Photos courtesy of @braysbrain
Contrary to what the title of his TikTok famous hit would suggest, Pardyalone wants his music to feel like home for his fans. Always seeking to find the perfect marriage of vulnerability and relatability, the blossoming Minnesota-bred vocalist’s party has attracted quite a few guests this summer.
About three months since the release of “Not a Home,” Pardy’s Spotify monthly listeners have skyrocketed to over 400,000, and his beloved single will soon approach 5 million plays on the digital streaming platform. He insists this does not put any pressure on him to chase massive numbers like this, but to instead count his blessings and keep it pushing.
“I think once you start setting standards it becomes a job,” he said. “It’s sick as hell and good to know you’re moving in the right direction, but I’m not like, ‘’She Likes My Tattoos’ only has blah blah streams??’ Nah bro, I’m blessed, it’s amazing. Just gotta keep moving and wait for the next one.”
Pardy’s aforementioned follow-up single “She Likes My Tattoos,” released in mid-July, gave all those who just hopped on the bandwagon another dimension to his music — swapping a melancholic ballad for an upbeat pop-rock bop. Keeping his fanbase in mind during the creative process has paid dividends for Pardy, considering the input he received after posting the “Not a Home” snippet on TikTok, inspired him to empathize with listeners when writing the rest of the track.
“Everybody could feel it in a sense that it wasn’t just like, ‘I, I ,I or me, me, me’ you know?” he said. “It would have been a totally different experience if I hadn’t posted the hook and was just like, ‘Yo, the song’s done.’”
But instead of simply being a robot that turns TikTok comments into song lyrics, Pardy’s lyrics share sentiments that are as true to him as they are to the fans they connect with. To achieve this, he strays away from specificity, but hones in on passion — making his music a cathartic experience for everyone that consumes it.
“I don’t think anybody should make music for other people,” he said. “I make music for myself and then I leave an open perspective on it. You can perceive it however you want. These things that eat at me are just open ended, they’re not super specific. You can just fit it into different categories.”
Pardyalone to OGM
Looking ahead, Pardy will improve upon this formula for his upcoming studio album, which has yet to be given a title or release date. Initially, when putting together the LP, Pardy aimed to showcase each genre he’s capable of tackling. However, after receiving feedback from his friend and collaborator Nick Audino, he decided to scrap the album altogether and return to the drawing board — honing in on the “Not a Home” sound fans gravitated towards.
“I want this album to feel like like a random number calls you on the phone and says, ‘Hey,’ and you knew who it was and you got butterflies in your stomach,” he said. “I want it to be an ‘I feel like I know you from somewhere’ type of feeling. I want it all to make sense and I want it all to flow into each other. I want them to know where I came from and who I am as a person. I think that’s what you should expect from the album.”
Throughout the project’s 12 songs, Pardy hopes to provide a comfortable, familiar atmosphere for his fans, finding common ground between his life experiences and theirs. To aid his quest, Pardy feels it would be better to not include any features on the album, which feels uncommon in today’s highly-collaborative music landscape.
“I want the project to grow with me and I don’t want it to feel like I’m coming out of nowhere with a little bit of TikTok success and just ramming features on the project,” he said. “That just doesn’t make sense in my head. It’s gonna be a body of work to let the fans take a deeper dive into my head and I don’t really want other clouded thoughts. We are all guilty of clicking on an album and looking at the features and saying, ‘Oh sh*t, I love da-da-da. Aw wait, he didn’t snap… I’m gonna go listen to Drake now.’ I don’t want that to be the case here.”
Pardyalone to OGM
Drawing inspiration from a wide array of genres and artists like Bon Iver, Lauryn Hill, Morgan Wallen and Post Malone, Pardy’s evolution as an artist has been sensational. From his first project 5:30, released in May 2020, to now, he feels he’s improved in every aspect musically even if the time seemed to fly by.
“That feels like it was like a month ago,” he said. “But, everything has changed. The confidence that I have in the music, the confidence in my voice and the different sh*t I can do with it now, I can do different octaves and stuff like that. I’ve become more comfortable with my voice and with myself and just more content with sharing how I feel. Back then, it was surface level music, and now I’m trying to dig deeper into myself and get in my soul and really find out who I am. This new music is just crazy, it’s really good.”
Instead of being just another project, this album feels like it will usher in a new star into the alternative hip-hop scene. Included in this new era, Pardy will put out more promotional singles before the full-length release, and he plans to perform with a live band next year when he finally decides to take the stage — another way in which he will provide intimate experiences for his fans.
It’s abundantly clear that Pardyalone’s goal is to be both wholesome and hard-working, making him an artist that every listener would love to “pardy” with.
