Richmond native Wes Parker journeys from band, to online comedian, to solo artist with the release of his second EP, ‘fantom.’

Stream: ‘fantom’ – Wes Parker

Richmond, Virginia, has to have the most underrated music scene in the country.

Every genre has its space to shine, and so much talent thrives in such a small city. Some of my favorite artists of all time have hailed from Virginia’s capital. Gwar, D’Angelo, and Lucy Dacus, to name a few. There’s a type of culture there that breeds creativity and amazing talent. A major example is Wes Parker.

Starting in his band Camp Howard, Parker is a veteran of the Richmond music scene. Demonstrating his talents in more ways than one. In 2021, after his band broke up, a new approach was born. His sketch comedy was viral on TikTok, and he was on a steady incline through the years with help from his lovable crust punk character Skunk.

Though he was shaping up to be a comedic legend in his own right on the vertical screens, he slipped back into his music seamlessly, showing his multifaceted abilities and releasing his first EP under his own name, Splinter.

And now he’s back with his newest endeavor, fantom, a haunting collection of tracks that travel through a broken character’s psyche. fantom is a creepy rock record with undertones of obsession and anxiety that still manages to find glimmers of light in some of the darkest places. Pulling inspiration from Muse, Radiohead, and Andy Shauf, the six-track EP is a haunting yet energetic masterpiece. Showcasing Parker’s lyrical and musical prowess.

Atwood Magazine sat down with Wes Parker to discuss the creation of fantom, his songwriting process, and the freedom that comes with making music ahead of the release of his EP.

— —

:: stream/purchase fantom here ::

:: connect with Wes Parker here ::

— —

A CONVERSATION WITH WES PARKER

Wes Parker: It feels really good because it was such a hard first year to be honest. It was a lot of trailblazing and it was a lot of learning honestly. I like learning and I still have so much to learn but that first year was very difficult and exhausting. But rewarding. And so it feels good to be in year two where I get to kind of, I don’t know if I want to go as far to say like fruits of my labor, but a little bit of that. Just being able to be like, “Okay, I got some music out.” And the project’s a little bit off the ground feels really good.

Wes: Yes, for sure. I mean, our first tour, last year, we had some good shows. But some of the shows we were playing for maybe one or two people and I loved those one or two people that were there and it made it special for me but in terms of being able to afford being on the road that’s not a sustainable thing. So it was tough.

That first year was tough mentally in terms of touring. Yes. But it was also like trudging through thick overgrowth. I hadn’t played music in a couple years since my band [Camp Howard] had broken up and It was tough.

Putting myself out there on socials is a very uncomfortable thing. I think most musicians loathe doing that. I like doing comedy stuff, but it’s very different to say ‘haha this is funny’ and then now I’m actually seriously trying to say, “Hey listen to my music.” That’s not comfortable. I mean there were a lot of things that made that first year uncomfortable but those are just a couple of them.

Wes: That’s a good question. I have no idea and it’s been a weird balancing act for me going into this project. Like are people going to take the music seriously? Not that it needs to be taken seriously quote unquote, but it’s just weird. Because, I think there are a lot of people coming from the skits to the music. I’m always surprised when people say ‘hey I loved your comedy and then I found your music.’ I’ve been told before by people in the music industry kind of unsolicited advice like, ‘hey, don’t brand yourself as a comedian. You want to brand yourself as a musician who sometimes does comedy.’ But it’s tricky to think about that and balance that.

I just use comedy as a form of therapy. Just like I use music, it’s an expressive thing. Sometimes I just need to do some comedy, because it feels good. So, it’s hard for me to know how people view me first. It’s really mind-boggling and kind of hard for me to look at from the outside if that makes sense.

Wes: Those particular skits and the way that I started posting on TikTok and Instagram it was kind of like I felt a little like giving up. My band had just broken up. I had made weird art comedy videos all through my early 20s but nobody had really seen those. I mean you could dig and find them on my socials but when I first started posting vertical videos was when I was like, all right. I was just obsessed with comedy writing at that time. I had taken sketch writing classes and read this book called the “Comic Toolbox,” I think it was called.

I was just really into the idea of writing comedy characters and I was still feeling bummed about my band breaking up, so I just was like, “Well, I know this world.” It was kind of a comedic diary for me of past lived experiences, whether, you know, they were partial versions of myself or people we met, like the sound guy. It was very much a therapeutic thing and I just didn’t know that people were going to relate as hard as they did.

Wes: Yeah, I think there’s a level of, just feel, in terms of comedy and timing. I definitely think there’s structure to a joke or a sketch to some degree. But it’s not always the same and you have to feel your way through the dark. So, I think that in a way that it is really similar to music, where you have to just open up to what feels best even when there’s not really but there is sort of a structure to a song. I mean, doesn’t have to be but I definitely am a little bit structured in trying to find the pillars of what’s holding the thing together and I think comedy and music both have that.

Wes: I would say, kind of springboarding off of you saying that I play a lot of different instruments, I’m mediocre at one or two instruments and then barely passing at any other instrument. And I think it’s the same kind of approach that got me into music. It’s the same approach I have for these instruments that I’m not good at. I want to play piano more and I try to write on piano. I suck at it. I like the sound of the banjo and there’s one in my family. So…I don’t practice though.

I just like messing around and the freedom that comes with sitting down with an instrument and you can make any sound on it. That was the initial thing that drew me into music was just the freedom that came with, at the time it was guitar, but it could be any instrument. I used to think to myself as a middle schooler or a high schooler that I didn’t know what I would do without that kind of solace. Of being able to go home and sit and just mess around on this thing and not really know what I was doing, you know? Not to say that learning, being classically trained or learning theory is a bad thing or a hindrance. I think it can be really good.

I just think either way, it’s just the freedom of there’s technically no rules. And I was so sick of getting in trouble at school and getting thrown out of class and I just love that there’s no rules. So, I feel the same way about random instruments. I’m not a tuba player, but if I had one, you better believe there’d be tuba on a record.

Wes: I would say most of the time, most of what I have released anyway, there’s not any sort of direction in my head of genre or sound. Usually I use the same instruments because I have always been in a rock band. Where it’s guitar, bass, drums, synth, or keys. Because that’s my comfort zone. I have those instruments here in my apartment and I can demo it out and then that’s kind of what it is.

But I have been, for the upcoming EP fantom, I leaned into piano on a few tracks which there was a couple songs on there that it just sounds so wildly different from, at least in my opinion, to anything else I’ve ever released because I want to lean into Muse, Radiohead sound for just a couple songs on there because I was just feeling inspired by that and you know it’s something that I was inspired by as a kid and was revisiting.

So, I did kind of lean into that inspiration I think at that time. Sometimes that happens where I’ll write more of a rocking song because I was listening to some old inspiration like Green Day or Minor Threat or something. But also, I have been putting banjo on stuff lately. Because, I’ve been inspired by that sound. I went to a Sierra Ferrell show. I thought it was crazy. Alex G puts banjo on stuff sometimes and I don’t know It just feels good to layer stuff like that in. Something I grew up around.

Wes: They’re much fresher. Splinter was very much like I need to get music out that I have so that when we play shows it’s not like every song is new. Then with this EP, it was like we released Splinter at the end of January and then we got into the studio, I want to say in April maybe. I wrote really fast because I was so charged up off of Splinter and I just really wanted to get back in the studio and release more music because it was just such a good feeling.

Wes: Yeah, there is a loose throughline that kind of guided some of the songwriting, although I don’t think that I was trying to maybe get this across. I don’t think anybody would know the throughline by listening to it, without maybe hearing me say this. But um when I was writing the title track “fantom,” I wanted to write about the downfall of some sort of character. I had just watched The Sopranos or The Penguin, Breaking Bad, there’s all these stories where like somebody goes to hell in their mind. I just wanted to write about that.

But so I grew up in the church, and this isn’t a religious album and it’s not meant to criticize religion or Christianity, either. So, it’s neutral, but I wanted to write about the fall of the angel Lucifer and kind of start with track one being like in heaven and by the time you get to the bottom of the EP, it’s like you’re in like those songs are in hell. But like I said, it’s kind of a concept for me. I don’t necessarily think I wanted to force that on the listeners. I don’t think people will get that without like I said hearing me say it.

Wes: You know, honestly not really. Splinter was, like I said, almost a mixtape of stuff that I had from a couple of years that we were playing live. It was some of our stuff on our first set that we put together [for] band practice and I was like ‘these are the best, let’s do these.’ The concept for fantom is very not normal for me but it was fun. It was definitely fun. It helped guide me through because like I said, it was pretty quick writing. I mean it was written really fast and having some sort of guiding, even imaginary, light was useful to me to get it finished.

Wes: The original cover art that I was going to use was a picture of my friend Davelynne or Dave. It was like a blurry photo taken. She had white face paint on just ghoulish looking and I was like, “This is perfect.” I didn’t even know this was going to come out on Halloween. But, that was originally going to be the album art, but then my friend Henry Archer took the photo that is the cover art.

We were sitting at Bamboo Cafe in Richmond and he just pulled [it] out and he said, “Or you could do this.” And he showed me this photo of me when I was probably 22 or 21 at Crayola House in Harrisonburg, which is a legendary DIY spot. I was on this upper balcony getting my head shaved by several people. They were using rusty scissors and the clippers didn’t really work. You can see them in the photo but I remember they just were not working at all.

And so I remember at some point someone whipped out a Swiss Army knife and it was just a long weird process of buzzing my head with a Swiss Army knife and they were throwing the hair off the balcony. I remember people screaming up to us “we’re getting covered in hair!”

Anyway, that’s the story of that photo. I thought it kind of went along with the theme of the EP in this shaving of the head, the downfall of somebody. Not that I am imposing myself into this story line. The photo is pretty ambiguous. You don’t really know who it is in the photo. It just looks kind of sinister and it looks like someone who’s shedding himself of something and that’s definitely a big part of this fantom EP story kind of in my head.

Wes: Honestly, yeah, and “fantom” definitely is the title track for that reason, but just to touch on that – it’s a fictional retelling. It’s my own version of the fall of Lucifer because “fantom” is supposed to be Lucifer the angel in heaven falling in love with God himself and in the actual story I don’t really know it, but I think he wanted to be God or something.

In this story I wanted it to be like he was obsessed with God, fell in love with and for that he was pushed out. And the farther away he got from heaven in my version of the story, fictional retelling, is the more obsessed he got. And then, the vicious cycle of the more obsessed, the more upset he was, the farther away you got.

Because it kind of goes from heaven to the sky to earth to, eventually, down into hell through the record. So, there’s this song on there called “Something About You,” which is track five. That is another good example of this kind of unhealthy obsession. It’s pretty dark. It’s a kind of creepy little song, but I would say that one, “Something About You.”

Wes: “Pull Me Under” I think is track two which it very well could sit in the middle. There was some stuff in the middle that could be potentially interchanged. Like “Spider Legs,” for example, that one’s kind of themed about spiders which is very earthly.

But I wanted to have “Pull Me Under” a little later because “Pull Me Under” is getting close to hell. But it started to randomly turn into a song about a pilot and his escapades between the sky and the earth.

In my story, it’s kind of a portrait of this one guy. So, like I said it’s loose, we start with Lucifer, then we’re with this pilot and it’s kind of the same soul going through. About this pilot going up and down from earth to sky and he’s not really the best character, he’s a little shady.

I just think about these pilots, staying in hotels and motels and living this life where they’re constantly traveling and going up and down and up and down. I mean, I know they make good money, but in my story this guy’s not the best guy. I think I definitely wanted to put it later but as it started to form into this pilot song, it just made sense to put it in the sky.

Wes: Yeah, I would say that. I actually have learned more about myself as a songwriter than I had previously known by doing some writing with other people which I don’t normally do. Particularly, recently I was writing with my friend Mary, who is Slow Funeral. She was up here in Richmond and we just wrote a little stuff back and forth. During that process I realized, she would point out how abstract I would get and how she liked to have a little more directly personal lyrics. Whereas, I wasn’t always following the theme.

It’s funny doing that song writing with other people really kind of reflects yourself back to you, if that makes sense, in a way that you wouldn’t see just writing alone, which you know is mostly what I do. But doing these writing exercises, I’ve realized that sometimes I have this guiding theme for a song. Like Spider Legs, for example, is very clearly about some sort of spidery thing. If you were just to listen to it for the first time, you’d be like “spidery thing. I don’t know, it’s spidery.” But for me it’s about being caught up in someone or something’s web, as you can see, there’s like a lot of obsession vibes through this.

I think partially because I listened to Andy Schauf’s album Norm, where he writes about a stalker. It’s a really, really, really good album, but it was super creepy. I can think of some toxic situations that I was in or feeling like Limerence? Just feeling overwhelmed by attraction or obsession. Even if it’s not a romantic thing, sometimes it could just be like when I was a kid, I wanted to play music so bad.

Anyway, I guess my point is there are occasions in which I’m writing in a theme, but I’m pulling in lyrics that either I feel like really sang well and really fit the song or they pulled my own heart strings about something in my own life. You know, even if it’s not on theme but it makes me feel something because of something that I saw at the grocery store yesterday. You know what I’m saying?

So, yeah a lot it is a themed EP and there is a story. But at the end of the day, I’ve realized all my songs, all the lyrics are like a quilt work of where I’m at in life and what I’m thinking about even if it’s a theme song or album.

Wes: Well, it felt like it was only fitting that fantom which is derived from the French word. It’s spelled with an F because I was reading this little French book trying to learn French.

It was a children’s book called Le Petit Nicolas. At some point there’s a part of a chapter with a ghost which is fantome. And I was like, “that’s so cool. That’s the word for ghost.” So, I just struck the E off and was like, we’ll just call it fantom.

That, plus the Fallen Angel storyline and the creepy obsession stuff and the spider song etc. Halloween this year is on a Friday which people release music on Fridays a lot I guess. So, it just seemed so appropriate. In fact we were supposed to release it in September and things got kind of pushed and then now it’s just lined up in this kind of crazy way.

I just feel like I should reiterate because I am nervous about people getting upset, as I have had some people be upset with me for past stuff I’ve done that was like anywhere close to religion.

I’m not making commentary by any means with fantom and I know people are still going to get mad but there’s a video coming out that’s probably going to maybe make some people feel uncomfortable but I think it’s awesome and I can’t wait to release it. I worked with the same team that I worked with on “Tattoo” and “Splinter,” which is directed by Colin Earner.

And it’s going to be cool. It’s like our third video together. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do any more because he’s so busy and he’s done three videos for me now. So, there’s a video for “fantom” coming out probably a week or two after the EP drop. So the first or second week of November. That’s pretty much it. I’m excited for the video and this is not a commentary on religion.

— —

:: stream/purchase fantom here ::

:: connect with Wes Parker here ::

— —

— — — —

Connect to Wes Parker on
Facebook, TikTok, Instagram

Discover new music on Atwood Magazine

 © Jonathan Parker

:: Stream Wes Parker ::