Videos

Parkway Drive – Sleepwalker

• 9th Jun 2010

Australia’s reigning kings of metal-core Parkway Drive have premiered a visually stunning and brutally disturbing masterpiece of a video for their first single, “Sleepwalker,” from their forthcoming album, Deep Blue, which debuts on June 28 via Epitaph Records.

Written and co-directed by singer Winston McCall along with friend of the band Aaron Briggs of Motion Circus, who provided the video’s remarkable VFX, “Sleepwalker” transcends metal videos of the past decade with intense, apocalyptic first-person footage of the nightmarish destruction of Brisbane, Australia set to the tumultuous tones of Parkway Drive’s first single from Deep Blue.

“It took a hell of a lot of time and effort, so it's awesome to see it come out looking so good,” McCall recently told Noisecreep.com. “The song and the clip are definitely related in concept. The idea behind the clip was basically a city trying to consume its population, which ties in with the lyrical content of the song, although in a much more literal sense than intended.”

“Sleepwalker” was my first time as a director,” says Briggs. “After watching the Parkway Drive DVD I knew it was time for me to make them a film clip. I approached Winston and told him I want to make there next music video, he straight away had a ton of crazy ideas. I was thinking this guy is mental, the clip’s gonna cost millions just in VFX! But then he said one thing that made a lot of it possible. He wanted to have a high contrast stylized look (known widely as the “Sin City look”). With this style you can get away with a lot. It’s not 'photo real' so if you can go more arty on your design and animation and it will still read visually.”

Equipped with a Red Camera the first time directors McCall and Briggs spent weeks “stealing shots” of Brisbane before dawn to avoid people and police, giving themselves a crash course in film making before capturing the shots needed to complete the video.
“Now that we had the footage, it was a matter of choosing the best takes and replacing the animatics storyboard frames with the actual footage,” Briggs continues. “Happy with the edit, now all we had to do was the VFX, which was a little daunting given I only had eight weeks to complete, but at the same time this was the part I knew back to front, so the worst that could happen was a few late nights. With some help from my crew at Motion Circus and some proper all nighters, we completed the VFX on time. There were a few last minute tweaks to the edit, and off it went.”

The epic new video for “Sleepwalker” is only the beginning for Parkway Drive as they position themselves to take on the metal elite with the release of their third studio album, Deep Blue. The band will play at several key festivals in Europe this summer, including Pukkelpop in Belgium plus Area 4 and Highfield in Germany. In October 2010 Parkway Drive will be back in Europe again to headline Never Say Die! Tour 2010. Full list of dates is below.

SUMMER 2010 TOURDATES:

19.08.10 Germany Dinkelsbühl Summer Breeze Festival
20.08.10 Belgium Hasselt Pukkelpop Festival
21.08.10 Germany Großpösna/Leipzig Highfield Festival
22.08.10 Germany Lüdinghausen Area 4 Festival

NEVER SAY DIE! TOURDATES:

29.10.10 Germany Oberhausen Turbinenhalle
30.10.10 France Paris Elysee Montmartre
31.10.10 UK Birmingham O2 Academy 1
01.11.10 UK Newcastle O2 Academy 1
02.11.10 UK Glasgow ABC
03.11.10 UK London Forum
04.11.10 UK Portsmouth Pyramids
05.11.10 UK Manchester Academy 1
06.11.10 Belgium Aarschot Stadsfeestzaal
07.11.10 Holland Tilburg 013
08.11.10 Germany Hamburg Grosse Freiheit
09.11.10 Sweden Stockholm Fryshuset/Klubben
11.11.10 Germany Berlin Huxleys
12.11.10 Germany Karlsruhe Substage
13.11.10 Czech Rep Prague Abaton
14.11.10 Poland Kraków Rotunda
16.11.10 Italy Bologna Estragon
17.11.10 Switzerland Pratteln Z7
18.11.10 Germany München Backstage Werk
19.11.10 Germany Leipzig Werk 2
20.11.10 Germany Würzburg Posthalle