File photo

Australian metal core band Parkway Drive is primed and ready to conquer the North American music scene.

With its intense vocals, bone-shattering breakdowns and infectious live sets, it is no surprise these hard core beach babes have been steadily climbing the ranks of metal. Frontman Winston McCall sat down with The Daily Aztec to discuss music, jobs and why In-N-Out Burger is overrated; proving that in person, he is just as rugged and attractive as his brutal vocals.

The Daily Aztec: So what is the CliffNotes history of Parkway Drive?

Winston McCall: (We’ve been a band) for six years, maybe six and a little bit. I kind of lose track. We come from a really small town in Australia. The type of music we make doesn’t have that huge of a fan base, especially at that point in time, so it started from a collective interest of wanting to do this type of music, coupled with the fact that no one else in the town could actually play the instruments. So it just started out of necessity I guess.

DA: Nowadays, every type of music seems to be hyphenated: metal-core, pop-punk, etc. What is Parkway Drive?

WM: We’re whatever people want us to be. Everything’s been hyphenated and pigeon-holed to a degree, but when you break it down, it’s just music in the first place. It’s not going to sound any different if you give it these titles. So we are whatever people want to call us. We’re hard-core kids, we like punk, we do whatever comes to mind.

The music we make isn’t trying to emulate anyone in particular, it’s more out of the fact that we are trying to challenge ourselves in doing a style of music that we’re not familiar with. We all grew up in hard-core scenes, listening to punk and stuff, so metal is definitely something we are not familiar with in any way or form. We just try to create something that challenges us. For us, influences are just grabbed from anywhere, to be honest. I listen to so much music it’s ridiculous, absolutely everything except absolute pop-crap. You’d be surprised how much you can actually get out of a metal or hard-core song from Kanye West or something.

DA: Well, I’m just going to let you know that you just really offended me because I am really into that “pop-crap.”

WM: Oh, I’m sorry.

DA: I was joking. You guys have been on some pretty amazing tours in the past. Is there one band in particular that you have toured with or want to tour with?

WM: The Warriors are really good friends of ours. They’re really amazing, all their songs are good. I just never get sick of listening to them. But for us, touring has always been best when you tour with good people as opposed to good bands. Some of the tours we’ve been on have been with bands that we weren’t too familiar with at first that turned out to be just great people.

DA: I hear you guys are pretty big in Australia. How big is big?

WM: We’re probably … the biggest heavy band in Australia.

DA: So is it like “Cribs” style? If I came to your house would it be giant?

WM: If you came to our house you’d probably find four out of the five members living with their parents. No, it’s not like that, it’s not a big amount of money. The Australian population is so much smaller than over here that even if you’re the biggest band in Australia … to put it in relevance, a gold record in Australia is 30,000, where over here it’s like 500,000. This is like our livelihood, we tour so much. That’s why we can’t go home and get jobs because we would be gone every second week. We just have to keep touring all over the place. We toured here, we toured Australia, Europe; basically wherever anyone will let us play.

DA: Doesn’t it get tiring at all?

WM: No, the reality of it is, if we weren’t doing this, we would be at home making coffee or working at a pizza shop washing dishes, or at a video store or something. You’ve got to pinch yourself and say, “I’m on the other side of the world, being paid to do what I would do for free,” and at the same time seeing all these amazing things with all these bands we love. The fact of it is, we only play for like an hour a night. That can’t really be considered work. Sometimes you sleep in a van and you complain, “Oh, God I’m bored,” but boredom isn’t as hard as working your ass off from 9 to 5.

DA: That’s a good point. So we’re here in San Diego; is there anything special for you about this city?

WM: The first show we ever played in San Diego was on the tour with The Warriors. It was amazing, it was the best show of the tour. Kids were so nice, they cared. Even if they didn’t know us, they still gave us their attention. We were like, “Wow, this place is awesome.” And Soma itself is so great; it’s run by amazing people. Every time we play here, no matter how bad a tour is going, or how good a tour is going we always go, “Yes, tonight we’re playing San Diego.” Plus, the burritos out here are the best.

DA: That was going to be one of my next questions. Which one is the winner: Mexican food or In-N-Out Burger?

WM: I don’t like In-N-Out. I don’t like Thousand Island dressing or whatever that stuff is. One of my friends told me he was going to introduce me to the best burgers in the world and he took me to In-N-Out, and I was like, “No offense, but this is s***.” Plus, I’m vegetarian … (but) we have some good burgers in Australia. But, we don’t have any Mexican food. We have some, but I go home and wouldn’t even cast a second glance at what we classify as Mexican food. It’s horrible. No quality. But I guess we don’t have that many Mexicans in Australia. We have a very multicultural society in Australia, but just not very many Mexicans. So the first thing we want when we step off the plane here is a burrito.

DA: So for people who have never heard what you sound like … people usually hate this question … but how would you describe your sound?

WM: Picture four kids grown up on Bad Religion, Pennywise and NOFX, mixed with one guy who only listens to Metallica … trying to play metal music in a hard-core scene. That would offer some kind of idea of what we sound like.