Australian Metal-Core giants PARKWAY DRIVE are all set to play the upcoming VANS WARPED TOUR AUSTRALIA but before that, they will once again head to Europe for another round of shows. DAVEY RINTALA was lucky enough to chat with vocalist WINSTON McCALL on Halloween, about the upcoming Warped tour, touring abroad, keeping the sound fresh on each album, and their new book, which chronicles their 10 year history.
Parkway Drive have had a crazy last 12 months. You released a new album, did a European headline tour, an Aust/NZ tour in December 2012, USA/ Canada Tour in March/ April this year. Back to Europe mid-year for Summer Festival shows and club gigs, and your recent 10 year anniversary shows in Australia. Now you’re heading back to Europe again for a run of shows, and then back home for the Australian Vans Warped tour. Can you give us more of a band level, and personal level rundown of the last 12 months?
Busy [laughs]. It’s been really good, to be honest, when you say it like that it has been really busy but the shows have been so good and the reception to the album has been so good. We’ve been able to space it out well enough that it’s flown by in a way that hasn’t made it seem like it was as busy as it has been.
There hasn’t really been any dead spots to say, it’s just been a whole bunch of really amazing shows. We’re still just chucking on, which is fantastic [laughs]. I guess the fact that we haven’t really seen a break has meant it all still seems really fresh for us. The album still seems really fresh, even though it’s been out for a year.
So in between those tours, do you come home and have a break, or do you holiday overseas?
For me, its home in between them, big time. The other guys have been overseas here and there. I guess the more you travel, the more you want to spend time at home. We also started coming home and started writing new stuff as well, so we’ve been busy.
What are your thoughts on the upcoming Vans Warped Festival here in Australia, and how do you think it will compare to the one’s overseas that Parkway Drive have been part of ?
We’re super psyched to be part of it in Australia! I’m so glad it’s back, it’s such a great festival, and it holds a special place in all our minds in the band. It was like, for at least over half the band, the first time that Warped ever came to Australia, were the first shows that a whole bunch of us ever went to. So the fact that it’s finally coming back is really cool and for us to be able to be a part of it is really, really rad! I guess it also shows the fact that the line ups that it has these days, have diversified so much from what it used to be, it’s really cool that we do get to be a part of it.
The lineup is fantastic! Obviously it’s going to be a little different from the States, because the States is on such a massive rolling scale, that they have to the same festival for 49 days in a row or something [laughter]. The bands that are playing and the way they set it up, makes the vibe. To be honest, when we did Warped over there, it was very similar to what we remember back in the day, and it definitely had more of an intimate feel when it came to festivals, as opposed to anything else we’d done before, so fingers crossed that’s what it’s like in Australia.
Are there any bands on the bill that you haven’t played with previously, or bands that you are thrilled to be sharing the stage with?
Umm… there’s very few bands that we haven’t played with these days [laughs]. It’s pretty cool that both Offspring and Millencolin are playing because they’re two bands that we’ve loved for a long time and have never played with. I haven’t actually ever seen Offspring or Millencolin live so, I think the other guys have seen Offspring before but none of us have seen Millencolin. It’s just one of those things, we’ve played festivals with them before, but they’ve always been on the day before, or the day after, or just after we have to leave, or something like that. So it’s pretty sweet, we’re psyched !
As we talked about earlier, the bands touring schedule is rather hectic, you’ve played in 56 countries. Are there any countries or cities that are more special to you guys than others, and reasons why?
These days… (pause) It’s so hard [laughs]. There’s a whole bunch to be honest. There’s so many, that it’s kinda hard to just pull one out of the hat. It’s pretty amazing that it has got to that point these days where the question use to be, “What’s your favourite place to play?”, and you’d go bang! Straight away, “This is where the shows are the best by far”. These days the shows are so good worldwide, that it’s absolutely phenomenal, it’s really weird for us to play a show that doesn’t feel fantastic. It’s really rare that we come off stage bummed in any way, shape or form. It’s really nice, and to translate it onto such a large scale worldwide, has been pretty cool.
Just want to talk about the “Atlas” album, which was released 12 months ago now. Once again you had a new producer on board, in the form of Matt Hyde, who has some big albums under his belt, including Slayer’s 2001 masterpiece “God Hates Us All”. How did you come about using Matt for the role of Producer on the latest album?
We’d been looking for someone new, we knew what we wanted but we didn’t really know how to find anyone because we’re not very good at that kind of thing. One of our friends recommended him and I think it was Johnny from Winds of Plague, said “hey we worked with Matt Hyde once before, and he was great”, and then Chad from New Found Glory said the same thing also.
So we looked him up and met with him and he was the guy. The thing was, we didn’t realise what records he’d actually done. We knew a couple he’d done such as Perseverance from Hatebreed and we’re like “good enough for us, that record is incredible!” That was the first record we ever referenced, when it came to getting sound. Then after we decided to work with him, we went “Holy Shit!” Look what he’s done. Slayer, Monster Magnet and No Doubt! All these things and we’re like “Holy Crap”, he’s done some big shit! [laughs]”. Then when we went into the studio and there are just gold records everywhere and Matt’s just sitting there with his funny old baseball cap on, just rocking backwards and forwards, throwing idea’s out there, playing Call of Duty and it was incredible, he’s a legend.
So along with Matt, you’ve also worked with other producers such as Adam Dutkiewicz from Killswitch Engage and also Joe Baressi. How much of a role do the producers have in making the album, and the sound of the recording?
Sound… massive amounts and that’s been the main thing we went for with that last album. Originally we had no idea what so ever and we went with Adam, because we had no idea what a producer was and Adam basically built the band into what it is today. He taught us about song writing, he taught us sound and he also taught us so much about ourselves and we really would be dead in the water and no one would have known who we were if it wasn’t for him. The difference between anything we’d done before ”Killing With A Smile”, I think that album is massive and the difference was Adam’s work.
Then from there we decided we wanted to have a different sound after that and that was going with Joe. That was literally just writing everything ourselves and having very little input when it came to the structure and stuff like that. So we worked with Joe in getting that rawer bass, heavy sound and then again we wanted something different for the next album, so we went with Matt. We wanted input from Matt, we wanted something as clean as possible, as we wanted the heaviness to come through via the clean sound. The thing is, the next record around as well, you can pretty much guarantee we’ll end up working with a new producer again, just because it’s fun, interesting and fresh. We like the progression that it brings.
You recently put out a new book titled “10 Years of Parkway Drive”. How did the idea come up to do the book?
We were like, “What can we do? We’ve got a lot of stuff and we’ve got a lot of information that we haven’t put out through a DVD”. Our friend Callum made the whole thing, whilst his partner did the editing. He said “why don’t you do a book?” We didn’t know what the hell this meant and he’d actually done one previously. He’s a street artist and a really great graphic designer. He showed us the book he had done years ago and it gave us a basic rough idea that we could look at and it made sense. He said “I’ll make it happen, give me the stuff, give me everything you got and we’ll put it into the book, as much information as possible”.
That was the idea, to make the guide to Parkway Drive, that you couldn’t just sit and watch in an hour and a half [laughs]. The response to the book has been phenomenal and it’s exactly what we wanted. People that pick it up definitely do say, “Wow, there’s some reading in here”, “Wow, I didn’t know that about you” and “I’ve had to come back to this several times to be able to digest it all”. It’s not so much an entertainment piece, as it is a resource guide, as well as being able to take in the wonderful work people surrounding the band have done.
After this touring cycle finishes, whenever you guys decide to finish this touring cycle, [laughs] what sort of plans are on the cards? Are you guys starting on a new record and are there any Winston McCall side projects coming out?
New record has definitely begun being written. We’ve started putting things together and planning things. It’s going pretty well at the moment, I’m quite surprised how much inspiration we’ve got to actually continue writing stuff, we’ve been writing quite a bit. We just sat down at our last jam before we head to Europe, saying “ok, we’re bringing all the recording gear on tour with us from now on, and we’re writing on tour”, so that mode is kicking in and we’re really excited about that. Also, at the same time, have had Rain Dogs half recorded for the last 6 months [laughs]. So, hopefully that will see the light of day within the next 12 months as well. We’re busy, we’re always busy [laughs]
Well that sums up our questions today Winston, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to Reverb Magazine today.
Yeh, no problem.
Best of luck for Europe and we’re eagerly looking forward to seeing Parkway Drive perform at the upcoming Australian Vans Warped Festival.