Bloodstock: PARKWAY DRIVE are coming for you!

Next month, Parkway Drive stake their claim to metal’s throne by headlining Bloodstock. And they’re ready to roll straight through anyone who still doubts them

Just Before wAlkiNg through London’s 10,000-strong Alexandra Palace crowd for the triumphant final date of their first earth-shattering, eyebrow-singing UK arena run, Parkway Drive recorded a video with Bloodstock director Vicky Hungerford, announcing that they would be the 2019 festival’s Saturday night headliners. While everyone who witnessed the tour unanimously accepted the band’s ascension to a place on the metal table, the inevitable trickle of vitriol that emerged from those who deemed them not worthy to fit their respective criteria quickly turned into an outright storm of indignation.

However, having stored the spinning drumkit and flammables away for their recent US run with Killswitch Engage, frontman Winston McCall is more concerned with reacquainting himself with the band’s colossal stage show and avoiding being flambéd onstage than the opinions of a vocal minority.

“There’s genuine danger in certain bits, with lobbing Molotovs across the stage and fire going sideways as well as up and down”, he says, often laughing, but also in defiant mood, especially when addressing those who continue to write off his band. “People love to have a whinge because when you whinge you get to hear the sound of your own voice. The problem is, I have a microphone and my voice is always going to be louder! If some people are saying I shouldn’t be playing a festival… they can say what they want. At the end of the day I’m the one who gets to play it.

As Winston explains, the outside negativity has always been around his band, and the only thing he seemingly enjoys doing more than surfing or igniting pits is proving said naysayers wrong. “People have been counting us out for years. I’ve been seeing that since the day this band began. It’s simply the fact that we’ve always been the underdogs,” he explains, before issuing a realistic, serious warning: “There’s only so much you can do to hold someone back. Eventually you’ll have to step aside or you’ll get run the fuck over. I’ve got no problem doing it as a headliner.”

Ultimately, this summer’s lofty spots on European festivals – including their debut at Catton Hall alongside fellow headliners Sabaton and Scorpions – is something that Winston is rightly beaming about, dubbing it “fucking awesome” on more than once occasion. Not only is he fully aware of Bloodstock’s reputation as a mecca for metalheads and a platform for underground bands: the honour of topping the bill is a personal achievement after years of graft, and the culmination of a very specific goal the band set themselves at the end of their Atlas touring cycle.

“we AskeD ourselves, ‘What do we want from this band?’ We could have kept saying, ‘Cool, we’ve been given this festival slot, or this room’, or say, ‘OK, at this point in time, where is the ceiling? Because we’ve already gone through so many glass ceilings playing this music that I’ve lost count, so maybe we should aim for something.’ Personally, I didn’t see any reason why

“I HAVE A MIC. MY VOICE WILL ALWAYS BE LOUDER”

we couldn’t continue doing what we’re doing, putting our heart into it and headline. There’s no point in us aiming for something less.

“Ten or five years ago, no one would have seen this coming. No one would have seen Parkway as this band that would headline Bloodstock – or any festival. And I’m very, very aware of that. You go back even further, and no one would have thought we’d be able to play Brixton or Ally Pally,” he explains, further underlining the enormous strides his band have made after shaking off the constraints of being perceived as simply a ‘solid’ metalcore act. “The amount of times people have not seen this coming – not counted us out but not even counted us in. It’s something that hasn’t happened from some overnight trend or some scene or viral sensation: it’s just been 17 years of fucking hard work and dedication to craft. That means a lot because I know when we’re up there we have that craft backing us up. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I have no doubt that we can absolutely demolish that place.”

Winston has unwavering faith in his band’s ability to turn every show this summer into another triumph. But having already broken so many glass ceilings, the inevitable question is whether Parkway Drive can go even further, to even bigger slots on bigger bills? Is this the start, or ultimately a plateau where they’ll enjoy the esteemed company of fellow Bloodstock headliners such as Trivium, Lamb Of God and Within Temptation, who have so far failed to go that one extra step?

“That worry isn’t there for us,” comes Winston’s immediate response. “If it is what happens: awesome, look where we got to! But I still feel the best music we have written is yet to be written, the best show that we can put on is yet to be created and the biggest show that we’ve played is still a long way down the track for us. The vision I see for this band and that we share is yet to come. What this band is capable of is still over the horizon, and I guarantee you that again when it happens, no one will see it coming.”

PARKWAY DRIVE HEADLINE THE SATURDAY NIGHT OF BLOODSTOCK OPEN AIR NEXT MONTH. THEIR LATEST ALBUM, REVERENCE, IS OUT NOW VIA EPITAPH