Winston McCall On 20 Years Of Parkway Drive: 'This Is Not A Nostalgia Act'

Parkway Drive beginning their 20th anniversary celebrations with a massive homecoming tour of Australia means “everything” to the band, vocalist Winston McCall tells The Music.

“I'm so stoked. It's been a very long time since Australia was the jumping-off point for another era of this band,” McCall says.

“It seems very right that this celebration begins here and that people get to be part of the celebration of what these last 20 years that they have contributed to and been a part of – it’s a collective thing. These are the biggest shows that a heavy band from Australia has ever done, full stop.

“This not a mainstream band, as much as people can be like, ‘Oh, they're huge now,’ whatever… This culture is still very much under [the] mainstream. So, for people to be able to go to an arena gig for a band that's lasted for 20 years, that arena gig didn't happen [by people] just magically coming to it. It happened from people going, ‘You gotta listen to this band; I love them. You gotta come to this gig; I love them’ and it growing from people doing the legwork.

“They're the ones that have gone out and told their friends and told their family, ‘This is worth seeing.’ So, to start here means a huge amount. By the end of this show, you're going to realise that this is not the final point; this is not a nostalgia act. This is the opening salvo of what's to come.”

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For the forthcoming tour, Parkway Drive will be joined by international heavy hitters I Prevail, The Ghost Inside, and Melbourne metallers Void Of Vision. “Heavy music in this country is possibly the strongest it's ever been,” the vocalist states. Looking to make the most of the opportunity presented to them, Parkway Drive plan to leave a “very large mark” on the Australian touring circuit, assuring the next generation of metal bands that they can do it, too.

When one speaks to Winston McCall, his pride regarding heavy music and what Parkway Drive has achieved—in Australia and abroad—is clear.

Australia’s most successful metalcore band, Parkway’s heavy metal-tinged most recent albums, 2015’s Ire, 2018’s Reverence, and 2022’s Darker Still, have debuted at #1 on the ARIA Albums Chart. 2012’s Atlas debuted at #3, 2010’s Deep Blue at #2, 2007’s Horizons at #6, and their 2005 debut album, Killing With A Smile, which went on to be certified Gold in Australia, debuted at #39.

Their global takeover hasn’t just happened and certainly hasn’t only occurred due to great tunes, but also due to word of mouth from energetic shows and a relentless touring schedule.

The band still remember their first show all the way back in 2003 – at the Byron Youth Activity Centre (YAC) – and recalls other gigs at youth centres and tiny venues. And they know that some fans who attended those gigs might just bring their kids to their upcoming 20th-anniversary national tour.

“Now, their kids are our fans as well,” McCall muses over Zoom. “That multi-generational thing is awesome. It's crazy the amount of people these days that we just meet – they're like, ‘Hey, I saw you at Bateau Bay PCYC, here's my kid! For some reason, they love listening to Parkway now. They’re like, put on Bottom Feeder! I want to make headbang!’ [Laughs] That’s sick.”

He continues, “I never thought we'd be in a position where we would have lasted long enough for that to happen. It's really cool that this has sustained for so long through the ebbs and flows, and it's still growing.”

Parkway Drive: 'It’s Nuts That We’ve Become An Intergenerational Band'

Despite being Australia’s most successful heavy music export, Parkway Drive always come home. For the band, being from Byron Bay shaped their very existence.

“For me, it’s [living in Byron Bay] the centre point. It’s the place I always come back to. It 100% shaped our drive,” McCall states.

While it’s difficult to explain for people who weren’t in Byron Bay when the band were growing up, McCall gives it his best shot.

“When we grew up in this town, there were dirt roads… we had nothing before this began. Our prospect of what we were going to do was, ‘You like surfing, you're probably going to be unemployed, and you're going to be doing a shitty tourist job for the rest of your life.’”

He recalls, “The reason we started the band was because it was entertaining. There was nothing for young people in this town because the tourist culture just catered to bars and backpackers. So, we started our own scene, and the band started because we just wanted something different to do.

“The reason we started touring was because it was an opportunity to go somewhere you've never been before. It was just the idea of, ‘Hey, this is a vehicle to travel and have an experience. If we say no to these opportunities, you might never get them ever again because who the hell ever gets out of this town?’”

That ethos still shapes Parkway Drive—you never know when the opportunity will slip out of reach, when the demand will come to a halt, or when they can no longer tour.

McCall tells, “It shaped everything down to the way we write music. We very much listen to ourselves and our tastes because we want to do what we want to do. The formula is, ‘Do you like playing it? Do you like listening to it?’ From there, because that's what we started out doing, we trust that people are going to give it time, and if we like it, someone else is going to like it.

“So, that's how Byron shaped us. And now, we're lucky enough to still have a career in a town which is very difficult to have careers in, let alone be an artist, and still return to the place that you connect with. I've seen the entire planet, and this is still the place for me.”

To McCall, it’s “fucking sick” that Parkway Drive have made it despite the barriers before them and lack of prospects in Byron Bay.

“I could never in a billion years have imagined that this is how it would have turned out, and no one could have guessed the trajectory this town would have taken either,” McCall adds. “That's the other thing, but it all makes sense because I'm like, ‘Hey, if I think it's the best place in the world, why wouldn't anyone else think that?’ I'm not shocked that people are coming here and wanting to stay here.”

Parkway Drive have been through a lot, and openly discussed moments within the band they weren’t proud of while promoting their latest album, Darker Still.

Appearing on an episode of Australian Story called Getting Heavy; they revealed that bassist Jia O’Connor wasn’t an official full-time member of the band for years, battled toxic attitudes towards each other and burnout and found healing and discovery in therapy. When McCall is asked how the band is doing as a unit now and what they’ve learned in the process of therapy, he initially laughs before sharing an insightful answer.

McCall admits that counselling, and maintaining solid, healthy relationships with his bandmates is a “continuing process.” And when we speak, Parkway Drive are doing great—"We're the best we've ever been.”

But, he adds, if there’s anything to take away from life and its daily challenges, “it's not like you go through something like that, and then everything's great and that moment freezes in time, and life just gets better, and everything's awesome.”

“Life changes in the most unexpected ways,” the Vice Grip vocalist explains. “Change is the only constant. But if you learn the skills, put the time and effort into learning the skills and the techniques and the patterns of communication, then you have ways of dealing with that change.

“It’s more than going, ‘Oh, we didn't talk about stuff;’ it’s human growth and being able to recognise [that] if you go through these processes and you do the work—because it is work—it helps you,” McCall says.

Thanks to the processes he continues to use in daily life, he knows how to recognise a potential communication challenge or barrier and deal with it.

He explains, “I can recognise that within myself as something, and therefore, I can move forward and start this process of communication or self-reflection to figure out how to move through difficulty [towards] happiness.

“It's that thing of realising that human growth doesn't stop when you leave school. Emotional growth is something that isn't really taught or talked about. When you think about it, most of schooling is just conditioning for operating in a society, but no one really tells you how to grow emotionally. It's kind of just expected that through the process, you become a functioning member of society, and that's it [laughs]. That's not very good instructions!

“So, where we're at is really good. Shit comes up, [and] it's challenging. People have ups and downs, but we're constantly attentive, and we constantly put the effort in. And it's not a crazy amount of effort; it’s just effort that wasn't there before.”

Throughout our conversation, McCall outlines the “intense” rehearsals and preparations of the upcoming Australian tour, which involves complex, ambitious, and meticulous planning.

Attributing Parkway Drive’s longevity to each band member’s drive and desires beyond anything else, McCall believes the band’s willingness to push and test the bounds of their music has gotten them further than their wildest dreams.

“I can safely say that I have no one single answer to why it's [the band] lasted this long,” McCall chuckles. “But I think the fact that we have been very self-fulfilling in our drive and our desires for what we've wanted to do [has kept it] entertaining for us.

He admits, “If we were bored of this and we didn't want to do it, we would have stopped doing it…” McCall trails off before referencing past interviews where he or his bandmates would be asked about how different their new music sounds.

“It was like, ‘Well, we did the other stuff until we did it heaps, and then it didn't have the same zing for us anymore. So, we figured out some new stuff.’ We've constantly kept doing that, and that's still where we're at.”

With each album release (or new era of Parkway Drive, if you want to explain it that way), the band have continued to build and expand from where they began to enhance their vision and confidence, and “I think that’s probably the secret,” McCall shares.

“If you put all of those elements together and realise that we never surrendered any of those – we hold them all within the band and learn through the good and the bad how to get the most out of them – we've ended up in a place where it's very personally fulfilling and very entertaining for people who have very big imaginations.”

Teasing the “insane” 20th-anniversary tour, McCall remains tight-lipped about what to expect (“You’ll see,” he cheekily hints), but if you’ve been keeping up with the band’s Instagram, you’ve likely seen the video where they tease which old songs might appear in the set: Boneyards. Horizons. Karma. Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em.

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No matter which era of Parkway Drive you enjoy the most, the band are planning a show where everybody walks away with their minds blown.

“This is a new show, full stop” with a unique setlist, McCall says. “The challenge for us was maximising the opportunity and leaning into the moment.”

While it’s a 20th anniversary tour, Parkway Drive aren’t planning a nostalgia run – this is no “remember when?” This is about connection and celebration of the new and old, of where the band is today.

“The thing for us was, how do we make it feel personal? How do we make it personal in a way that's closer than it's ever been, but at the same point in time, create something that is in line with our artistic, visual aesthetic and sonic capabilities that marry those two very polar opposites together? Everything we do sonically these days and everything we do visually is 20 years removed from a youth centre show, and we have no desire to be anything less.”

McCall adds, “I want to create something that is uniquely Parkway, which encapsulates everything from that feeling of someone being directly in your face and that everyday person that people meet on the street, but also that sense of like, ‘This is the most insane thing I've ever seen in my entire life,’ and putting those things right next to each other. That's the challenge that we set ourselves, and I think it's what we've achieved.”

According to McCall, the “ebb and flow” of the show Parkway Drive will present, their legacy, and the value their music still holds in their fans’ lives will make the upcoming tour truly special.

“That's a very creative way of putting it all without going, ‘We make flames go bang’ [laughs], but knowing if you take all of that, and you put it in the context of everything that everyone knows about this band and this band's history and what you see us doing at this point, I think you can realise quite quickly that we know exactly what we're doing when we create anything that has the Parkway brand name,” he explains. “I think we're quite good at knowing the emotional intent behind something and amplifying that to the degree that hits and that translates in the best way possible.”

Parkway Drive will embark on their 20th anniversary tour this month. You can buy tickets here.

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