Cross Parallel is a brand new music duo comprised of Danielle Marie King and Jordan Pritchett. While their music has not been released just yet, they are very excited for what’s to come in the near future. As Jordan explained, “Obviously our work isn’t out today-- but the day it does come out-- what I want people to know is that we’re a couple and our music comes from a real place and we really mean what we say [in] our songs. Also, I don’t want anyone to expect a certain type of song or a certain sound from us. The first song that comes out isn’t going to sound anything like the second one….”
Danielle Marie followed with, “That’s a good way to put it…. If we feel a certain way, then that’s the kind of song we’re going to write, and so, for our fans, I think we will be able to speak to a really broad spectrum of people-- for all different types of feelings that they’re feeling or different moods that they’re in…. ”
Even though Danielle Marie and Jordan both grew up in the entertainment industry, they didn’t have a chance to meet until July 2015. Their paths crossed for the first time during a songwriting session. After the session, the pair became inseparable and eventually they embarked on this new project together. The couple stated that it took about a year and a half just to pick the name, “Cross Parallel”.
“Back in July 2017 was when we decided we wanted to do a duo thing after fighting it for years,” Danielle Marie continued. “People were trying to tell us that ‘you guys should just be a duo’ and we were like, ‘No, I’m Danielle. He’s Jordan. We have our own things.’ So we wanted our name to mean something. We didn’t just want to be in interviews like this and have somebody ask us, ‘Why Cross Parallel?’ and not have an answer, like, ‘It sounded cool so we went with it.’”
Ultimately, Jordan said that Cross Parallel had the most personal meaning out of all the band names they could have chosen: “…We were two separate artists and then quickly we just became very close and started playing together all the time. Our lives just kind of took off the same path. So we crossed paths and then we ran parallel [to each other]…. So that’s kind of the story behind it. The other names, I don’t even want to say because they sound stupid!” He added that the name only became official a week before they made their announcement on social media about their new “music baby”. So, for them, the name is “still pretty fresh”, but they both agreed that it “feels right”.
What makes Cross Parallel unique is their decision not to be tied to one genre or a specific audience. They cited Queen and Elvis Presley as some of their biggest influences in regards to defying genre expectations. If they were to describe their own upcoming sound, Jordan said that they wanted to “spread” themselves across country, pop and rock, but the main thing is to have fun and make music.
“We really like the rap genre. We really like Macklemore, and just artists who don’t pinhole their creative artistry to one genre. I think that some artists feel like they have to appeal to a certain fan-base and then you’re really limiting how creative you can be. So, I think it’s super important for people to not only listen to all types of music but to respect all types of music and that everyone has something for them. Our hope is that we can have a fan-base of, you know, maybe like, 80 year old people that listen to slow, acoustic music, or teens who want to be in the club and dance…. We just want to make music that we feel in the moment. Whether that connects to the country music fans or the rock music fans, it just depends on what we’re feeling that day. I think authenticity wins, always.” said Danielle Marie.
Danielle Marie and Jordan both became artists in their teen years, which lead them to where they are now. They have taken their individual knowledge to help each other learn and grow as a team. Jordan, for example, grew up with the guidance of his father, country singer, Aaron Pritchett. He also gained valuable experience with the band, Faber Drive, which he joined when he was 18. He is still a part of the band today.
Learning from his father’s experiences, Jordan realized that, “He’s been through it all. So I’ve learned a lot and there are still some lessons that I need to go through on my own and learn the hard way myself…. It’s been awesome. Not everyone has that kind of mentor or someone to bounce things off of. So, with our songs, we’ll bounce things off him, just to see what he thinks…. If you watch his show—I don’t want to sound biased as his son but—he’s one of the best entertainers in Canada. We are still getting better, but he has a lot to teach. There was a time before where I would lean a little too heavily on him, right? Like, I would almost let him call the shots and now I’ve kind of learned that, you know, I’ve got to be individual—and especially with [Cross Parallel] we have to do our own thing. It’s not anyone else’s….”
Danielle Marie grew up as a dancer and has used this ability to “break Jordan’s shell” in order to get him to move around. She also acknowledged that Aaron Pritchett has “been a huge influence” on their stage presence, but Jordan is still one of her biggest teachers. “I wasn’t a harmony singer before I met [Jordan] and he’s helping me with that. We are building each other up through what we’ve learned in our own experiences.” So they balance each other out, especially in their personal lives.
“We do balance it, but we--like the name says-- we run our lives parallel, next to each other now. We’re almost never apart and it’s good though,” said Jordan.
“Not only do we have a romantic relationship, but we are best friends. I want to spend all my time with him and I hope he wants to spend it with me,” Danielle Marie laughed. “Our interests are so much alike. There are things we don’t always want to do together, like, he’ll want to go golfing and I’m going to go to the mall or something like that. I think that’s where we find our balance. We do have our own little things that we like to do by ourselves. To be able to come home and have music that we do together, it works out really well. The balance is respecting each other’s alone time.”
One of the best things they were able to do together, however, was help Aaron open for Garth Brooks in 2016! “I got to be the fan in the crowd cheering them on, so it was pretty awesome!” Danielle Marie recalled.
Jordan was actually on stage with his dad and was later gifted a Garth Brooks hat by the man himself: “It’s one of my favourite hats because I can say that he gave it to me." Opening for Garth “was pretty unreal! It was one of the highlights of my life and my dad’s, for sure. I just remember, ever since I was born, I think he was a Garth Brooks fan and when I was a kid, he’d listen to him all the time. He loved Garth Brooks and it took me awhile because I was stubborn and into rock bands. My dad’s a country singer and I didn’t like country. So, it even took a while for me to like country, but I love Garth Brooks now. I’m a huge fan! I just remember watching him on stage. We were in the sound booth watching him after we had played. I don’t cry very often, but I cried.”
Although he is now a country fan, Jordan has stayed closed to his rock roots with Faber Drive. The band released “Surrender” in December 2018, after a hiatus. When asked if Faber Drive would continue to release new music, he replied, “Yeah… We just released a new one, “To Be With You”. It’s kind of a cover from, I think, the ‘80s. [Dave] Faber has been really wanting to put stuff out again and knows that I have [Cross Parallel] now. So this is obviously our biggest priority, but we’ve been helping as much as we can. We’re both involved in that song/singing on it and Faber writes with us a lot. We are on a bunch of his tracks. We help out each other, so, Faber and Faber Drive are planning to release a bunch more songs. Definitely keep an ear out for that!”
With Cross Parallel as their main focus for years to come, Danielle Marie said they are most looking forward to “finally getting to put our music out! That’s the one thing. A lot of the songs that we’re recording and working on currently, we wrote, like, a year ago already! So for us, it’s just been like, ‘Oh my goodness! When do we get to release these?’ and you know, the fact that we’ve had such a hands-on experience for the whole process-- just to finally show people this is what we’ve been working on… to introduce our ‘music baby’ to everybody and start playing the songs live more. We just want to see where this whole music duo takes us because we’ve been working on it for what seems like forever. Tour dates, for right now, are a little further down the road, but summer for us is always a busy time. We’ve got some shows lined already for the summer. We’re planning a release party and we usually do some shows back where I’m from, in Edmonton. We have a following there as well. This year’s going to be more like, ‘Here’s our project,’ and then 2020’s going to be our big, out on the road/playing shows year!”
Finally, Cross Parallel offered the following advice to aspiring artists, beginning with Jordan Pritchett: “I think, do as much on your own and not to expect anything too much to be given to you. There are a lot of examples. My dad worked hard for 10 years before he got his first, real, big break/big success. So, for a lot of people, in ten years, you’ve got to work hard. Nowadays, maybe it’s a bit different because of Spotify. There are a lot of younger kids rocking Spotify. Faber’s son goes by Powfu and he’s on Spotify and he’s just rockin’. He’s growing his fan-base like crazy. Watching him doing what he’s doing is totally how everyone should do it! Just write and work on your craft. That’s what any songwriter or successful songwriter will tell you: ‘Write 100 songs and have one really good one’. So, that’s what he’s doing. He’s writing, he’s recording, he’s releasing—he’s releasing a song a week or something! Don’t overthink it, do it on your own, and don’t spend a bunch of money that might be unnecessary and might not do anything. He’s spent money on a microphone and Logic, a program to record. He’s learning to do stuff on his own and it’s easier than ever these days to do that kind of thing.”
To add to that, Danielle Marie King stated, “There was a time in the last few years where I was trying to fit to what the sound was at the time and trying to do what I thought people wanted to hear, and it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted to say. For artists coming up in this day and age, it is really important to what makes you happy and to really have a reason why you’re doing this. Don’t let that reason be to become famous, because like Jordan said, it’s hard. You have to work hard and you have to love what you do because otherwise, it’s going to be really easy to quit. So, don’t get too discouraged if it does take you ten years, just take those ten years to be growing and working on your craft….”
For more information, please visit: www.crossparallelmusic.com .
Photo courtesy of Cross Parallel.
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