Australian Story Will 'Get Heavy' With Parkway Drive On Monday

Following their ARIA #1 seventh album, Darker Still, Parkway Drive will continue their successful run with their own Australian Story episode, fittingly titled Getting Heavy, on Monday, 17 October at 8 pm on ABC TV and ABC iView. 

"I don't know if most households want to be yelled at by this man!" vocalist Winston McCall laughs about why Parkway Drive aren't a household name in Australia (outside the metal houses). However, the band has performed at massive music festivals with 80,000 to 100,000 fans, making them Australia's biggest heavy metal group.

The Darker Still recording sessions were fraught for the band, with in-fighting, depression, creative differences, pay disputes, and an overwhelming schedule threatening to break them up. "It's a tired old story, how the money breaks up friendships and bands and stuff," bassist Jia O'Connor says. 

Parkway Drive cancelled their US tour and were on the verge of breaking up this April when they decided to go to therapy and invited Australian Story into one of their therapy sessions. "It doesn't seem to go hand in hand, counselling and an aggressive metal show, but why can't you be a sensitive, aware human that likes letting their energy out as well?" manager and rhythm guitarist Luke Kilpatrick shares. 

Australian Story will ask, can counselling save not only the band but their friendship as well? 

In The Music's Parkway Drive cover story, McCall talked about his fears, humility around the band's success, becoming an intergenerational band, and the band's potential. "I love the dynamic we have as artists and within the band," McCall said. "There's this thing that happens when the four of us are in a room, sharing ideas, influences, and different perspectives on what we're trying to achieve. Then, it reaches this technicolour version of what your personal vision was, and it's always better than what you could have imagined, and it always feels right. There's never a point when we finish an album and think, 'That's it.'"

Below is the trailer for Getting Heavy, the Parkway Drive Australian Story.