Paralandra has opened for Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, and Dokken. The band's Paul and Casandra Carson talk in this live, on-location interview about having performed at South By Southwest and signing last year with Legend Recordings, subsequently releasing the EP “Ascension.” Their 2016 song, “All Fall Down” debuted, hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart. Three days after this episode of NHTE was recorded they performed at the fabled Whisky-A-Go-Go.
(Casandra) "It's muscle memory for me. There's a few songs that really get my blood pumping and sometimes I definitely think about the meaning when I'm singing it."
(Paul) "It's pretty much a tag team songwriting thing between me and Cassandra. We pretty much do all of it. And then of course the other band members will throw things in and they'll suggest things that we aren't thinking of, and they help immensely in improving kind of our basic foundational songs. And I've found it very helpful to listen to your other band members. They may not be songwriters... but it's great to get an outside view from someone else."
(Paul) "We decided from the very beginning and felt very strongly that when you go to hear live music you're not wanting to just put on headphones and listen to music, you're wanting to see people perform it and express themselves and we do that. That's one thing we take a lot of pride in."
(Casandra) "I'm very self-taught when it comes to vocals and it took me a while to kind of really understand my own voice and figure out the correct way to do some of the things that I do. People ask me, 'How do you scream night after night and hit these crazy notes and you're still talking the next day?' It's a lot of trickery. I've got a lot of tricks up my sleeve to do it the right way and not hurt myself."
(Casandra) "At the beginning you have to play as much as possible but at the same time not oversaturate your market."
(Casandra) "Making sure that those people feel appreciated, it's so important because, really, they're the reason we're able to do what we do, it's the relationships."
(Casandra) "Building your contacts and building your friends list, your networking, it's huge. You can't get anywhere without it."
(Casandra) "We're always giving it 100 percent everywhere we play... We're always giving it every single ounce we've got."
(Paul) "You check your ego at the door. If you go in to being in a band and you want to take your ego with you, well good luck, I don't know what to tell you."
(Paul) "If you can get into South By Southwest, please try, because there are a lot of industry people there. You will not recognize them but they're there. And we've made a lot of great connections there. A lot of great opportunities out there."
(Paul) "I can't understate how important it is to just be you and be a real person. Don't try to ever put on that rock star thing because when you're looking for those industry people, they've seen it all. You're not impressing 'em."
"Back to Life"
"Killer Queen"