Parker McCollum Talks Toll of Burnout: ‘I Was About to Just Hang it up Completely’

Being a country music artist has its ups and downs, and lately, more and more artists are being more open about the physical and mental toll of being in the spotlight. In a recent interview, Parker McCollum gets candid about nearly quitting music and reveals just how burnt out creatively he got that he almost considered walking away for good.  

McCollum admitted that he was one of those artists who were fortunate since his label gave him 100% creative control from the get-go. “I told them, I said, ‘Look, I don’t want the money. I don’t want your advance. I want creative control…And they’ve kept their word on that 100%.”  

That was in 2019. Fast forward to 2025, and being in control of his career since then took a toll on the 33-year-old singer-songwriter.  

He shared, “I was about to just hang it up completely. I just kind of had lost the buzz creatively,” McCollum admitted. “And I’d been touring nonstop since I was 22 years old. And I was just like, creatively, I was like, ‘I got nothing.’ And so I’ve had a conversation with people in my circle about it.”  

He added, “And I kind of got to the point where I was like, ‘Well, if I’m going to hang it up, go make one more record with just zero f**ks given, just do it 100% exactly whatever the hell comes out is what the record is.’”  

It seemed that trying to go out with a bang was just what McCollum needed. Since his mindset became “nothing to lose,” he wanted to give everything he had for his supposed last project. One of those is recording the album in New York, something that the “What Kinda Man” singer has been wanting to do for a long time. “I was like, I’m not playing this game anymore. I have nothing in my soul musically, creatively right now,” he says.   

“I’ve got to go find it. I know it’s in there. I can’t find it. Something is suffocating it, and I can’t fake it, dude. I can’t just go pick some songs that somebody else wrote and cut them and stand up there and smile every night. I can’t do it. Just didn’t work like that for me.”  

Fortunately, one of country music’s good guys, who always has time for his fans, is not yet saying goodbye, finding the spark again after finishing his self-titled album.  

“That was the most full my cup has ever been in the music business, dude. I answered the question. I do still love this. When I left that city, and I was looking out that plane window, and I knew the record I had just cut, it was like, damn, all those records, all those shows, all those nights, all the bulls**t and the awards and the number ones and all that, none of it made me feel the way that record made me feel. I finally had made the record I always wondered if I was good enough to make.”  

McCollum just released the deluxe edition of Parker McCollum and is scheduled to go on his first-ever international tour.