Parkway Drive Unleash A Metal Masterpiece With "Sleepwalker" Video
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 29 via Epitaph Records.
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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 arrive on US shores in late June to ignite the pit at this summer's Vans Warped Tour.
Parkway Drive North American Tour Dates:
Jun 25 - Carson, CA - Home Depot Center (Warped Tour)
Jun 26 - Mountain View, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
Jun 27 - Ventura, CA - Seaside Park (Warped Tour)
Jun 29 - Phoenix, AZ - Cricket Pavilion (Warped Tour)
Jun 30 - Las Cruces, NM - N.M.S.U. Practice Field (Warped Tour)
Jul 1 - San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center (Warped Tour)
July 2 - Houston, TX - The Showgrounds (Warped Tour)
July 3 - Dallas, TX - Superpages.com Center (Warped Tour)
July 5 - St. Louis, MO - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (Warped Tour)
July 6 - Indianapolis, IN - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
July 7 - Burgettstown, PA - Post Gazette Pavillion (Warped Tour)
July 8 - Cleveland, OH - Time Warner Cable Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
July 9 - Toronto, ON - Arrow Hall (Warped Tour)
July 10 - Montreal, QC - Parc Jean Drapeau (Warped Tour)
July 11 - Hartford, CT - Comcast Theater (Warped Tour)
July 13 - Mansfield, MA - Comcast Center (Warped Tour)
July 14 - Darien Center, NY - Darien Lake P.A.C. (Warped Tour)
July 15 - Scranton, PA - Toyota Pavilion (Warped Tour)
July 16 - Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center (Warped Tour)
July 17 - Uniondale, NY - Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (Warped Tour)
July 18 - Oceanport, NJ - Monmouth Park Racetrack (Warped Tour)
July 20 - Columbia, MD - Merriweather Post Pavilion (Warped Tour)
July 21 - Virginia Beach, VA - Virginia Beach Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
July 22 - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Charlotte (Warped Tour)
July 23 - St. Petersburg, FL - Vinoy Park (Warped Tour)
July 24 - West Palm Beach, FL - Cruzan Amphitheater (Warped Tour)
July 25 - Orlando, FL - Central Florida Fairgrounds (Warped Tour)
July 26 - Atlanta, GA - Lakewood Amphitheater (Warped Tour)
July 28 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center (Warped Tour)
July 29 - Milwaukee, WI - Marcus Amphitheater (Warped Tour)
July 30 - Detroit, MI - Comerica Park (Warped Tour)
July 31 - Tinley Park, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
Aug 1 - Shakopee, MI - Canterbury Park (Warped Tour)
Aug 2 - Bonner Springs, KS - Sandstone Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
Aug 5 - Edmonton, AB - Northlands Grounds (Warped Tour)
Aug 7 - Salt Lake City, UT - Utah State Fairgrounds (Warped Tour)
Aug 8 - Denver, CO - Invesco Field (Warped Tour)
Aug 11 - Pomona, CA - Pomona Fairplex (Warped Tour)
Aug 12 - Marysville, CA - Sleep Train Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
Aug 13 - Nampa, ID - Idaho Center Amphitheatre (Warped Tour)
Aug 14 - George, WA - Gorge Amphitheater (Warped Tour)
Aug 15 - Hillsboro, OR - Washington County Fairgrounds (Warped Tour)