Winston McCall is laughing at me. It’s good-natured (of course), which shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone even vaguely familiar with Parkway Drive’s ever chipper frontman.

He’s thanking the stars he doesn’t have to take part in the looming exam period and exclaims, “if I never have to do another exam in my life it’ll be too soon! Fuck that!” On the phone from his home in Byron Bay, he confirms that nowadays, the band splits their time between touring and home 50/50. “We don’t do tours back to back anymore. It’s generally four weeks of touring, then we have that amount of time at home. I guess we’re lucky enough that shows are going so well these days that we can kind of do a few less shows and make the home time last a bit longer which is cool.”

It may sound like a fairly lax schedule, but McCall is playing down the sheer amount of time on the road that the band spends every year. He laughs casually at the fact that they have three more tours coming up in the next six months, a total that most bands would consider an incredibly heavy load. Compared to the mammoth tour of Europe following their All Aussie Adventure dates though, playing regional centres on the East Coast of Australia is a far cry from the huge stages of international festivals. Even though two shows have already sold out, the singer (he confirms as per usual) has absolutely no idea what to expect in regards to how successful the tour may end up being. “Apparently it’s the most well received run of regional shows we’ve done so far which is nice. But I’ve got no idea on ticket numbers or anything, I generally just rock up on the day and go ‘oh this venue’s full, sick!’ [laughs]”

Lauding the recent jump that heavy music has made into the mainstream consciousness, McCall is still shocked to see that the next level of band fandom has reached such a critical mass in Australia. “It’s just something I never would’ve perceived as possible even five years ago that there would be people listening to this music, and it would generate that cult mentality of ‘this is my band, they’re the one, this is mine’. Which is nuts! When we started we wanted to share, but now people are like ‘this is mine, fuck off!’,” he laughs. “You see people literally referring to them as ‘my band’ and it’s kind of like a boy band mentality.” So that would make Parkway Drive the One Direction of the metal scene then?

“I’d say we’ve got a pretty mixed fanbase and I don’t know how divisive our fans are in regards to that [laughs]. How would you even perceive our fanbase in that sense?” Considering Parkway have found themselves with a number one record, it’s even harder than before to pinpoint just who their primary fanbase is. “Eclectic” Winston says democratically on the crowds he expects. “Around the time of Deep Blue when everything really blew up, the crowds we were seeing at those were so eclectic compared to any other shows we were attending. It’s kind of happened again with this record and the different sound. That thing happened where Parkway became an established name and kept doing what it was doing and people assumed ‘I know exactly what it sounds like and I do or don’t like it, so I won’t pay attention’. Then we put something out they had no idea what it sounded like so they kind of had to reassess if they liked it or not. We’re back in the position where I’ve got no idea what the hell to expect!”

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Watch our interview with Winston McCall of Parkway Drive in our epic UNIFY 2016 Documentary (starts at 5:49)

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For fans attending their upcoming local shows, they may also have a hard time figuring out what the hell to expect. Hand picked local supports on the All Aussie Adventure for each date may seem like a strange mix of genres, from the deathcore of Athena’s Wake and Aversions Crown to the other end of the metal spectrum like The Brave and Ocean Grove. McCall notes that Parkway intentionally chose a mixed bag of supports based “simply [on] their work ethic to be honest” in order to give them the leg up that they received when they first hit the scene. “Every time we’ve done [a regional tour] we try to put local bands on simply because that’s how we started. We’re trying to play places that aren’t necessarily on every band’s roadmap, we want to give people a chance to interact. It’s the way you get the momentum started on an Australia-wide scale. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people who’ll come to the shows who’ve never been to anything like this in their lives, or are unaware that there are bands in their town just like the ones they love from America or are going to see like us.”

He reminisces on the fact that when they started out, heavy music was heavy music. Nowhere near the clusterfuck of specific genres that we have now then it seems. “Punk rock, heavy, metalcore, whatever. It was all put on the same show in the shitty hall because they wouldn’t let you into a legitimate venue,” he laughs. “I guess where a lot of people see differences these days, we don’t necessarily see it. It’s more of an opportunity to celebrate the spectrum of sound that’s ‘distorted’ in that sense.”

On their plans for the shows themselves, McCall – again – is still happy-go-lucky about the entire concept. The singer says he’s equally stoked to play shows where the stage “is so big you have to run across it to get to the other side” but is still “more than happy to play [small] shows where people jump off speaker stacks and rip the roof to pieces.” He claims he doesn’t have any surprises set for the tour, but whether we can pin that down to a conscious decision or a ‘go with the flow’ attitude is still up for debate.

Over the space of five albums, there must be a high degree of difficulty when deciding on the setlist though? “I don’t know what people are expecting” says the singer, “we’re very aware that there’s a huge back catalogue that people absolutely love and we still love. We also have new songs we love as well. We make sure that everything is catered for. It’s simple as that. If you love old shit, there’s going to be old shit. If you love new shit, there’s going to be new shit.” On that note, we discuss their recent-ish decision to bump beloved set-closer Carrion to second in their set. McCall confirms that it was “a very big statement of intent. We believed in the new songs and we knew that we had to work to create a finalizing moment that stood up to that. After playing Carrion last for 8 years, we did notice that people were anticipating it. It would go awesome off the first hit, everyone would go ape at first but then it would dip down a bit at the end of the set because that one big moment’s passed. So we went ‘fuck that!’ We love the entire song, not people just screaming one word. It’s fun telling people they know what to expect and then throwing it in as the second song now. When we started doing it we saw genuine surprise because people didn’t expect to hear it that early. That takes it from 5 to 15!”

So for fans heading to All Aussie Adventure tour, the fact that even the singer of the headlining band has no idea what they’re going to do should make for an experience to remember. McCall closes our extended conversation by stating “I’m going in really half blind to these shows.” Not one to leave without emphasizing the Parkway spirit of doing whatever the fuck you want though, he cheekily adds “but that’s half the fun of it!”

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Parkway Drive’s All Aussie Adventure Tour with Make Them Suffer starts on July 15 in Cairns. Tickets available now.

Wed 15 June – Brothers, Cairns AA

Tickets from www.brotherscairns.com.au

Thu June 16 The Venue, Townsville AA

Tickets from Moshtix outlets and www.moshtix.com.au

Fri June 17 Lake Kawana, Sunshine Coast AA

Tickets from www.scvenuesandevents.com.au

Sat June 18 Powerhouse, Toowoomba AA

Tickets from Oztix outlets and www.oztix.com.au

Sun June 19 Convention and Exhibition Centre, Gold Coast AA

Tickets from Ticketek and ticketek.com.au

Thu June 23 PCYC, Bateau Bay AA

Tickets from Oztix outlets and www.oztix.com.au

Fri June 24 Panthers, Penrith Lic / AA

Tickets from Ticketek and ticketek.com.au

Sat June 25 Wollongong Uni, Wollongong Lic / AA

Tickets from Moshtix outlets and www.moshtix.com.au

Sun June 26 Entertainment Centre, Sutherland AA

Tickets from the venue and www.sutherlandshire.nsw.gov.au/Community/Entertainment-Centre

Thu June 30 The Cube, Wodonga AA

Tickets from www.thecubewodonga.com.au

Fri July 1 Bendigo Stadium, Bendigo AA

Tickets from Oztix outlets and www.oztix.com.au

Sat July 2 The Arena, Geelong AA

Tickets from Oztix outlets and www.oztix.com.au