Charlie Parr plays songs from his new album, 'Rooming House,' live at The Current for Radio Heartland
by Mike Pengra
October 28, 2026
Charlie Parr’s new album, Rooming House, started the way a lot of Parr’s music begins. “I write short stories that can be mined for songs,” he says. “That's kind of always how I felt about them.”
Inspired by the time he spent living in rooming houses when he first moved from Austin, Minnesota, to the Twin Cities several years ago, Parr was writing fictional narratives based on the people he met and the experiences he had while living communally. It wasn’t long before several songs emerged, and it became the album, Rooming House. It’s written and recorded to be listened to start to finish, like a concept album or an opera. Parr plans to eventually publish a book to accompany the album. And who knows? It might even become a movie.
Shortly before his October 30 album-release concert at the State Theatre in Minneapolis, Charlie Parr visited The Current studio to record a session for Radio Heartland. Parr played a few songs from Rooming House, and he also talked with host Mike Pengra about how the whole album came together.
Watch and listen to the full session above, and find an interview transcript below.
Interview Transcript
Mike Pengra: I feel really happy to be in the studio with Charlie Parr again. Charlie, welcome back.
Charlie Parr: Thank you. I'm happy to be here too. Thank you.
Mike Pengra: And congratulations on this new project. I was going to say "album," but it's more than an album. It's ... You talked about it maybe being a book. It's also, in my mind, an opera. It's going to be a movie. What do you think? A movie?
Charlie Parr: Yeah, I'd like to have a movie about it.
Mike Pengra: It's called Rooming House. Tell me about where did the idea for this record come from?
Charlie Parr: Well, just over a year ago, I started — I write short stories, you know, that can be mined for songs, and that's kind of always how I felt about them. But then I started writing longer short stories, that I published a couple books myself of my short stories, and I started working on this longer thing that was kind of inspired by my own time when I first moved to the Twin Cities from Austin [Minnesota]. I lived in a rooming house. I lived in a few rooming houses in succession, actually, because I loved it so much.
Mike Pengra: Which is a house that has — you each have your own room. You share a kitchen. You share bathrooms—
Charlie Parr: Bathrooms, kitchen.
Mike Pengra: Yeah.
Charlie Parr: There's a common area sometimes. And my experience of those houses was so positive. It was so good. And the other tenants of the house, it's a huge variety of people that lived in there, and you couldn't help but get to know them, because you're sharing the bathroom and the kitchen. You know, it's hard to cook for one, and so oftentimes, people would come around saying, "Look, I made all this food."
Mike Pengra: Yeah. "Help me eat it."
Charlie Parr: You know. And so, at least once a week, they would turn into, like, potluck meals. Anyway, you know, I wanted to say something about that community. I started writing the book, which turned into, you know, a larger kind of commentary on aging because I am, and it's worrying me a little bit.
Mike Pengra: We are.
Charlie Parr: And so I'm writing and writing, and then what always happens with the way I write stories, songs, like, kind of make themselves manifest out of the story, so I stopped writing the book, and I started writing the record. I wrote the record, seven songs that kind of, you know, kind of tell the story, kind of give the arc.
Mike Pengra: Yeah, you have to listen to it in order to get the story of the ...
Charlie Parr: Yeah, it goes in a specific order. And I had gotten a hold of my friend, Dave King, who I really wanted to work with Dave. Playing music with him is just an amazing experience.
Mike Pengra: He does all the percussion, all the drums.
Charlie Parr: All the percussion. We went, and he heard the — I played the record for him. He joined in. It was like having this conversation with someone that that you could never have with words. I booked time. I went to Creation Audio on Nicollet Avenue with Tom Herbers, who's a genius, and we called Jacqueline Ultan, who's an amazing cellist.
Mike Pengra: Oh, I know. The final track just killed me.
Charlie Parr: Just to do — and the final track is an improvisational piece. I've got figures that I always do, but then she just played.
Mike Pengra: It's beautiful.
Charlie Parr: And we did the whole record live in the studio. We didn't even we didn't even use the studio. The studio we were, you know ... didn't use any of the nice studio things. We just played a live show in the studio, and Tom Herbers recorded it. Four hours later, we were leaving, and the record was done.
Charlie Parr: The songs were becoming ... Like, I had the songs. I thought I had the songs. I was playing the songs at home, and I even played a couple of them live. And they have, you know, they have structure. But then when we got in the studio, and Dave and I kind of started like, you know, pushing and pulling on them, the structure loosened a lot. So we'd play one, and then we'd play another take of it, and it was the second take was always more relaxed, and just like now, I'm kind of like, I'm here, I'm very much present, including the last song with Jacqueline. We did two takes of that, so the second take was one we used.
Mike Pengra: Do you wonder what would happen if you had done a third take?
Charlie Parr: I don't even know. We didn't even consider that. That seemed like, you know, I thought, "I'm happy right now, and I don't want to push too hard." You know, I want to ... you know, "I'm satisfied." You know, the best word for it, I guess it was. So we took it. And then Smithsonian Folkways, I sent it to them, and they said that they would release it, and I was very excited about that, because they're wonderful to work with, and then just about two months ago, I finally got back to the book.
Mike Pengra: OK!
Charlie Parr: So I'm hoping to have that finished some time during the winter.
Mike Pengra: I'm talking with Charlie Parr in the studio today about his brand new record, Rooming House. As we mentioned before of the story, you kind of have to listen to the album from start to finish, in that order, because it really helps tell the story. The characters in the story, I wrote down some of their names: Old John, Ron, Ben, Sara, Sara's son, Missus Moore. They all — are they based on real people you knew? Know? Or ... ?
Charlie Parr: Not really. I mean, the actual main character is never named. Well, he's named near the end, but his name was Joseph.
Mike Pengra: OK.
Charlie Parr: He's me.
Mike Pengra: Yeah, I wondered about that.
Charlie Parr: He's based on me. But all the other ones are, I guess, the way that I create characters is, you know, they're composites of everybody. My parents always end up in there somewhere. They're very important to me. But they're — my characters are all fictional.
Mike Pengra: So it's gonna be a book soon, and...
Charlie Parr: Hopefully.
Mike Pengra: You talk about a movie. Really?
Charlie Parr: I ... it kind of...
Mike Pengra: Animated?
Charlie Parr: Oh, that'd be fun.
Mike Pengra: Yeah!
Charlie Parr: I don't know. It kind of feels like — I've always been interested in that. I don't have the, I don't have the talent or the resources for that, but, you know it would be, it'd be fun.
Mike Pengra: Yeah.
Charlie Parr: I don't know.
Mike Pengra: Some of the ... We talked about doing these songs in two takes. There's some emotional moments for me in there, too, especially the last song, when the song starts off with just the three of you playing. The cellist joins in on this one. It's beautiful, and then the lyrics start about four minutes into it or so. Like it just, I was already in tears by the time you started singing. It was just beautiful, just gorgeous stuff.
Charlie Parr: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Mike Pengra: How do you write that?
Charlie Parr: You know ... that song? That song came really early, because that's meant to be. And I mean it's not ... You know, the songs are giving a less than perfect, you know, narrative, blow by blow. That song is after the main character has passed away. You know, there's two problems: The one problem is the main character is alive, but he's very, very ill, and he can't figure out how to get help, because he has no insurance and he has no resources and he's living hand to mouth. And then when he passes away, which is at the end of a song called "Duluth 2026," there's a line that says, "I got up off the floor." That's him dying. My intention was to re-create the problem, again, now, here's a community of people, here's a house full of people who consider themselves to be family, trying to figure out how to, you know, give respect to their loved one who's passed away. They try taking him to a funeral home, and they're kicked out. You know, and they literally drag him to his favorite park, and they put him on a park bench, and they sit with him, like a wake. But then they all go home after that, and they have to leave him there. And so that's where the song ends, where they go back home and they close his door. They don't want to see into his bedroom.
Mike Pengra: It's such a great storyline, and it's so fun to listen to. The music is great. I love the way you and Dave King work together.
Charlie Parr: Me too.
Mike Pengra: There's a lot of good stuff in there. Charlie, congratulations on this, and I can't wait to see the movie.
Charlie Parr: Me too!
Video Segments
00:00:15 Rooming House
00:05:12 (What’s So Funny About) Universal Healthcare?
00:08:17 Interview with host Mike Pengra, part 1
00:11:54 Bank Robber
00:15:16 Interview with host Mike Pengra, part 2
All songs from Charlie Parr’s 2026 album, Rooming House, available on Smithsonian Folkways.
Musician
Charlie Parr – guitar, vocals
Credits
Guest – Charlie Parr
Host/Producer – Mike Pengra
Video – Josh Sauvageau, Jake Rudegeair
Audio – Evan Clark
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor
External Link
Charlie Parr – official site
