Parkway Drive
Parkway Drive | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Byron Bay, NSW |
| Genres | Metalcore, hardcore |
| Years active | 2003 - present |
| Labels | Resist, Parkway |
| Website | http://www.parkwaydriverock.com |
| Members | Ben Gordon
|
| Past members | Shaun Cash
|
Band Members
- Current Line-Up
- Ben Gordon (drums)
- Luke Kilpatrick (guitar)
- Jeff Ling (guitar)
- Winston McCall (vocals)
- Jia O'Connor (bass)
- Former Members
- Shaun Cash (bass) (2005 - 2006)
- Brett Versteeg (bass) (2002 - 2005)
- Tom Jagels (guitar)
Band Information
Parkway Drive is now one of Australia's most successful bands. The band formed in Byron Bay in early 2003 and named themselves after a street in their suburb. Parkway Drive then quickly began to establish a name for itself on the south Queensland/northern NSW hardcore scene. By the end of that year Parkway Drive had released a split CD with the like-minded I Killed the Prom Queen.
The "Don't Close Your Eyes" EP followed the next year and Parkway Drive undertook a relentless touring campaign that helped to promote their aggressive style of melodic metalcore. Along with supports to bands like Shadows Fall, Chimaira, Hatebreed and Alexisonfire, Parkway Drive appeared at Metal for the Brain in early 2005. After this, Brett Versteeg lef the band. Parkway Drive went to the US where they recorded the album Killing With a Smile with Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz producing and Luke Kilpatrick recording the bass parts.
Shaun Cash replaced Versteeg following the album's Australian launch and appeared with them at the Gold Coast Big Day Out but left Parkway Drive in May 2006, just before the band was signed by legendary US punk label Epitaph for the worldwide release of Killing With a Smile. He was replaced by Jai O'Connor and a world tour was completed that featured shows throughout Europe, Japan and the US. Parkway Drive played the Taste of Chaos tour in October 2006, followed by a national tour with Himsa and an appearance at the Homebake festival in Sydney in December and was arguably now Australia's best-known metalcore act. During 2007 the band played at the Soundwave Festival in Australia and the Vans Warped tour in the US and returned to release the Horizons album in October that was supported by a national tour with No Apologies and US band The Warriors. Horizons debuted on the national Top 40 at #6.
Parkway Drive headed back to Europe for an extended tour in November 2007. That was followed by another Australian tour in February and March 2008. In April 2008 Parkway Drive toured Europe for two months with Bury Your Dead and Suicide Silence before undertaking another exhaustive Australian tour throughout May and June. The band toured through Japan with Shai Halud in January 2009 ahead of shows in China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. After five Australian shows in March, Parkway Drive returned to North America in mid-2009 and then Europe in June and July, featuring at events like the Download Festival in the UK, Finland's Tuska Open Air, Graspop in Belgium and With Full Force in Germany. An Australia tour with August Burns Red and Architects followed in August, to promote the release of The DVD, a 70-minute film of their career to this point. The DVD subsequently went gold, and was released in the US in September to coincide with yet another tour there, this time with A Day To Remember and In Fear and Faith. In December 2009, Parkway Drive toured through north Queensland, Northern Territory and rural Western Australia. Following this jaunt the band went in to record their third album Deep Blue. It was completed in April 2010 and was released in Australia on June 25, immediately peaking on the ARIA Chart at #2 and the US Billboard charts at #39. At the ARIA Awards in November, the band won the Best Metal/Hard Rock category.
Parkway Drive toured through Europe and the US until the end of August 2010, then returned to Australia with The Devil Wears Prada and The Ghost Inside in September. Following that tour, the band appeared on the No Sleep til Festival tour with Megadeth, A Day to Remember, Katatonia, GWAR, Suicide Silence and others. As they prepared for a national tour in May with The Wonder Years, Miss May I and Confession it was announced that Deep Blue had gone gold. Following that, they played Sonisphere in Imola, Italy and London in July. During January 2012 they toured nationally with the Big Day Out and immediately began a regional east coast tour with Northlane. After that, they appeared on the Grooving the Moo travelling festival. Their second official DVD release, Home is for the Heartless catalogued their touring through Asia and South America and quickly went platinum in time for the release of their fourth album Atlas on October 26, 2012. The album peaked at #2 on the ARIA chart. December saw the band on tour with I Killed the Prom Queen and Northlane. Their 10th anniversary tour took place late in September 2013, following the Vans Warped Tour. A 300-page coffee-table book, Ten Years of Parkway Drive, was also issued that year. Parkway Drive featured on the Grooving the Moo festival again during 2014 and featured on Vans Warped again.
Early singles suggested a different musical approach for 2015's Ire album with a varied vocal style and stadium-friendly parts. Ire was released on September 25, 2015 and became the band's first #1 album release. A national tour with Thy Art is Murder followed, with Adam Marsh from that band standing in for Jeff Ling on guitar.
Reverence was released on May 4, 2018 and also debuted at #1 in Australia. They headlined stages at Download festivals in England and Spain and subsequently toured the US with August Burns Red and The Devil Wears Prada and the album won Parkway Drive a second ARIA Award for Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal album. In 2019, the band headlined the legendary Wacken Open Air festival in Germany, a performance that was filmed for the concert DVD Viva the Underdogs which came out on March 27 2020. Their next Australian shows were as headliners on the Good Things festival in December 2019. A subsequent Australian tour with Every Time I Die and Hatebreed was postponed until 2021 due to COVID, then ultimately cancelled and the band did not perform live again until the Knight and Day Festival in Ballarat on New Year's Eve, 2021. In April 2022, Parkway Drive announced ahead of a US tour that they would be pulling out of the tour for various personal reasons and stepping away from live work until at least September. The band's next album Darker Still was released on September 9 2022 and peaked at #1. In April 2023 they were one of the main headline acts on Knotfest Australia.
Discography
Albums:
| 2005 | Killing With a Smile | Resist |
| 2007 | Horizons | Resist |
| 2010 | Deep Blue | Resist |
| 2012 | Atlas | Resist |
| 2015 | Ire | Resist |
| 2018 | Reverence | Resist |
| 2023 | Darker Still | Resist |
Singles:
| 2010 | Sleepwalker | Resist |
| 2012 | Dark Days | Resist |
| 2013 | Wild Eyes | Resist |
| 2015 | Vice Grip | Resist |
| 2015 | Crushed | Resist |
| 2015 | The Sound of Violence | Resist |
| 2016 | Devil's Calling | Resist |
| 2016 | Bottom Feeder | Resist |
| 2018 | Wishing Wells | Resist |
| 2018 | The Void | Resist |
| 2018 | Prey | Resist |
| 2019 | Shadow Boxing | Resist |
| 2022 | Glitch | Parkway |
| 2022 | The Greatest Fear | Parkway |
| 2022 | Darker Still | Parkway |
EP:
| 2004 | Don't Close Your Eyes | Resist |
Split:
| 2003 | Split with I Killed the Prom Queen | Final Prayer |
VHS/DVD:
| 2009 | The DVD | Resist |
| 2012 | Home is for the Heartless | Resist |
| 2020 | Viva the Underdogs | Resist |