Parkway Drive are not all that they seem. Yes their latest album, , is one of the best metal albums of 2010 – an uncompromisingly brutal album of hardcore-infused shape-throwing metal anthemia – and yes they look like Average Joe Aussie surf dudes. But beneath the affable laughter and the bouncing riffs lies a heart of genuine darkness – a misanthropic pessimism that verges on nihilistic despondency.
To an outsider, Parkway’s hometown of Byron Bay appears to be a utopia: a small surfing community of unrivalled natural beauty. But just like the band it spawned, under the surface lies a dark reality of corruption, violence and poverty. And all of this unexpected and insightful new information inadvertently comes tumbling out of frontman Winston McCall as we question the musical roots of the bandmembers and discuss what inspired the concept behind their latest opus.
“The initial idea of the band was to write music for people to just smash each other to,” explains Winston. “But with this one we wanted an album that was a lot more for the head than the feet. We wanted to write the music around the concept to give the whole thing a feel.
The lyrics and themes drove the music too; we didn’t just lay the lyrics over the top of already-written songs.” As we dig a little deeper, Winston reveals another layer, a deeper, darker layer of meaning to and what lies behind the smiles. “The story is about a man who wakes up in a city and realises that everything he’s work.
