Photo Credit: Mary Hansen
Social Cig
Social Cig frontman Parker Schultz is a busy guy.
At the tail end of August, he celebrated the release of the band’s latest album, Cheesehead, with a sold out show at The Back Room at Colectivo, alongside fellow Milwaukee bands Bug Moment and Scam Likely, as well as DJ Megadon. It was the first of two shows at the East Side live music staple, where they will appear again later this month, in a co-headlining gig with indie rockers North Warren. Local outfits Alley Eyes and Fellow Kinsman will be along for the ride on that bill.
To say that things are successful would be an understatement. Social Cig was started by Schultz as a singer/songwriter entity in 2018, before ultimately growing into a four-piece band. Cheesehead is the band’s third LP, and one of the first projects to feature the full group instead of Schultz doing the lion’s share of recording.
“I was writing it pretty much all since last June of 2021 when I released my last record” recalls Schultz. “It’s a compilation of my favorite songs of that I have written since that time. I had so many other songs I just never finished that didn't make the cut. A big part of it was jamming a lot more, and playing more live shows as things have been opening up. I think it’s got more of a fuller band sound. It was great to collaborate more.”
In fact, roughly 30 songs went into Cheesehead, which were whittled down to the nine that would ultimately make the record. A mixture of songs written alone and with the band, many of the scrapped works might not ever see the light of day.
“I’ve thought about doing a b-sides thing, with not just these ones but songs in my past. I kind of feel weird about going back to old songs” said Schultz. “I wish I had more time in my schedule. I would have the time to sit down and work on these, but I’d rather keep writing and keep things new with the time that I do have.”
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In addition to the record release show, Schultz rounded out August by making his acting debut in Yellow Weekends, a locally-produced indie movie. The movie premiere also sold out the Downer Theater, featuring Schultz starring alongside Nadjah Hasan and Luca Clesceri. The movie was directed by his cousin, Michael Heck, and is currently available for streaming on-demand via Vimeo.
“Michael had this idea about two summers ago, and he wanted to shoot a feature-length film in our free time” said Schultz. “He’s a UWM student, but there was no real project, just a passion thing. I think there was a total of 35 scenes, so maybe a little over 40 or 50 days running around shooting and going over scripts and everything, it became this monster project.”
Written by Heck, Will Kaftan and Ian Rubasch, the movie finds Schultz as Sam, a student who finds himself infatuated with Hasan’s character, Claire. While only a few names appear on the main titles, Schultz cites the vast amount of help they received with completing the project.
“So many people just kind of came in and got their hands on it in a creative way” said Schultz. “I met so many other creatives in the Milwaukee area, and it was just us working on this big project.”
While the focus is currently on Social Cig, Schultz noted that he isn’t opposed to more acting in the future, though it isn’t something he’s actively seeking out at the moment. He is, however, already writing more material, and preparing for the upcoming show with Alley Eyes and Fellow Kinsman on September 30. You can find more information about that show here.
