Meet Lincoln Parish

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lincoln Parish.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started playing guitar around the age of 13 and found a great teacher and mentor early on who turned into a second father figure so to speak. After taking lessons from him for nearly two and a half years he told me that he didn’t know what else to teach me and that the rest that I needed to learn would be figured out and revealed in real-world experiences and playing with other musicians. I found myself playing in several local bands I would start up with friends in High school, which led me to play in bars I probably shouldn’t have been in at a very early age. From there and playing locally in the bar scene in Bowling Green, Ky.

I met the guys who would eventually become my future bandmates in Cage the Elephant while opening for their previous band Perfect Confusion. Just a few short months later both of our current bands at the time wound up breaking up and together we formed and started what would then become Cage the Elephant. We had only been a band for about 6 months when we made our debut record with producer Jay Joyce and hit the road, eventually moving to England after signing with EMI and taking a 2-year residency deal to jump-start our career. It was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in those days but it all seemed to pay off towards the end when we then signed a worldwide deal with Jive Records and had a #1 single with our song “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” within 6 weeks of its release.

From there, it was a constant cycle of writing, recording, and touring each record worldwide for nearly 2.5 years for each record… Around the time of writing and recording for our 2nd album “Thank You, Happy Birthday” I developed a passion for recording, engineering, and what I would soon learn to be music production. I made a small recording set up in my laundry closet at a townhouse I was renting off the west end and began recording and co-writing with anybody and everybody who would let me work on my craft, all while learning and creating at the same time… To put it simply I’ve learned almost everything in my life by doing it the wrong way first and figuring out what didn’t work in order to find the things that did and still do.

Fast forward, to another album/touring cycle and yet writing the 3rd CTE album “Melophobia” which we also recorded with Jay. I started to sense my passion for touring and being in a band starting to wane and that eventually led to my exit after doing a tour with Muse and a radio promo run for Melophobia, I was tired, worn out, and ready for a new challenge. That’s what led me to where I am today, producing and mixing records and writing songs with artists I believe in and love. I find myself getting bored easily so constantly having something different to work on from project to project, I have found to be extremely beneficial to me and the way my brain operates…

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
In my experience life is a combination of peaks and valleys with a few if not several bumpy spots along the way. If it weren’t that I feel that it would make things boring and I’d probably be freaked out if everything was going completely right all the time.

There have been more challenges than I can even begin to list but to me, that’s what makes the great times even better, and for me at least I’ve found myself having more gratitude for those moments when they do present themselves. This is a life not for the faint of heart but one also to be never taken for granted…

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m first and foremost a musician as that’s where I started, and will always be that.

I’m quite often asked if I still write songs now that I’m on the Producing/ Mixing engineering side of things, and my answer is always “Yes!!” I’ll always be writing songs whether it’s for pure enjoyment or for monetary gain or value because that’s what I’ve always done since I was 13 and will continue to do so as it’s just as much therapeutic for me as it is artistic endeavor… With that being said I find most of my time now producing and mixing records for up-and-coming artists of all genres (which I love). I feel like my time being on the other side of the glass so to speak has given me the advantage of constantly being aware of what the artist is feeling, and or going thru while in the studio creating their record.

Even when recording or producing a band today I prefer to sit in the live tracking room with them while the recording is going down because you can sense and feel the energy that is coming off of them and to me it’s so much easier to tell when you’ve got “the take” because there’s a kinetic energy in those rooms and it’s easily felt when its in front of your face much more to me than sitting in another room behind glass and a console. That feels disconnected to me. I’ve always been one to go off of feel and energy more than making sure everything is totally perfect. I don’t think we’re perfect as people so I always want there to be a realness and authenticity in the recordings I’m producing…

Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I’m a nerd at heart and I feel like most of the things I listen to in my free time aren’t the things people would expect me to listen to… I love learning about finance and investing and have developed a passion for that over the last several years, to me it’s not how much money you make but it’s what you do with that money that makes all the difference. I also love self-help podcasts anything that might teach me how to be a better person at the end of the day.

Usually when I’m not working in the studio or writing I want to fully disconnect from music so I’ve found having good healthy hobbies to be extremely beneficial for my mental well-being. With that being said if I’m cooking dinner and want to listen to music you’ll most likely find me listening to Tom Petty to Frank Sinatra…

Contact Info:

• Website: lincolnparishmusic.com
• Instagram: @Lincolnparish90

Image Credits
Tammie Valero