Last year, The Selfless Lovers were one of the bands to perform at Odessa’s Hot Summer Nights.
This week, the band returns to the Permian Basin but a lot has happened to the group’s main singer Nik Parr since last July.
The Selfless Lovers will take the stage at 7 p.m. Friday at Noel Heritage Plaza as this week’s Hot Summer Nights act.
It’ll be the second time the band will perform in Odessa but a month after last year’s performance, it didn’t look like Parr would be able to sing or perform on stage again.
It was August, 2021 when Parr woke up one morning in Austin and knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t long before Parr was taken into the hospital and realized he was suffering a stroke.
“I woke up one morning with awful vertigo,” Parr said. “I had to go to the hospital. I had no idea what was going on. Everything was spinning. I had to call an ambulance and the neurologist said there was a blood clot in my brain.”
Specifically, Parr said he had a patent foramen ovale (or PFO).
“It has to do with the hole in your heart and that makes it more likely to get blood clots in your brain,” Parr said.
Parr said he was in the hospital for about a week while they repaired the hole in his heart as he underwent catheter surgery.
“They put a tiny device in my heart that allowed my blood to flow like it should,” Parr said.
The recovery took about a month.
“Your brain and your eyes have to learn to process everything,” Parr said. “Walking around, it feels like you’re drunk because everything’s slow and you’ll turn and it takes everything a half second to catch up. It sucks. I felt like that for a month. As I got better, it slowly went away. But even now, if I lay down too fast or if I’m tired, I have to be careful. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to ride a roller coaster again. but I’m at 99 percent now. A lot of it was walking around the hospital with my family and feeling like the hallway was moving.”
At the time of the stroke, Parr said he wasn’t sure if he would ever get to be on stage singing or playing the piano or saxophone again.
Since then, however, Parr has returned to the stage. He has been working on his new album “Promised Land.”
“Basically when it happened, it was in doubt whether I would still be playing music anymore,” Parr said. “I didn’t know if I would still be able to play shows anymore. But I do and a lot of the new album are songs that I wrote after the stroke happened. There’s a lot of emotion there because it’s about getting a second chance in life. There’s a lot of emotion but it’s a fun album. I got a second chance.”
Parr says the band The Selfless Lovers “aim to bring fun back to live music with a burn-the-stage down, exuberant whirlwind of a live show and impactful, wide reaching original songs.”
The group hails from Austin.
Parr says that Odessa is one of his favorite places to perform and it’s due in part to Odessa Arts Executive Director Randy Ham and Odessa Arts Office Manager Ramsi Richardson.
“Odessa is one of the cooler concert series that I’ve played at in my time,” Parr said. “I think that comes down to Ramsi and Randy Ham are doing one of the best jobs of anyone in cultural-related affairs in the entire country.”
Parr compared the Hot Summer Nights series more favorably over other gigs back in Austin.
“Randy and Ramsi have done a great job attracting talent in Odessa,” Parr said. “Not just my talent. A lot of it is because they will pick up the phone. They like music. They’re really into the culture in that city. I really don’t see a lot of that, even in Austin. I can’t get a hold of a lot of people on the phone here in Austin. It’s like that in bigger cities. Odessa’s a cool town. It’s a cool town that’s been building a lot of culture. We’re excited to come out.”
The band’s original music draws on classic rock, soul, blues and southern rock influences.
“As a kid, I was a pianist,” Parr said. “Then I became a singer and saxophonist over the years. “We’re a rock and roll band. I think what makes it stand out is that these are modern songs. These are relevant songs. I’m not just up there to imitate something. It’s more like, I grew up around listening to bands like the Rolling Stones or listening to Little Richard or Chuck Berry or other stuff. I listen to a lot of indie bands from the early 2000s. I listen to Arcade Fire or the Black Keys. All sorts of music. As a pianist and saxophonist, I approach that music in a certain way. It gives you kind of an old school, roots revival feel. It’s a mix of old conventions and new wave of song writing.”
In addition to Parr, the band members also include Daniel Warner on drums, Keegan Flynn on guitar and Evan Durr on bass guitar.
For more information on the group, visit tinyurl.com/2hbcydjh.
If you go
- What: Hot Summer Nights: The Selfless Lovers.
- When: 7 p.m. July 22.
- Where: Noel Heritage Plaza.
- More information: hotsummernightsodessa.com
