials for some good vibes!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In around 2016 I started getting into sync licensing projects and had a great mentor who helped a lot with getting things rolling. He had a very good ear and taught me how to keep everything super clean and audible. The thing is, that sounds great but with more creative genres mixing is more of a creative choice and by having things too polished it became offputtingly robotic. So I had to learn how to “dirty it up” a little and that’s made all the difference!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

During COVID’s beginning stages, I had a number of big gigs fall through as everything shut down, and I changed gears for a good while. But I always had that passion for music, and once things got going again in the music world i picked right back up where I left off! Breaks can be great for regaining your zen and I would definitely say theres nothing wrong with stopping to smell the roses, as long as you keep it pushing after.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://intstagram.com/themarshallparks
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/4CNfrwX5LuqAtuY16

Image Credits

Zac Borland & Danielle Clark (headshot only) ig: @dazefilmography