Lefty Parker

In 2016, Devendra Banhart stopped his Austin show to invite anyone who had never played for a crowd to come up and sing an original. He picked Lefty Parker out of the front row and handed him his Fender. A few years later, when Banhart came back through town, Parker waited out a security guard from a coffee shop across the street, slipped into Stubb’s during soundcheck with his first CD, Love on the Guadalupe, and went looking for the man who started it all.

Ten years on from that first night, the Brooklyn-based songwriter has signed to ATO Records and shared “Punish Me,” the first single from his label debut, due in 2027. Parker says the whole journey feels surreal, that he’s blessed to be where he is. It feels like he’s just getting started with an opening run on a nearly sold-out tour with mary in the junkyard.

Analogue: How are you feeling about the tour?

Lefty Parker: I'm really excited about it. I'm kind of doing double duty. I'm both opening the tour and driving for the whole tour. I think it's gonna be interesting. I'm gonna be really tired. I'm gonna be just so exhausted, but it's gonna be awesome.

Analogue: You're driving all that way? That's coast to coast.

Lefty: Yeah, it's coast to coast. I'm the designated driver for the whole tour. But it's gonna be cool. They're British, mary in the junkyard. And I think they can drive. I think they just don't want to. So I was like, "I'll do it, I guess." I'm used to it. I have been DIY touring for about four years. Pretty hard touring now. So I'm really accustomed to just putting in the hours on the road. So I guess I'll do okay.

Analogue: Off San Gabriel is dated 2021 on Bandcamp, and the Devendra Banhart story goes back to 2016. You just said you've been doing this for about four years. What was happening in between?

Lefty: Well, it's hard to say. I guess I've just turned more into a road dog in the last few years. I've been playing music pretty actively since, I'd say, 2018. This is a hard thing, calling upon my memory.

When I was 18, I moved out of my folks' house and moved to Austin and started working at this music venue called the Cactus Cafe. It's kind of a very famed, beloved room in Austin known for people like Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams. Townes Van Zandt famously said that it was his home club, 'cause he loved stopping there and playing. It's right on the university, and it's just the best acoustic room. I don't know how to describe it, but you could feel, when you're in there, all of the legends. You can just feel their spirit in the air.

I wanted to be there 'cause I knew that Townes used to play there a whole bunch, and I was really obsessed with Townes Van Zandt ever since I graduated high school. And so I wanted to be in that space where his spirit kind of lived. That was kind of where I cut my teeth. I was there for a couple of years just working sound, and there was an open mic that would happen on Monday nights, and I was friends with a lot of the people who played there. And eventually they just kind of convinced me to start playing some of my songs. Some of them knew, and we would play music together outside of the open mic, but I never really thought of myself as a musician back then. I wrote songs for fun.

When I was in high school, I did that Devendra Banhart show. That was just an accident, you know what I mean? When he was like, "Hey, I'm going to take a break. If anyone wants to come up here and play a song, as long as it's original and you've never played for a crowd before, I'll let you come up here and play a song," people were jumping up and down and shouting all around me.

And I was front row. I remember I was front row. I was with my best friend at the time. We were both really big Devendra heads. And he just looked down at me, and I was raising my hand, just kind of like, "Man, that would be fun." But I wasn't freaking out about it, 'cause I wasn't really sure I would actually want to do it. And he looks at me and he's like, "You?" And I was just in shock.

People are like, "Hell yeah, man, get up there." They're pushing me up. The security guard is picking me up by the waist and putting me on the stage. I was a little shrimp back then. And I played some song, and it was probably really bad. I can barely remember it now because it was such a blur of an experience, but I just remember the feeling being so exhilarating. Just having played for a crowd, playing on my favorite musician's guitar. I remember I finished the song and they turned all the lights on in the venue, and there was just this ocean of people, and they were all so stoked.

And they were stoked because it had endeared them. I'm not really sure any of them were like, "This is my shit. I love this." But they were endeared, and that was where it all started. I had that moment, and I had just wrote my first song maybe a week before that experience. That was kind of very eye-opening. I was like, "Wow, I want to write songs. Maybe I do want to be a musician."

So I put out a record. I don't think it's online anymore, but I put out a record in 2019 called Love on the Guadalupe. That was my first collection of songs that I was ready to share with the world. I recorded them on a four-track in my buddy's house, and it was just guitar and vocals, just some of my early folk songs.

It was funny. I put a lot of love into songwriting back then, but I never really put a lot of thought into being a musician. It was just for me. I'd make CDs and put my songs on them and give them to my friends and maybe the college radio station there. But I think when things really started kind of changing for me was when I did make that CD, and a couple years later, Devendra went to Austin again and played another show.

This is really creepy. I got a coffee across the street from the music venue very early before the show happened. I just sat and I just watched the gate with the security guard, and I was just waiting. And as soon as the security guard left to take a smoke break or something, I slapped five bucks on the table and just ran out the door and ran straight into the music venue. And I get in there, and I'm like, "Oh shit, I'm in here." And I had my CD, Love on the Guadalupe. I had it tucked in my pants. And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm in here now."

So I remember picking up my phone and pretending like I was meant to be there. Like I was on a business call, you know? I'm some guy, and I'm looking around and no one's really saying anything. So I'm like, "Yeah, this is cool." And Devendra is soundchecking on stage, and there's one guy, just in this big open area at this place called Stubb's, and he's listening.

So I just kind of go up to him and I'm talking to him. I'm saying, "What's up?" And he's Devendra's manager. And he's asking me if I'm playing for the other band or something like that. And immediately I'm like, "Oh no, man, I actually just snuck in. I just wanted to say what's up to Devendra and thank him for inviting me on stage that day many years before." Because if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't have started taking songwriting a little more seriously. It really piqued my interest in doing music more as a practice. At the time, it was just something I kind of did. It was just like, I wrote a song. It wasn't really anything.

His manager was super cool to me. And then he's like, "All right, man, well, I can't watch you anymore. But just don't be weird. You can hang out." And I was like, "All right, cool." So I hung out.

And then Devendra gets off stage, and he's walking around, and he's walking past me. And I'm just kind of standing there. I was like, "I don't really know what to say to him right now. This is crazy. I don't even know. This is just psychotic. I don't know why I'm here or what I'm really supposed to say to him."

But he stops, and he looks at me, and he recognizes me. And he's like, "Hey, you're that guy." And I was like, "Oh, you remember me?" And he's like, "Yeah, man, of course I do. You played my guitar." And I was like, "Yeah, dude, thanks for remembering me. I actually brought you the CD." And then I embarrassingly remember that the CD was not in my bag. For some reason, it was tucked in my pants. I reach in my pants and pull out the CD, and I hand it to him. And he looks at it, having just witnessed me pull it out of my pants, and he goes, "You're not going to wash that first?" And I'm like, "Oh, fuck." And as he said that, I'm realizing, yeah, that's weird too.

But he was cool about it. And he took my CD. And I was like, "Yeah, man, thanks. That night really meant a lot to me, and I don't think I would have wrote these songs if you didn't do that." It was really cool.

So that's a funny origin story. I haven't told that story. I don't think I've told that story to really anyone. I don't know if I should tell people because it's so crazy. But it's fine. It's whatever.

Analogue: It's been 10 years since you were chosen out of that audience, and now you're on ATO. Is that surreal?

Lefty: Yeah, it's absolutely surreal. Ever since that night, that night kind of put the idea in my head, like, maybe I do want to be a musician. But my parents are kind of realists. My mom's a teacher. My dad was just a sales guy. Between the two of them, they're like, "You gotta do something that you're going to make money off of. It's cute that you write songs, but don't get ahead of yourself," you know?

I finished school and everything and taught for a couple years after college. But I never stopped playing music. And since that point, it had become a really integral part of my life.

I had met my friend Mat Davidson, who has become a really big part of my life musically and just as friends. I really love his music, which is how I met him. His band's called Twain. And I was obsessed. I sent him some of my songs of that record, Love on the Guadalupe, and he really liked it. And he was down to play a show with me. By that time, I was playing a bunch of new songs, and he was like, "Wow, these songs are really good. Have you recorded them?" And I was like, "No, but I don't have money to record music like that." And he's like, "No, but come by. I want to record you," basically. No money. He just did it as a favor.

And that was za. That was when I started more so to believe, maybe this is a path for me. Because one of my heroes is actually willing enough to just put up his time and just support my music like that.

It just kind of has been a long haul. I was never too sure I would really just start grinding away. But at a certain point, I realized, "Man, people like my songs. It's not a bad thing to just try. I'm young, you know. If I fail, I can still sleep in my mom's garage or something." So I have that luxury. So I just kind of put everything into it the last handful of years. It's a blessing. I feel so grateful to be at this place. I don't think there are a lot of people who get to do what I do and get people behind them, supporting them. I'm incredibly grateful.

Analogue: Talk to me about the forthcoming album. "Punish Me" is the first single. How are you feeling about it?

Lefty: I am really excited about this new record. I played this record for the first time for my producer, this guy Rob Barbato, who's a good friend of mine, in Austin back in 2022. So this record is actually older than the record I put out in 2025.

I recorded Ark with Buck in 2023, and I had recorded this record a year earlier, but I never put it out. I just wasn't sure if I was ready to release it into the world yet because it's just really near and dear to me. It was like the moment I felt like I graduated in my own songwriting. And I felt like I really wanted to put it out when the time was right and I felt ready and I had the support I needed, and that's where ATO has come in and kind of made this dream come alive and helped me put out this record now. I'm really stoked on it.

I can tell you about some of the players. My friend Mat Davidson from Twain played a lot of guitar and pedal steel on it and some bass, and my friend Rob Barbato, who produced for me, played mostly bass on the record. Other than that, my friend Andrew Graham, who's an amazing musician, highly underrated, from this band Swarming Branch, played guitar on it, and also our friend Austin Vaughn, who's an incredible drummer, who's played for so many awesome groups, like Cass McCombs, and the list goes on. He's amazing.

It was a group of really top-notch musicians, and I was just a kid at the time who found myself lucky enough to have people who were interested in what I was doing. I feel like you can hear my excitement in the music itself. I'm like, "Wow, I'm actually doing it," you know? What was I? I was 22 or something.

Analogue: It may not be long until some kid sneaks into one of your shows hoping to hand you a CD out of their pants.

Lefty: That's when I'll know. And I will be smitten about it.

VISIT: Lefty Parker

Photo: Lena Heinschink