Parkway Drive have had a busy time promoting and touring their last record Deep Blue and are set to appear at next year’s Big Day Out alongside some of the most talked about mainstream artists in music today. With their distinctive melodic guitar riffs, pulsating rhythm section and energetic live performance, they are by far the heaviest band announced so far for next year’s festival, and have proved that if you stick to playing what you love, and work hard with a DIY attitude, great things can come.
It hasn’t all been easy though this year for the Byron boys, they are just home from a disrupted tour of America with UK band and good mates Bring Me The Horizon, fellow Australians Deez Nuts and UK metalcore group Architects where the band missed the first week of the tour and entire West Coast leg due to visa issues. Rhythm guitarist Luke Kilpatrick tells me over the phone that touring the United States can be tough even for a band who’s last record went gold.
You guys have just finished a pretty intense North American tour with five bands playing 27 shows in almost as many days… sounds like it got off to a pretty average start.
Did you hear about the visa problems we had? Yeah our visas got held up, they had like two or three months to process them and for some reason it didn’t happen even though we had them three times before, and we missed the whole first run, the West Coast run which is usually the most fun for us. By the time we got there we were in Canada and then the border fucked us around for eight hours, so not a good experience this time…. They tell you don’t book your flights till you’ve got your visas but then to apply for your visa you need to show them when you’re arriving so you need flights, they gotta sort it out I reckon… At the end we added a LA and San Diego show just to make up for it.
It’s all pretty bad, like the shows are obviously all good it’s just the cities, every city you’re in the shittest part of the city, it’s just all pretty boring but the West Coast, definitely San Diego or LA is the best place to be over there.
There must’ve been some funny moments with five bands on that kind of tour?
It’s pretty fun I mean the four main bands were two UK bands and two Australian Bands so we were all just talkin shit on America and it was really fun, good tour.
How do you guys relax after an intense tour like that?
I actually went to Puerto Rico for five days with my girlfriend so that was pretty nice and relaxed there for me. The other guys just came home and I guess saw their families and girls at home.
With the Big Day Out coming up is there anyone on the line-up you’re keen to see?
It’s just good that there’s so much Australian music on it and we’re a part of it sort of for once. We wanna see the Jezebels ’cause our good friend’s in that band. And Soundgarden I’ve never seen before and used to love them when I was younger so that’d be good. Kanye, I don’t really know or care about but I’m sure that’ll be interesting. I think Big Day out were a bit freaked out in the past about what happened with some big band, was it Limp Bizkit? I don’t know who played a few years ago. Yeah there was a bit of a problem there so I think they were a bit wary of the heavier bands, but it’s good that they’re given us a go and we’ll see how it is.
Will you have mates coming to the Gold Coast leg?
Yeah, I’m not sure how much of a guest list we get but I guess Goldy will be where everyone will be goin’, we’ll see what we can do. A lot of them come up to Brissy when we play and local shows are still as crazy as they’ve ever been if not more. You kinda think It’s weird “aren’t you guy’s over this, why would you even bother”, but they love it. A lot of them don’t even care for that kind of music or anything so it’s just something different for them to see that. To see how wild kids go.
Any side shows planned?
No none because we’re doing some all ages shows around the country soon after it, but those details aren’t announced yet but that’s why there’s no side shows.
How has Deep Blue been received around the world since its release?
Yeah, really, really good, the best release so far for us with the media, and the shows were the biggest we’ve ever done so I guess I can’t say anything too bad about it. All the new songs go down really well live.
I was in London when you guys previewed a few songs off Horizon and it was a pretty cool feeling to hear fresh Parkway live before it had been released. Are you going to play any new material over the Australian Summer?
Um, probably not at The Big Day Out but we’ve definitely been writing, we’ve got half a new record written and I dare say we’ll have to put a new song or two into the set soon so, yeah, we’ll preview something.
Do you find ideas come easily when you decide to sit down to write a new album? And with your busy tour schedule are you able to write while on the road?
Jeff’s the guitar genius, I just fucken come up with a little bit of shit but the Parkway sound I’d say is more Jeff and then we work together with that and then the other guys have a big say. Even with just one riff someone like Gaz or Winston will give their opinion to maybe change a part around. It’s a bit hard when you’re on a bus in Europe and stuff. Jeff does a bit of work up the back lounge, but in the States with all of us in a van we couldn’t really do much. It doesn’t really work for us on the road but we can get a little bit done.
Jeff’s been the master this time round he’s come up with just so much shit, and all the other guys are really into it and writing a lot, plenty of riffs and everyone’s real psyched to get different stuff going on…. Everyone’s keen to keep doing it, it’s not like we’re burnt out or anything yet which is good and everyone’s striving. I guess we see it as an opportunity to write the best record ever so that pushes ya I guess.
What’s one thing you’ve learnt from your journey so far that you can pass on to anyone out there playing heavy music who wants to travel the world like you guys?
The biggest thing I can pass on, because I deal with most of the business side of things, is just do as much as you can yourself and you don’t have to conform to all these managers and booking agents. Everyone just wants a piece of the pie, if you can find the right people and stick with them then you get good relationships.
There’s a lot of bands out there that are just getting fucked, they’re just getting so screwed over just because I don’t know, they’ve just gone about things the wrong way and they don’t back themselves. I just reckon people should do shit more on their own if they can. A bit more DIY I think would be good rather than thinking you need someone to take care of every single little aspect of the band.
You’re headed on a South and Central American tour over the next few weeks. Have you guys been there before on tour or holiday? Ever wanted to go?
Yeah, I’ve been on a surf trip to Mexico and then in April me, Pie and Gaz bought motorbikes in Chile and drove up through Chile, Bolivia and Peru. So I’ve been down there surfing just on the coast but this is probably the most excited I’ve been about a tour ever! I just don’t know what these kids are gonna do, I think it’s gonna be pretty crazy.
I’ve heard it’s crazy down there. It’s always somewhere I’ve wanted to go and also we’re doing a DVD next year and this is gonna be great content for that. It’s more of a tour-based DVD of places we’ve gone so I guess the bike ride inspired us to get down into to those spots where we’ve always wanted to.
Finally, can we expect a new Parkway Drive album next year?
There’s gonna be a DVD in the first half of the year and we’re half way through writing the new record now and we’ve got plans to record next year and hopefully it’ll be out before the end of the year. Hopefully 2012 has a new release.
– Alasdair McDonald
Check out Parkway Drive at the 2012 Big Day Out – full details over here.
