KEY POINTS:
Parkway Drive aren't your usual stoner hippies from Byron Bay. That laidback Australian town 200km south of Brisbane is more famous for being a hippie hang-out, its yoga retreats, and surfing, than hardcore metal.
"I guess you're thinking of weed-smoking hippies with dreadlocks," laughs guitarist Luke Kilpatrick. "But
we're just a bunch of kids who surfed and were into punk and hardcore and now we tour the world," he says proudly.
In the last two years especially, with their crunching and aggressive sound that mixes metal and hardcore, Parkway Drive have become local legends in Byron and one of the biggest metal acts in Australia.
In that time they've released the brutal and raw EP Don't Close Your Eyes (2004), and the album Killing With A Smile (2005). They've also done a relentless number of gigs around the world, including support slots with scene heavyweights like Hatebreed, In Flames and Chimaira.
They played in New Zealand last year after the release of Killing With A Smile and they return tomorrow to play Killerfest, a festival held over two nights at Studio in K Rd that brings together the best punk, hardcore and metal bands New Zealand and Oz have to offer.
The 24-year-old Kilpatrick (the oldest in the band) started out in punk and hardcore bands as a kid and formed Parkway Drive in 2003. Their first gigs were "15 mates coming along and having fun" when there was hardly a hint of any hardcore scene in Byron Bay.
Now, he says, a Parkway Drive all-ages show attracts everyone from 10-year-olds to 30- and 40-year-olds.
"But the majority are 16-year-olds and that's just exploded recently with all this MySpace stuff, or however else it gets out; it's pretty amazing."
"I grew up on hardcore and I was drawn to it, firstly by the energy in the music but there's also a strong sense of community that's established through the music. These days there's a lot of bullshit in it, with scene politics and people wanting to be better than everyone else, but the community of it has stuck with me and the friends I made back then are still my friends now."
Surprisingly, considering the riffs he plays and the obvious metal influence in the band, they have never been into metal.
"But we liked the sound of it and the metallic influence it gives hardcore and it gives it more heaviness. I can listen to a good metal band now, and as a guitarist I can say, 'I love that riff', but none of us are real metal-heads, which is strange because a lot of people classify us as just a metal band. That's fair enough, that's just the way it turned out."
Their sound is mostly referred to as metal-core and while Kilpatrick doesn't mind the label he would rather the band's music wasn't branded.
"I mean we don't need to be labelled but kids are going to label no matter what and kids will call us metal, hardcore, or metal-core. But so what?
"With us it's always a progression. From the first song we wrote to the last one we wrote last week, every time we jam we get more experienced. We learn more and we're changing things, but not intentionally; it just happens."
And making this sort of music is a good living, although, Kilpatrick prefers to say: "It's just good to say that it is a living."
"If I wasn't in the band I'd be working to save money to do this anyway. At the moment my life is perfect. I'm on tour, then I'm home in Byron Bay for four weeks where I can surf every day and write songs, then go on tour again."
LOWDOWN
What: Killerfest
Where and when: Studio, K Rd, Auckland, tomorrow and Saturday.
Line-up tomorrow: Goodnight Nurse, Parkway Drive, Antagonist, Cold By Winter, and more.
Line-up Saturday: The Bleeders, The Rabble, Cobra Khan, Missing Teeth and more