Parkway Drive
Photo by Natalia Balcerska Photography
You’re at home at the moment?
Yeah I’m at home until tomorrow morning (laughs).
You’ve finally got some down time?
Yeah I guess (laughs) I had three weeks. In that time I had to get a new car and hopefully renew the lease on the house I’m renting, other than that it’s been good.
You’re getting ready to go back on tour?
I don’t want to go back on tour (laughs). I’ve actually got a wisdom tooth that’s totally infected one side of my face. I’m hoping that gets better because I have a show in two days. I can’t really open my mouth too much (laughs).
I feel for you, I got mine out a few months ago.
I’m so jealous on that (laughs) I’ve had it for three years and it just keeps coming back. I never get time to get them out because I’m always on tour. It’s agony.
You have to make time, I waited two and a half years ’cause I kept putting it off. When you finally get it you won’t believe the difference it makes.
That’s the next thing I’m so going to do when I get time off.
Parkway have been around since 2003, that’s like four and a half years, can you briefly tell me about your personal experience of that?
It’s been a giant rollercoaster ride basically. We started out in Byron Bay in 2003 not expecting to do anything thing. From the first jam we started writing songs and then Crafter From I Killed The Prom Queen came to a jam and decided they were going to do a split record with us, we’d only been a band for a couple of weeks. It just rolled from there really, really quickly. We just haven’t stopped touring. It’s really, really strange.
What’s the biggest sacrifice you’ve made to be where you are right now?
Definitely leaving the people I care about behind. Because we have to tour so much the amount of time I have to spend away from home is very, very large. Sometimes tours have three weeks in between the next one and it’s just cheaper to stay overseas than to come back for those three weeks. I end up spending months on the road without coming home. That’s the hardest thing, leaving my girlfriend and my family at home.
Is there anything you do to deal with that?
Not really no (laughs). You can’t really deal with it. I try to keep in as much contact with home as I can. It’s still really hard when you’re travelling through places you can’t really get access to a mobile phone or the internet. ..
Especially Europe…
(laughs) Yeah! It’s so expensive to run a mobile over there. It’s hard you just deal with it.
We all have people who inspire us, if you had to name one person that is responsible for your current career path, who would it be and why?
My girlfriend, Jessica for encouraging me so much and being the amazing person she is. She has supported me in every aspect of what I have ever wanted to do and encouraged me to follow what I have a passion for. She’s always been there. I attribute everything we’ve got to her.
Did you meet her at a show?
No, I’ve known her for a long, long time. We’ve been together for seven and a half years. She was there before the band started. She’s been on my whole journey with me. It’s strange for both of us.
I hear you, that is how I am with my boy. We totally inspire each other and support each other. When you can find that person it is amazing.
Yeah, definitely!
New album Horizons was leaked five weeks before the release?
Oh yeah (laughs).
How does something like that happen?
Basically we did whatever we could to prevent the leak but there is so many people involved in the process, editing the CD, CD artwork, pressing the CD, all it takes is one person to put it on their computer and then you get people that know how to take files off others computers and it’s out there.
It’s cool your music is out there but what are your feelings about it?
To be completely honest, I don’t mind. When it leaked we were like, “This sucks!” but when it comes down to it, if it affects the way the CD sells it doesn’t really matter because the people who decided not to buy the record just because they’ve already heard it don’t give a crap about you anyway or wouldn’t have brought the record anyway because they didn’t like your music. Either way it doesn’t matter. I’d rather people listen to our music because they like it rather than they get duped into thinking it is something that it wasn’t. I don’t want them to have the record in their collection sitting at the back gathering dust.
How do you feel about the new album?
I like it. The songs on it are my favourite songs we’ve ever written. I’m really stoked with the way it came out. There’s nothing that I can personally fault about it. I’m really stoked. It’s very rare that everything just works.
In previous interviews I’ve read with you, you’ve talked about messages and meanings in your songs. You commented in one interview that “I have a pretty messed up brain when it comes to writing lyrics.” I’m wondering in what way?
Yep (laughs). It’s hard to explain. The way I write is definitely not the way I think. My songs I write don’t reflect one hundred percent of my personality. They come out a lot differently to the person that I am. I also seem to write in a way that very few people get the true meaning of what the songs are. They seem to be twisted in a sense. I’m not sure why I do it. It’s just how I write.
Then, what type of person would you say you are?
I’m generally a very happy positive person.
You’re super positive Winston, every time we talk I can just sense you smiling on the other end of the phone.
Exactly! (laughs) I’ve got nothing to complain about. I live in a great place and have a great life. The negative side of me is what you get to see in Parkway’s lyrics (laughs). I have the happy me in every other part of my life and then I have that, kind of like split personalities.
A lot of bands from the US that I talk to especially ones that were on Warped last year always ask me ‘Do you know Parkway?’ because I’m Australian. I always get told how nice you guys are, especially you!
(laughs) That’s cool. I’s rather be known for being nice than being an arsehole.
For yourself, do you see any reoccurring things in your work?
These days… Horizons had a lot more personal feelings to it. Killing With A Smile had a lot more directed anger. Horizons seems to be a bit sadder. Not depressed but just dark as opposed to being violent. That was a result of being away for home for so long. My personality has been changing a bit.
I was going to ask you about that, ’cause I now for myself and the people around me that when you got older you don’t seem to be as angry about things you see happening in the world.
Yeah, I kind of still am but it’s easier to have this direct focused anger when you haven’t really seen or experienced a lot of things that are out there. When we wrote Killing With A Smile we hadn’t been overseas as a band and I guess we had a limited viewpoint as people and the way the world works. We toured for two years straight before we wrote Horizons and we saw a lot more of the world and the way things worked. It made me less angry and more sad.
What’s one of the biggest surprises that you’ve found out about the world?
The sheer level of human poverty and misery that is out there, it’s something that we just can’t fathom in Australia. We’ve toured through some really beautiful places but we’ve also toured through some run down poverty stricken places. These are some of the most horrific and horrible places I’ve ever been in my life and yet they are not even acknowledged as being so. I shudder to think exactly what a third world country really is.
I find when I travel that people in places that are poverty stricken monetarily that I meet they are actually very rich in spirit.
Oh definitely! It works exactly like that. Some of the happiest beautiful people I’ve met have been in these places. It just shows that you don’t have to have possessions to be happy. Just seeing people that are happy to be alive is one of the most inspiring things you’ll ever see.
Is there any where that had a super big impact on you?
The first time we played in Poland was like that. Before we played we stopped at five o’clock in the morning and went to Auschwitz. That was eerie enough. It was haunting. To be there when no one else was there is life changing. We played in Poland in a small town that still had shrapnel marks on the side of the building from where things had been bombed. The people there were wonderful. There were people that couldn’t speak a word of English but they were doing their best to communicate how happy they were that we were there. It was then that we realised that these people have been through so much and there’s so much history here but they are still so positive with what they have. It makes you feel like an idiot because you’re so hard done by that you don’t have the latest Playstation whatever.
Last we spoke you were on the All Ages Assault tour and it was around the time Death Before Dishonour Magazine came out, you guys were on the cover. You told me it was a weird experience. You guys are on the cover again, you’re actually on two alternate covers, and you’ve been on Blunt Mag, is it still a weird experience for you?
(laughs) Definitely it will never become a normal thing to see yourself on the cover of a magazine. It’s very strange.
You do a lot of European press too?
Yeah. The label and booking agency we go through are really awesome with the press. Hardcore and metal is also a very big thing over there. It’s got a lot more media attention. When you have a tour over there or a CD coming out they book you a million interviews (laughs).
When was the moment that you had to start doing Parkway full time? What was the transition like?
It was the start of the CD launch tour for Killing With A Smile. There were 30 dates booked and we had never done anything on that scale. It had got to a point where we couldn’t tell our jobs we were going away for a month. We had to quit our jobs. We went on the dole for a bit and then we started earning too much money to stay on the dole. We just had to play more and more shows to survive. Since Killing With A Smile came out we became all full time touring band. It’s our only source of income if we stop we die (laughs).
I was in a newsagency recently and I saw the funniest thing. You guys were on the cover of blunt and it had a big pull out poster, there were these young thirteen year old girls standing beside me talking about Parkway. One was like ‘I have that poster on my wall at home. They’re so cute’.
(laughs)
It was a spin out ’cause I used to watch you play at Mary Street and the Byron Community Centre in the early days.
Oh yeah (laughs). It is so strange. I had some dude hit me up to get a photo with me after I came out of the surf the other day. I had my board and I was in my boardies and this guy wanted a photo. I was like, “Sweet if you want?” I thought it was fucking weird (laughs).
In 2007 you played over 160 shows. How do you feel you’ve grown as a performer in the last year?
It’s strange. I take it less seriously and more seriously at the same time. I have a lot more fun with playing but at the same time it’s what I do. I have a lot more passion for what I do than I’ve ever had. That doesn’t mean I was never insincere but at the moment I really love what we are doing and playing the songs. I’m stoked with the songs we get to play at the moment. We’ve been given a chance to do so many tours with so many great friends.
You’ve spent heaps of time in the US, what’s something you really enjoy about American culture?
Not much (laughs). It’s probably my least favourite place to tour in the world. That being said, we have some great friends over there and there’s some really great bands there. I love California and I love the week we spend in the O.C before we go on tour there before you get caught up in all the consumerism and think it’s great to own a big car. Once you leave you actually realise that that’s shit. It has that affect on you. I don’t think it’s a very nice place. When it comes to landscape they have a wonderful country. It’s pretty messed up though really. I don’t see why so many people see it as such a great country to be.
I saw you in the latest Punk Rock Confidential Magazine too.
Really? I haven’t seen that.
It has a press photo of you guys and it says ‘Why they wore what they wore?’ kind of thing.
Yeah that’s right! We had to do an interview for that and we were like, ‘What the fuck is this? What kind of question is that?’ (laughs). It was bizarre.
You guys were like, ‘We wore it because everything else smelled’.
Exactly! That’s another reason I don’t like America, simply things like that. Why would you ask a band that? Especially being a hardcore band. I don’t give a fuck what I’m wearing as long as it doesn’t stink. If there are bands out there that care about that more than music there’s seriously something wrong.
Also, when we last spoke Killing With A Smile debuted at 36 on the Australia charts and you were super stoked about that, Horizons debuted at 6 and then 1 in the independent charts, where were you when you heard the news?
We were at home at that point. When the record leaked we were ‘I wonder what this is going to do?’ For it to go to 6 it’s crazy!
Congrats to you guys! I think Parkway is actually the first hardcore band in Australia to do that. It’s amazing.
It definitely is. It’s one of those things that I can look back at when I’m older and go ‘i had a record that was in the top ten and we did it our way’. To not be a pop band and be able to do that is something I’m really stoked with.
The new album is brutal. When I first put it on the sound blew me away. Sonically it is so huge.
That was the idea behind it. The fact it did so well is just testament to the people that support us.
Is there anything you find daunting about fame?
Not really I don’t think I’m famous (laughs). It’s strange to have people take photos of you and to value your name on a piece of paper.
Your younger brother Oscar is in the band 50 Lions, they seemed to be getting a lot of success in their own right, what’s it like to see your bro do well?
Awesome! I’m stoked. He got me into hardcore in the first place (laughs). He’s been listening to hardcore since he was eleven. For them to be doing awesome it’s so good. They’ve done it on their own terms as opposed to riding on Parkway’s coattails which is something we were really careful of. We haven’t toured with them up until this point because I’d hate for someone to go, ‘Oh it’s just Winston’s little brother band’.
What’s something that you learn from your brother?
It’s hard because I don’t see him that much these days. Every time I come back he’s changed. He used to be this little freckly angry kid and now he’s this kid that’s almost as big as me that has a hell of a lot more tattoos than me (laughs). We’ve always hung out and surfed together. I’ve experienced a hell of a lot in life with him by my side.
What does 2008 hold for Parkway?
(laughs) More tours! We’re going to try and work on a DVD or some kind of visual release this year. Since the band started we’ve been filming everything. Ben our drummer has always been into filming stuff. We’ll see how it all comes out. It’ll be a challenge because that’s something we’ve never done before.
