He started to get serious about music in 1985 when he co-founded the band Arena with high school friends Jeff Cannon and Michael Brown.

Arena changed their name to Virtu in 1987[1] just before meeting producer and engineer Billy Stull at Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, New Mexico.

In 1992, Parrish (vocals/guitar) joined Robbie Dunn (guitar), Steve Chavez (bass) and Chuck Martin (drums) to form January's Little Joke.

[3] In 1998, Shaunna Hall (4 Non Blondes) contacted Parrish to engineer an album for a San Francisco band called the Flying Other Brothers - who later became Moonalice.

Casady was brought in to work on the Flying Other Brothers' album San Francisco Sounds which Parrish was producing.

Parrish's other notable recording, mixing and engineering achievements include: The Story by Brandi Carlile, Moonalice, Mixing Front of House and live sound recordings for Randy Newman, Jon Brion, GE Smith, Hot Tuna, The Coward Brothers with Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett; Neko Case live with T-Bone Burnett, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Doyle Bramhall II.