Big Day Out

Author: Eva Roberts

One of the country’s most popular live acts, The Living End, is all set to play Big Day Out. Bassist Scott Owen chats to Eva Roberts about big crowds.

As the time draws nearer for Australia’s biggest music festival, the guys from The Living End are counting down the days until the release of their new, as yet untitled, studio album. With the first single of the album, What’s On Your Radio, released in November, the guys are gearing up to wow Big Day Out audiences nationally with their new material. TLE’s bassist, Scott Owen, says the songs on the bands new release are better and more thought out.
“We spent months and months working on these tunes,” he says. “I think we are just getting the craft more ‘honed'”
“Some of the songs on this album have been around for a couple of years and they only now feel like they are complete”
“But some of them were written, basically, a week or two before we went into the studio”

As one of the Australian headline acts for the Auckland to Perth BDO concerts, the band who made it big with hits like Prisoner of Society, All Torn Down, and Roll On are not at all daunted by their upcoming shows as now they are BDO veterans, having performed as one of the headlining acts in previous years. Scott says the thing he likes best about the BDO festival is he is able to see so many different bands perform.
“it’s a good opportunity for us as punters as well” he says, “To just get out and see a whole lot of different bands…you are walking from one stage to another and stumbling across a whole lot of different bands that you’ve never heard of, that you might like,”
“For us it’s just great to be able to play in front of such a huge crowd as well.
“It is not like we can play gigs that big on our own. It’s good exposure for us being on a massive stage in front of an enormous crowd”

With a new album on the horizon, TLE crew will be playing some new material which includes the “fast and energetic” first single. However, not to disappoint fans of their well-established hits, Scott says they will still perform some class TLE tunes.
“We’ve done the BDO a few times and we’ve been around for a while so people can definitely expect to hear some new stuff from us,” he says
“It won’t be exactly the same as we’ve been doing for years but also the BDO has a really varied kind of crowd so there will still be people who haven’t seen us before so we will pull out the old favourites.
“As far as us playing live, I think we are still pretty eager to please.
“We are still keen on trying to put on the best show we possibly can so I don’t know exactly. All I can say is old stuff and some new stuff and we’ll give it our best”

Obviously with the release of the new album, the boys will be gearing up to tour the country, which includes a stop in Cairns.