It’s a good week to be Parker McCollum.
McCollum, the Academy of Country Music’s New Male Artist of the Year, just nabbed his second No. 1 song with “To Be Loved By You,” headlined a sold-out RODEO HOUSTON for more than 73,000 country music fans and accompanied his fianceé to pick up their marriage license.
“It’ll be years before I truly look back and realize what happened this week,” McCollum said in a statement. “I was nervous that all my hard work and sacrifice wouldn’t be worth it in the long run. Well, after selling out RODEOHOUSTON and having my second No. 1, I can assure you all – it was damn worth it. Every single last bit of it was worth it.”
McCollum co-wrote “To Be Loved By You” with Rhett Akins, and it’s the follow-up to his gold-selling debut chart-topper “Pretty Heart.”
McCollum said he and Akins wrote the song to be a slow ballad, but when the singer got in the studio with his producer Jon Randall, he changed it up.
“I said, ’Man, what if we just push the limits on this one and kinda just see how far we can push the envelope here?’” McCollum said. “It’s crazy to see how well it turned out, and it’s such a rockin’ tune, and we’re stoked about it.”
The Texas native doesn’t shy away from talking about the hard-living he dabbled in because he used to think it helped him write stronger songs. However, those days are behind him, thanks mainly to his fiancée Hallie Ray Light.
“She is probably the most wonderful human I’ve ever met on planet earth,” McCollum said. “It’s much easier to make good decisions and live the right way when I have her in mind versus just myself. Ever since I kind of got my (life) together with her, my career has taken off tenfold. It’s not very hard to look at why everything’s going so well. It’s because I’m focused and healthy and working my (butt) off, and all those things are paying off.
“I worry every day in my life about writing good songs,” he added. “So, it’s usually where my mind always is.”