RCA: Recently you ended the tour in Europe with On Broken Wings, and Carpathian.
Winston McCall:Yup.
RCA: How was that?
W: It was rad. It was awesome.
RCA: Were big fans of all those guys, and yourself included; so to see that over versus here was disappointing.
W: (laughs) It was really fun, Carpathian are friends of ours, On Broken wings are friends of Carpathian, that way everyone kind of knew each other ish. We like the bands we were touring with, Carpathian are friends, and I’ve listened to On Broken Wings for a long time, so it was great the shows were really good. Just cool pretty much.
RCA: A lot of kids coming out?
W: Yeah, it was cold that’s the only thing, were not used to cold, so we went over there and we were in jackets and shit. It was awesome though.

RCA: Give us your personal musical influences.
W: I don’t know, because speaking influence wise it’s kind of hard to say because I’ve never been a metal guy as much as the people in the band have, except that we play pretty metal oriented music. And I’m definitely like a hardcore kid with punk rock roots. For me, at the moment it’s still bands like Bad Religion, all the bands like..
RCA: Pennywise?
W: Yeah exactly, like surf punk kind of stuff, because we’re all surfers that’s the kind of stuff I grew up on. Then hardcore wise, its like I don’t know, hardcore bands like Cold World, stuff like that at the moment. Somehow we’ve got that influencing us as a metal band. (laughs)
RCA: It’s probably good for your writing, because if you guys all listened to the same music it would just sound like what you listen too.
W: Exactly, yeah its like its kind of hard for us to write the kind of music we do because we don’t have a background and we got no idea what we are doing, so we do it kind of the way we think we should be doing it you know? I’ve had a few people come up and say like “Wow, you guys sound different then other bands!” I’m like, really? It sounds like metalcore shit to me!.. Maybe that’s the reason for it, because we’ve got no real idea and set structure in our head of what it should be.
RCA: (laughs) I think you guys coming from a different country helps you out a lot, because that way you aren’t necessarily weighed down by all the bands in the US, where they tend to sound the same.
W: Yeah definitely, that was actually something I was really surprised on, is the fact that people actually took the time to listen to us over here because there are SO many bands, there are just like thousands and thousands..
RCA: But they’re not Australian..
W: Yeah I suppose, (laughs) that’s fair enough, that’s cool. But yeah I think it has worked to our advantage. We haven’t been bombarded by a whole bunch of sammy stuff.

RCA: For you Winston, describe a typical day in the life. As detailed as you want to be.
W: (laughs) You are in for a very, very boring detail, basically I’ll wake up on the floor of someone’s house, or in a van, or under a tree..
RCA: (laughs) W: I’ll move my bed to the floor of the van. Then I’ll sleep for another 8 hours until we get to wherever the hell we are going.
RCA: (laughs)
W: I’ll go and load our gear into the venue. Then I’ll come back out and probably sleep in the car again, and then we’ll play Uno.. Then the show will start. (laughs)
RCA: Right on
W: Then if it’s a good show I’ll go mental, and stage dive as much as I can, and mosh to every band. Otherwise I’ll just chill out and have fun, and then I’ll do the same thing again, and again, and again, and over and over.
L: There should be a decent turn out tonight. (El Corazon, Seattle)
W: Should be fun, I have as much fun playing in front of five kids as I do 500 kids.. I’m in Seattle.. playing a show.. how could it not be awesome? I’m on the other side of the world!

RCA: Explain Parkway Drive’s writing process, as far as between Luke, Jeff and Jia.
W: It pretty much involves everyone these days. I’m not quite sure how it starts. We have just finished writing our next CD, and I think basically someone comes up with a riff. Generally Jeff, and it goes from there. It’s just kind of like we will have days where a whole song will come out, and he’ll finish a riff and go into something, and someone will be like, “yeah, that’s awesome, lets work with that!” We will almost go for two weeks with one riff and we will get to the end of it, and be like, “Fuck, nothings working!” Nothing ever evolves from that! So its just one of those things where it either works or it doesn’t, on a day when we can write its great, other days it’s frustrating as hell. Once we are actually going, everyone has fairly good input. I can’t write music personally, I am the worst musician you have ever seen in your life, I am banned from every instrument in the jam room. So I try to listen to as much of the structure, and cross my ideas as best I can as everyone in the band does, so everyone gets a say in what they think it should sound like.
RCA: With that in mind, all of your songs are gnarly as shit, is it hard to write songs equally as good without getting to repetitive?
W:Yeah, we found that more so in writing the new one, because in Australia the last CD went a lot further then we ever expected it too, it kind of exploded and we were like, “Holy shit, what do we do now, how do we back it up?” not only how do we write more songs, because we had written 20 songs now in our entire existence, but how do we write songs that people will like, as well as that we will like, all the while not ripping the other CD off. It’s been an interesting experience. Basically it came down to us saying, “Fuck it, you know what, we will write what we want like we have wanted to do and if kids like it they like it, and if the don’t, they don’t!”
RCA: A lot of bands attempt to reinvent themselves and they ultimately die trying.
W: Yeah exactly, we think you know we could do this and we could do that, you know what fuck it, we started this band wanting to be heavy and fast and be like a band where you can just enjoy every part of it, you can mosh to most of the music or you can sit there and watch it, so we just decided to stick with that.

RCA: How does the hardcore scene in Australia compare to Europe, and the U.S.?
W: What I have noticed just traveling around, is it’s really similar everywhere in the world. Kids all dress really similar, bands sound really similar, and the only difference is accents. Europe still has its own little style going on, if you see a European hardcore kid that has been around since Earth Crisis was big they will stand out. They will have full-length camouflage pants on and a massive shirt and bandana, and you will go, “That’s a European hardcore guy, straight up.” You know it every single time. So they have still got that going on, then of course there is the whole wave of new kids that you can tell have got into it in the last 3-4 years. Which dress like everyone else kind of thing. And the only other thing is like population difference, for example Australia is a huge country but the population is a lot smaller, so there are fewer bands and fewer places to play and stuff, the shows are still the same size as they would be over here or in Europe, but you just have to travel further to shows.

RCA: What advice would you give to fellow Aussie bands or New Zealanders to get noticed here in the states?
W:I don’t know, um..
RCA: Did everything just kind of happen for you guys?
W: Basically yeah, like everything we have done in our band has just happened. We never expected to do anything with this band. The town we come from is the size of one of these city blocks. It’s tiny, it’s like this tiny little surf town, and basically there was no hardcore scene up until about three years before we started the band. And the guys in the band started the scene. So we just started a band, and all of a sudden people kind of liked it, so we started touring from there. The only advice I could really give is doing what you want. We have always been a band that tries to play music that we want to hear, not try to do what other people think is cool, or tell you to do. People appreciate it. If you want something to happen then you are better off doing it for yourself, and having it happen, then trying to aim for something and stepping in the same footsteps as everyone else in front of you which will probably end up a dead end anyway.

RCA: Three unsigned bands you listen too?
W:Depends what you mean by unsigned. Everyone is signed to something these days, everyone has a little label of some description.
RCA:How about most underestimated?
W: I will say Antagonist from New Zealand.
Garrett: They are like (Lowell’s) favorite band!
Lowell: Amen.
W: Really!? Fuck yeah, I love those guys, we finished a tour with them right before we came over, they are awesome, great guys. Also, No Trigger, they are not under estimated or unsigned, but they are amazing, I haven’t heard a band like that for ages and they are just great. I’ll also say my little brothers band, 50 lions, just because I always have to say my little brothers band.

RCA: (laughs) If you could tour with any three bands who would they be? Past or Present.
W: Bad religion, number one. They are doing Warped Tour this year, not only that but they are my all time favorite band; never seen them, they have been to Australia once and we were too young to get in, so I get to see them 6 weeks straight. Other then that I would say Evergreen Terrace because they are really good friends, and basically when you are friends with a band their music can sound like the worst and you will still have a good time, even though I love Evergreen’s music. Who else would there be?.. Terror, just because I would love to see Terror every night of the week.

RCA: What defines success as a band for Parkway Drive?
W: Enjoying ourselves, that’s it. Like I said before I’m in Seattle at the moment. And I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for this band. For someone to give us the chance to play a show in another country, its absolutely amazing, so as far as I’m concerned everyday we are in this band is the most successful day we have ever had. That’s all we strive to do is have fun.

RCA: Besides Byron Bay where on the road do you feel most at home?
Kelly: Seattle.
W: (laughs) I’ve been here for 10 minutes! But you guys are nice, so that’s cool. I don’t know, I really like Orange County, but I’d said that’s only because we were there on holiday. Last summer we were there a couple of weeks before we started tour and we were driving around like, “Yeah this is awesome, there’s the beach, you can sit down and hang out, that’s it.” But I’m sure if you had a job and you lived there it would totally be the other way around. So that was cool, but other than that, Melbourne and Sydney in Australia because they are places we go a lot and we have so many friends there, Melbourne especially for me because I have spent a lot of time there.

RCA: What has been your craziest experience on tour so far?
W: Alright, this is a reasonably long story. When we toured with the Warriors, a short little west coast run last year, it was like our third show in… (snaps fingers) Utah I think it was .. Where are the Mormons?
RCA: Utah
W: So we played a show and the sound guy was like, “Yeah you guys can come stay back at my place,” We were like awesome, we got a place to stay tonight, we slept in a field last night, that’s rad.
RCA: (laughs)
W: So we rocked up to his house and he was like, “Oh by the way, three of the other bands are going to stay as well.” So we were like holy shit, yeah that’s fair enough, that’s a lot of guys. (Turns out) He lives in the basement of a house that is rented by someone else. That has floor space maybe twice the size of this car (Ford Clubwagon). With three dogs and four cats and we were like holy shit how is everyone going to fit in its like tiled floor and the other bands rocked up and we were like fuck it you know what, we will sleep in the yard, these guys can have the house its cool. So the other guys went out and started sleeping in the yard and I started talking to this guy, and the guy that lived up stairs that was really nice at first started getting pissed off for some reason. So he yelled “I hope you guys like the surf,” and turned the fucking sprinkler system on, while they were asleep in their sleeping bags. So we were like holy shit ok, fair enough, fuck it; we will sleep on the driveway then if he doesn’t want us there. So I went out to go to sleep and got in my sleeping bag, and got a bed where they were all passed out (bandmates), and I just started listening to this guy in the garage which was next door to the driveway, and I could hear him ranting like a fucking madman, I think he was drunk and stoned or something just rambling some crap, and I was like oh shit I think he’s talking about us. “Fucking Australians sleeping in our driveway! They are sleeping on concrete! You don’t sleep on concrete in AMERICA!” Then we were like “oh fuck,” and I was like “Dudes wake up some shit is going to happen.” I started hearing, “If they’re not awake in half an hour I’m getting my bat with spikes and I’m fucking beating them in their sleep!” I was like “Oh shit, this guy is going to fucking murder us!” So we just sort of threw our shit in the van and started driving away.. That was like our third show in America, so it was interesting.

INTERMISSION: PARKWAY DRIVE SOUNDCHECK

RCA: If you had to kill anyone, hypothetically speaking, and god was closing his eyes; Who would you kill, how would you do it, and what would you do with the body?
W: That’s not a good question to ask me.. I have thought about this plenty.
All: (laughs)
RCA: Would you kill more than one person?
W: Oh, there are plenty of people I would kill.
RCA: Starting with?
W: I wont say who.. But probably throw someone into this giant hole, like this cliff thing that is filled with water in our town. This is coming from a vegetarian by the way (laughs). The fall would fuck them up big time, because they wouldn’t land properly. Then kind of walk around it so they couldn’t climb back out, so they have to drown themselves to death. That would be pretty sweet. That hole is really deep so no one would find the body anyway.
RCA: (claps)
W: Yeah, I have though about that one…. (laughs)
RCA: How many times have you done that? Sounds like you are a professional.
W: (laughs)

RCA: If your house caught fire, what would be the first thing you would save?
W: My cat, and my girlfriend.
RCA: Perfect.
W: Yeah, isn’t that good of me? (laughs)
RCA: Quite Notable.