Daily Discovery: Gnarly Parkers, “Spin Me Minnie”

Gnarly Parkers are a 7 piece swing band based out of Nashville, TN.  The band shares a collective love and respect for jazz music of the 20’s-50’s. 

ARTIST: Gnarly Parkers

SONG: Spin Me Minnie

BIRTHDATE: (band birthdate) September 2014

HOMETOWN: Nashville, TN

CURRENT LOCATION: Nashville, TN

AMBITIONS: Our ambition as a band is to tour as much as possible and be known nationally as a top swing band. We love this music and the dancing element to it and we want all of our listeners (and dancers) to get that vibe.

TURN-OFFS: EDM & radio pop

TURN-ONS: Dancing & whiskey

DREAM GIG: To play International Jazz Festivals anywhere and everywhere

FAVORITE LYRIC: “Life can be so fine, fine as, mmm, wine” Dizzy Gillespie’s take on Sunny Side of the Street

CRAZIEST PERSON I KNOW: Any and all swing dancers – they can go for hours, they’re a great time

SONG I WISH I WROTE: We cover a song called “Cock O The Walk” by Andrew Bird and it fits our band perfectly – it has the perfect goofy, but danceable vibes.

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: 1. Charlie Parker 2. Pokey LaFarge 3. Benny Goodman 4. Andrew Bird 5. Dizzy Gillespie

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE: While playing a few shows in Chicago, we stumbled into this bar called the Green Mill. It was all smokey and had this great speakeasy vibe. The band playing that night was a dixieland band called the Fat Babies. Every one of them was an amazing player and so inspirational to all of us. We stayed until like 2 am listening and talking to all the players, it was great.

I WROTE THIS SONG: Ryan Leet