An Interview with Parking Garage, September 2026
How was the band formed? How/when did the members decide to start a band?
Parking Garage was formed in 2017 with Nathan and I while we were in our last week of high school. We had been trying to make music for a while then, between our schools jazz band, concert band, and for school projects, so we thought we could make something ourselves once we graduated. It was just us for a while until college came around. We went through about four different drummers just because we all had different schedules before finally landing on Zach Ross in 2022. Our trumpet player Lavender was kind of a case of wanting one on a single song early on, only to really involve them more in both the band and my personal life in 2020.
Tell me about Steel! What was the creative process behind such a dense and meaningful album? Was it heavily pre-planned or molded as time went on? Did the meanings of the songs come first? or were they discovered/embedded in each song as it was made?
Steel kind of came to fruition about halfway through making the album. The first song recorded in 2022 was "Six Finger Handshake," which is 12-minute epic I also used to propose to Lavender. It was inspired by "Beach Life-in-Death" by Car Seat Headrest and was something we had never done before in terms of grander scope or the topic of love. Beforehand, our lyrics were often cynical and dour even when talking about love. But I think that proposal, alongside Nathan's later the next year made us think about being more genuine about the topic. Steel wasn't really conceived until the first batch of recording of about 4 more songs came and made us think this is a good direction to take ourselves.
We wanted to also make every song have some kind of hook to it just for the catchiest experience, so a lot of writing was kind of done without pen and paper. If we couldn't remember a hook we thought of, then it meant that it wasn't necessarily the catchiest and something else should substitute it.
Your work/your upcoming album blends and jumps across a variety of genres and influences! How did you develop your sound as a group? Was it an immediate click or has it changed over time? How has your sound evolved through the making of Steel?
I think a lot of our sound just comes from an abundance of cautiousness towards not wanting to make the same thing twice. We all bring our own influences into the band and kind of emulsify them until they create something else entirely. Nathan is a huuuuuge fan of The Beatles and Paul McCartney, so a lot of old-school songwriting is from them. Lavender loves Balkan music like Koçani Orkestar and Goran Bregoviç. Zach enjoys his metal music and implements double-kicks every chance he gets, and I enjoy a lot of emo like the aforementioned Car Seat Headrest and Weatherday. Of course, as our personal tastes in music have evolved, so have the influences we bring to the table. Back in the starting days of the band, Nathan and I loved ourselves some Black Keys, and while we still do. That kind of pop garage-y sound only really comes up occasionally rather than constantly. Over the course of Steel, I think I personally have gotten into ska punk more than I bargained for, but I love where it leaves the album at all the same.
The great thing about our band is that we all write the songs individually and present them to the band for consideration. Then, we all kind of tweak it to what we all are comfortable with or excited to experiment around until it becomes a fully fleshed song. If one person feels in a rut about their own creative blocks, we all feel comfortable enough to build off each other's instead. So its really good in terms of being pretty productive and open to each other about the process. A lot of new ideas come from personal experience and needing an outlet to express it, so as long as we are living and making new experiences, we have an untapped well of possibilities!
Describe the average band practice! What does your creative process look like? How do these songs go from ideas to music?
Band practice can be crazy sometimes. Most of them, we play a bunch of the originals to punch them into the mould for the first hour, then the second hour can be anything from trying do goofy covers of "Kokomo" or jamming on a riff for ten minutes at a time. The only thing we don't want to be while in rehearsal is not having fun or feeling good about what we are doing. If there isn't that particular spark, then we shift course to what works best or what interests us the most.
What is the hardest part about being in a band? What gets you through those times?
Scheduling. Everyone operates on different schedules and it is so hard to line those up, given two of us work 9 to 5's and the other two have a wide breadth of availability and unavailability. We often have to make sacrifices in our schedules to make the gigs and rehearsals line up, and it's tiring and defeating sometimes when it doesn't work out. Ultimately we just make the best of what we have available time wise and understand that its a part of our lives unfortunately.
Which song of yours was the most fun to write & make? why/what was the process?
I know our personal favorite to make and perform is "Anything Underneath" just because its also a multi-phase song like "Six Finger Handshake," but it has a looseness to the end that makes it feel like having our cake and eating it too lol. It was also fun to play around with a bunch of major chords to make everything sound so manic and uncertain. In terms of writing though, I think "The Cleanest Wrists Award" was the most fun. The concept having a third verse that is just a response to all the lines in the first verse was always something I wanted to implement into a song, and finally being able to do so on this one made completing it all the more rewarding. One thing both of those songs have in common that it really fun in the studio was the group shout vocals, and doing something where everyone is involved at the exact same time instead of separate recording booths for everyone made it the most fun parts of the recording process.
What helps bond you as a group? (or, what is your favorite memory together?)
Most of our rehearsals act as bonding time in all honesty just because of the scheduling issues mentioned before, but whenever we do find time for ourselves, we love seeing concerts and movies together. For instance, we will be seeing Charli XCX and Underscores this October in ATL. Recently we all went to see Backrooms and that was a fun time. But otherwise, the music itself is kind of the bonding experience cuz we treat it more like a hobby than a business venture.
Aiming for the sky - what is your biggest goal as a band?
Realistically as a goal, we would love to play Athfest, the annual music festival that happens every summer in Athens, GA, where we are based. A little more out there, opening for Car Seat Headrest whenever they hit the road next would be a dream come true. But ultimately, we are grateful for any opportunity we can take part in, so usually our biggest goals are extremely incremental and constantly changing by a miniscule amount. Anything is a blessing.
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