Nashville Local: Parmalee Celebrates Their Biggest Hit Yet at No. 1 Party for “Cowgirl”

Parmalee’s No. 1s just keep coming. The country band recently celebrated their latest feat—”Cowgirl” hitting No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart—at PBR Nashville, and promised even more hits to come.

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The track came together thanks to four songwriters in the U.K.—James Daniel Lewis, Peter David Newman, Robbie Jay, and Thomas Frank Ridley Horsley. The guys sent the idea over to the U.S., and, eventually, it landed on Parmalee’s desk.

“I remember we got the idea and I started listening,” Matt Thomas told the press. “Something hit me when I heard it the first time. Something’s here. It feels good… It feels like us.”

Matt—along with bandmates Scott Thomas, Barry Knox, and Josh McSwain, and producer David Fanning—added their own spin to the track. In doing so, they wound up with an undeniably great song, something they were well aware of.

“I sat down on the bus with Matt, and… he just had this look in his eye,” Sony Music Publishing’s Rusty Gaston recalled to partygoers. “He said… ‘Man, I really think we have one here. I think we have found and created a real standout.’”

With that, “Cowgirl” became Parmalee’s latest single. Matt noted that, unlike the band’s past hits, “Cowgirl” got popular “in real time,” climbing the charts at the same time that audiences went wild over it during live performances.

“In the cities where we would play it, you could definitely tell the difference,” Matt said. “It was kind of just going with it as it was on the charts.”

Parmalee’s Year Ahead

Now, “Cowgirl” is tied for the fourth longest-running No. 1 among groups since Country Airplay’s launch in 1990. To date, Parmalee has 1.6 billion streams and six No. 1s. Additionally, the band was the only group to have multi-week No. 1 in 2025.

Parmalee doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon, and fans can expect to get lots of new music this year.

“We’re constantly teasing some stuff. We have a project in the works that we’re dropping little tidbits about,” Matt said of the band’s social media presence. “… We’ve been kind of putting out a couple of songs here and there and seeing what people think. That’ll continue.”

“That’s just stuff we’re working on constantly,” he added, before noting that the songwriting and creation process “really never stops, to be honest with you.”

Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for BMI