Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall: How I Learned to Scream
Behind every professional extreme metal singer is an awkward story of learning how to perfect these harsh techniques. In the video above, Parkway Drive's Winston McCall shares his story of going from Hatebreed wannabe to an all-time metalcore great.
It's never an instant thing and, as the singer explained here, it took him over a decade to really be able to pull off exactly what he wanted to do at any time. He insists anyone seriously considering screaming in a band needs to treat it seriously and on the same level any traditional singer would approach their craft.
Recollecting what inspired him to scream, McCall confessed, "It's a very hard thing to ever contemplate, 'How do I make that noise?' For me, I'll be really honest — it was listening to Hatebreed. Hatebreed were the band that inspired me to do what I do because at that point in time I couldn't sing, I couldn't be in a punk rock band and heavy bands started really attracting me."
With only a primal scream at his disposal at the time, the Parkway Drive frontman laughed, "The sound that came out is definitely not the sound you hear these days."
So, his family had to overhear some of the growing pains as he developed his voice, right?
"I never really got a reaction from my parents, to be honest," Winston said, beaming about the support he got from his family. "I guess the best thing I can say is my parents would come to the gigs so it was never the kind of thing of, 'You sound funny,' or, 'What are you doing,' it was just when we started playing, my parents were there from day one, which was really, really cool," he continued.
"I think they copped enough of myself and my brother listening to music over the family stereo system to at least understand that we were interested in the kind of music they hadn't listened to before," McCall explained, relaying his parents at least had some sort of familiarity with what he was trying to do.
Watch the complete interview at the top of the page.
Meanwhile, Viva the Underdogs, the behind-the-scenes Parkway Drive documentary that chronicles the band's rise to becoming an arena band, will be released on March 27.
Accompanying the film is the newly-announced soundtrack release, which features 11 songs from Parkway Drive's 2019 headlining performance at the Wacken Open Air Festival in Germany. Three German versions of studio tracks will be on the soundtrack as well and you can hear "Die Leere" ("The Void") further down the page. Pre-order the Viva the Underdogs soundtrack here.
Parkway Drive, Viva the Underdogs Soundtrack Track Listing
01. "Prey" (Live at Wacken)
02. "Carrion" (Live at Wacken)
03 "Karma" (Live at Wacken)
04. "The Void" (Live at Wacken)
05. "Idols" (Live at Wacken)
06. "Dedicated" (Live at Wacken)
07. "Absolute Power" (Live at Wacken)
08. "Wild Eyes" (Live at Wacken)
09. "Chronos" (Live at Wacken)
10. "Crushed" (Live at Wacken)
11. "Bottom Feeder" (Live at Wacken)
12. "Würgegriff" (Vice Grip)
13. "Die Leere" (The Void)
14. "Schattenboxen" (Shadow Boxing) feat. Casper
Parkway Drive, "Die Leere" (Live German Version of "The Void")
See Parkway Drive in the Best Metal Albums of the Decade: 2010-2019