Twenty years of blood, sweat and metal: Parkway Drive poised to ...
Two decades ago, a sonic storm swept across the shores of Byron Bay, changing the face of heavy music forever. Formed in 2003, Parkway Drive have released seven studio albums culminating in 2022’s Darker Still, which earned them their third consecutive #1 on the ARIA chart and an ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Album. Now, in 2024, the Australian metal titans are embarking on their largest headline tour yet, with a national 20 Year Anniversary Tour bringing together USA heavyweights I Prevail and The Ghost Inside, plus Melbourne’s tenacious Void of Vision, to ignite stadiums and arenas across the nation. With a world-first production and a setlist spanning two decades of their relentless career, the tour lands at RAC Arena on Monday, September 30, with tickets on sale now. In a special interview with Winston McCall, ANDY “ANDO” JONES dove into the details of the tour, reflecting on two decades of Parkway Drive’s evolution and their return to Perth.
Congratulations on 20 incredible years of Parkway Drive! Can you remember your first ever trip to Perth with the band?
As a band, I can definitely remember it. We played at the White Sands Hotel and HQ Skate Park.
HQ for the win!
It was wild! I remember we played with Miles Away, Fool the World, Burn for Me and Alleged. That was the line-up, and it was mental. When we came over at that point in time, the scene was coming up. People were saying, “I hear there’s bands in Perth now. People can go and play in Perth. There’s a band called Miles Away, and they are sick!” We went over, and HQ was just nuts, like fully mental. I can remember during Miles Away’s set I was standing behind Parkway’s merch desk, then head-walked to the stage. I was walking across people going, “This is crazy!” So yeah, I can remember that first trip to Perth.
HQ holds a dear place in my heart, for sure. So, what are you guys doing differently with this upcoming 20th anniversary tour?
[scheming laughter] The best way I can describe this tour is Parkway reaching a place where we can fully articulate every single aspect of this band’s career, identity, goal, and ambition into one show with 100% clarity. That means being able to put on a show where the goal is to walk into an arena and have Parkway play, and you still get the vibe of HQ where you can say, “I know these guys. I can reach out and high-five the singer and jump on my mates, and that’s sweet!”
The old mic-share!
The old mic-share and, at the same time, get a show and a setlist that ranges from that level of intimacy to the most psycho show you’ve ever seen in an arena. Which are two very opposite ends of the spectrum, but that’s what we’re aiming for. It’s not about “We were once this thing.” It’s about “Hey, you understand this band’s journey; we do as well, and this is who we actually are, and we haven’t forgotten any pieces.” We’ve made sure it’s all very well-articulated, so you’re in for an insane night! An insane night! [scheming laughter]
Sick! So, what can you tell us about the set you’ve planned?
It’s expensive! [laughs]
It’s awesome, and it fits with everything I previously said. There are pieces of our history in there that we haven’t touched on in a while and feel very relevant, and they have been made to feel relevant in a very modern way when they sit next to the other songs. There are newer songs that hold their place in the way in which we wanted to create them, to create that exact moment.
The ebbs and flows of this show are very well thought out. It’s very nice to be able to curate a setlist and say, “We wrote this one twenty years ago. Cool. It fits with the song we wrote two years ago.” It’s neat to be able to put these songs side-by-side and say, “This is the same band.” To be able to say, “Parkway are all these things; they don’t have to be just this or just that; this is them, and they’ve spent twenty years evolving their sound, but it still comes from the one place, and everyone can understand that through this show.”
Love the sound of that! So, some deeper cuts. That’s what we’re expecting to hear?
Oh, there’s some deeper cuts. 100%, yeah, yeah, yeah!
The tour includes American acts in I Prevail and The Ghost Inside, with Melbourne legends Void of Vision balancing out the Aussie/USA bill. What made it so easy in choosing these three bands to support you?
I Prevail are doing really awesome at the moment. I’ve watched them at a bunch of festivals over the last couple of years and watched what they’re bringing. They’re always really fun and a really engaging band.
The Ghost Inside have always been an awesome band. We have a lot of history with those guys. They’re really good friends of ours. I’m so stoked that they’re able to come over on this. They were on the Deep Blue run, which was a pivotal tour for us as well. So, the connection there’s really rad, and to put them in front of a lot of people who probably haven’t heard The Ghost Inside before, I’m like, “You’re going to love this!”
Void of Vision; I’m really stoked to have those guys on. Out of all the bands in Australia, I’m like, “Your name does not match your career path!”
[laughter]
It’s really cool watching their journey as a band—where they’ve been willing to go, the spaces they’re willing to push themselves into, and the quality that comes out the other side. I really love a band who has the desire to stretch themselves and continue pushing forward rather than stagnating. Void of Vision are a very, very amazing representation of that, especially coming out of this country.
You’ve collaborated with other Aussie artists, including Northlane and In Hearts Wake. If you could choose any Perth artists to collaborate with, who would you choose and why?
Oh God! [laughter]
The old person in me would say Miles Away because I love that band so much, but now they’re kind of gone. Does Karnivool count?
Yep, 100%. They count, absolutely.
Yeah, they do, don’t they? I’d say Karnivool as well, because that band’s very special. I like collaborating with bands where I don’t know how I’ll fit into the matrix of their sound. Which is why it was so fun working with Northlane. Their music is so different from what we do, and it’s real fun to be challenged and ask yourself, “How do you take your skill and put it into this completely different area of sound?” So, yeah, two very different ends of the spectrum with Karnivool and Miles Away!
The famous group therapy sessions, as documented by ABC’s Australian Story, worked wonders in keeping the band together, which we are all very thankful for. What were some of the more amusing revelations from the sessions?
None, to be honest.
It was all pretty brutal?
100% man. It was gnarly. I think the thing is we’ve spent a lot of time focusing our lives on the lighter, funnier moments, which is why we had to confront the more brutal stuff, if that makes sense.
I think it’s just Australian nature in general to say, “She’ll be right. Don’t worry. Look at the light side of it,” which we’ve been really good at doing, and that’s why we ended up in that space. To be honest, we’re still there. It’s not like we did a few sessions and moved on. Before this tour, we’re still checking in and doing sessions because we feel like we need to. It’s not because we’re like, “Oh my God, we’re still traumatised” and have things we haven’t talked about. We’re doing it because this is just a healthy thing to do.
Life never gets less complicated. The more time you add, the more complications you add to your life in general. That goes for everyone. At what point do you gain less experience? More experiences, more problems, more things to deal with. So, get some more tools to figure it out.
It’s all part of life’s rich tapestry, right?
100%, that’s it. That’s what’s part of it. Like it’s, it’s not that it’s bad. It’s just that sometimes you don’t know how to deal with it.
Looking back at the last two decades of bright city lights and late nights, what are the fondest memories of Parkway Drive?
It goes to be that without saying that I like standing on stage with my mates doing what we love, it never gets old. It just doesn’t get old. Being where it’s at, at this point in time, when we get to rehearsals and all of this craziness is getting built—the thing that you’ve imagined. You’ve built 20 years doing it, and you watch hundreds of people creating this thing for your five mates just to go and have fun for like a couple of hours on stage at the end of the night. That’s a trip to consider. We do just stand there and feel like we’re the smallest part of this giant Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory that we’ve built around us.
[laughter]
And you watch it get built every night and think, “We’re the smallest part of this operation.” All these people are incredible, but it’s just for five guys just writing some music. How did it get to this?
There’s plenty of other things as well. The fact that we’ve been able to see the world together, the late nights playing Mario Kart, going to the wave pool together, sitting and having a barbeque at a friend’s house on tour together. All the things that you’d expect people to be really stoked with, we’ve done. If there’s something I am quite proud of, we’ve never become jaded with the position that we’re in in terms of the opportunity.
I’m stoked every time I get to see the sun set. I’m stoked every time I get to see people rock up to a gig. I’m stoked every time I get to see my mates smile and do something funny. I’m stoked when our tour manager sets up a barbeque backstage and we all get to hang out together and chill. There’s so much we enjoy, and they are all highlights.
That’s very philosophical, man. I dig that!
Twenty years will do that to you. That’s the thing! Especially an anniversary!
Looking back at the early days of Parkway Drive, what were some of the more average shows that you did? Secondly, when you’re sick on tour, how the hell do you get yourself up for a show?
It always comes up in conversation, “What do you reckon? What’s the worst show we’ve ever played?” There are shows where we’ve played to five people, but that they aren’t the ones that I remember as the worst. The legendary one that I remember was playing Jerry’s Pizza somewhere in America. It’s in meth lab territory, literally in the basement of a pizza shop, and you get paid in pizza.
Somehow this was on a tour, and we’re like, “What’s the pay for this night?” and the response was “You get a cheese pizza.” I’m like, “This is in the country where cheese pizza costs three bucks,” and you’re in literally a basement; it’s not an actual venue. It’s just raw concrete with pipes, and there’s a pole in the middle of it. You set up the drum kit behind the pole. You can’t move around the stage because you run into the pole.
And the people there gave zero shits, like zero shits. It was the kind of thing where we’re playing, and I can hear the conversations the ten staff members are having with their backs to us. And I’m like, “Why the fuck are you even here? Why are we here?” It was the only time I questioned the tour. It was weird because we were like, “Never again!” Then on the next tour, we came back and played Jerry’s Pizza again.
[laughter]
Someone swore it would be okay, and it was shit again! It was just like, “Nup! Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; I should have known better.”
When you’re sick, you just do it. You just do it. That’s the thing. There have been plenty of shows where we’ve been sick. I remember Jeff was so sick on the way to Salt Lake City after a stomach bug had hit half the crew, and he was literally crumpled in the corner, and I think he was behind the bass cab playing, but half slouched against the wall, and we’re screaming out, “Everyone go mental!” and I look around at Jeff, and he’s like, “I’m dead, dude, like I am dying.”
This one time I power vomited blue Gatorade because I got food poisoning and went on stage on the first American tour we did with Killswitch Engage. I was like, “I’m sick. I know I’m sick. I’ll try and do this set, but there’s a good chance I am going to spew.” We only had half an hour or even twenty minutes; we got close to the end of the set, and the people wanted one more song, and we were like, “Yeah, we can do this! No worries! Let’s do another song!” So we played Romance is Dead, and we got half-way through it, and I just went [BARRRRRRRF!]. fluoro-blue all over the stage, like projectile vomiting. It was gnarly! It was really, really gross.
[laughter]
Speaking of one more, as a parting question, if you could put your Parkway Drive lyrics into any famous speech, which would you choose?
[roars with laughter]
I have no idea! I am sure there’s some dictator somewhere that’s done something horrible that would be good to lighten up with some Parkway lyrics.
What about Mario Savio’s “Bodies Upon the Gears” speech? That’s a profound one!
Yeah! Very true! It’s interesting because we always used to throw in quotes, samples, movie quotes, and speech quotes into our music as an extra little thing, and they always seemed more poignant than anything I could come up with. So, it’d be one of those things where whatever I’d say would be dumbing down something someone else said very, very eloquently, which is not really in my wheelhouse!
It’s been a pleasure and a privilege talking with you, mate. We’ll see you on Monday, September 30 at RAC Arena here in Perth, and we can’t fucking wait for it! We’re really geared up to see you guys and the entire kit and caboodle!
Yeah, apparently! Looking at the ticket sales, you’re very much geared up!
Venue upgrade!
It’s going to be absolutely nuts, dude. It’s going to be so sick! I’m so pumped!
Killer, man. Thanks so much for the chat! All the best!
My pleasure. Cheers!
