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Jimmy and Cheney team up for Barnestorming debut

Author: Andrew McMillen

When the two Australian members of international rockabilly group The Barnestormers are asked how the notorious musical term ‘supergroup’ sits with them, opinions are starkly divided.

“I don’t like the term ‘supergroup’; we’re a bunch of mates getting together to play music,” said Jimmy Barnes, 67, the chart-topping singer whose distinctive voice explores new tones on the band’s self-titled debut album, to be released on Friday.

“I love it, because I think we’re super,” said Chris Cheney, 48, with a laugh. The guitarist and frontman of Melbourne rock trio The Living End has lent his stirring licks to a set of songs that celebrate the origins of rock ’n’ roll.

The quartet is completed by Slim Jim Phantom, aka James McDonnell, the drummer and co-founder of esteemed New York rockabilly act the Stray Cats, with British musician and television presenter Jools Holland on piano.

The four of them recorded their parts remotely, in the depths of Covid lockdowns – yet thanks to the talents of South African record producer Kevin Shirley, the 11-track set has the feel of musicians sharing the same space.

“The essence of rockabilly music is that it sounds like you’re in a garage, thrashing it out ­together,” said Barnes. “We managed to do that while in four major cities around the world. I can’t give enough credit to Kevin; I don’t think there’s many ­producers that could have made that happen.”

For Cheney – who was a wide-eyed, 15-year-old witness when the Stray Cats supported Barnes at Melbourne’s National Tennis Centre in 1990 – working with Slim Jim Phantom is a dream come true.

“I do have to pinch myself,” he said. “I feel blessed, and it’s quite an amazing thing to be sitting on the edge of your bed, playing along to Stray Cats songs – to now playing in a band with him.”

The album includes a mix of originals – including first single Johnny’s Gone, which was written by Barnes’s Cold Chisel bandmate Don Walker – and covers.

The musicians recorded songs made famous by the likes of Roy Orbison (Working for the Man), Chuck Berry (Dear Dad) and Johnny O’Keefe’s Wild One, which was the first Australian rock ’n’ roll recording to crack the local charts in 1958.

As well, there’s a version of a recent Cold Chisel song in Land of Hope and Glory, co-written by Barnes and Walker, which appeared on its 2019 album Blood Moon.

Asked whether that meant he felt he had to rise to the high standard set by Chisel’s revered guitarist Ian Moss, The Living End’s axeman modestly ­demurred. “I just think he’s on this other level,” said Cheney of Moss. “I look up to players like that, and admire them so much; I tried to bring my own thing to each of the songs.”

On hearing this, the Barnestormers’ leader offered some high praise for his bandmate.

“I’ve watched Chris play a million times, and I don’t think he ever feels intimidated by any guitar player in the world,” said Barnes with a laugh. “I’ve stood at the side of stage with Mossy, watching him.”

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Positively Rockabilly

Author: Zoë Radas

Despite the fact their crepe soles were planted across three continents, rockabilly allstars The Barnestormers managed to slay the tyranny of distance with the power of finger-poppin’ grooves! (And some deft production work…)

We put a couple of questions each to this band of bros, comprising UK music legend and boogie-boogie
specialist Jools Holland; Gretch-slingin’ frontman of The Living End, Chris Cheney; stand-up sticksman for NYC’s seminal Stray Cats, Slim Jim Phantom; double bassman and producer to the superstars Kevin ”Caveman” Shirley; and on the mic, the thundering pipes of our boy Jimmy Barnes.

PIANO: JOOLS HOLLAND

When playing in rockabilly style, do you tend to thrash the keys more because the piano doesn’t have its own amp (and probably wouldn’t be mic’d up in a bar room situation)? To put it another way: does the live tradition of how rockabilly piano is played mean the technique is necessarily very different to (and maybe even less ’precise’ than) other styles?

Thank you for this interesting technical question. Rockabilly, like the blues, was in there at the birth of rock ’n’ roll and amplified music. It was at a time when the piano went from being one of the loudest instruments on stage to the least audible.

The piano players of the day not only had this challenge, but also the places where the gigs were being played, and the music was being recorded had inconsistent, and sometimes useless, pianos. It was a challenge that was met wonderfully by people like Floyd Cramer and Jerry Lee Lewis.

My understanding is that when records were cut at this time, the musicians were all playing quite quietly. The challenges of making The Barnestormers record and playing rockabilly today have been different. The two enormous hurdles that we had to get over were the global pandemic and the fact that members of the group were all on different continents. This is where genius producer Kevin Shirley came into his own, and managed, somehow, to pull it all together.

At my end, in London, I was delighted to be able to deploy my 1949 Wurlitzer spinet piano, which is identical to the one originally used in Sun Studios. This responds well to both taking a hammering and more light-fingered work.

I don’t think my technique’s any different for rockabilly, but I think my styling might be more influenced by Jerry Lee and Floyd.

For brand new fans of The Barnestormers’ sound, which pianists should they investigate to learn about the style?

Further to the above, the genius singer-songwriter Charlie Rich has a lovely touch. Much of the rockabilly style comes from western swing, so someone like Moon Mullican is worth checking out. As is Merill E. Moore, whose boogie woogie piano coupled with lap steel guitar created a unique and magical sound.

I have to say also at the back of my mind while I’ve been making this record has been my dear old friend, Fats Domino.

GUITAR: CHRIS CHENEY

When you’re playing a rock ‘n’ roll classic like the cuts on this new album, how do you know which pockets are yours to play around in with improvisation, and where to remain loyal to the original guitar part?

It was important for me on this record to find the right balance of referencing the original parts that are identifiable and also bringing my own touch to them. No one needs another straight-up covers record. You gotta bring something new to it, or why bother?

This music is the foundation of The Living End, so I’m kind of accustomed to taking an old idea and then injecting something fresh into it. I’m really proud of how this record turned out. Everyone brought the goods.

Which guitarists should brand new fans of The Barnestormers explore?

Here’s the essentials.

Cliff Gallup, who played on all Gene Vincent classics. A man who effortlessly played fast, flashy be-bop lines intertwined with jazzy octave runs. Race With the Devil and Be-Bop-a-Lula are still two of the all-time best guitar solos ever performed.

Paul Burlison, from Johnny Burnette’s rock’n’roll trio. Train Kept A-Rollin’ and Lonesome Train still sound fresh and punchy.

Danny Gatton, the Tele master and one of the greatest all-time players. Huge influence on me, as he really could do it all. He would run through an encyclopedia of licks in one single solo. Fire and skill.

Brian Setzer, who blended country, rock’n’roll, blues, and jazz into his own style. One of the best and coolest ever.

BASS: KEVIN ‘CAVEMAN’ SHIRLEY

When you’re going hammer and tongs on the bass, such as in Crazy Crazy Lovin’, we can hear the tick of the strings hitting the fingerboard with the force of your plucking. Do you think of this sound as part of the instrument’s sound, in a percussive sense? How much do you notice/control it?

Oh, the tickety-tick is key to the sound of the bass! (Otherwise, you’d just use a normal electric bass – that would be so much easier.) But the muted acoustic bass sound, and all that gorgeous fingerboard percussion, is the driving force of rockabilly, baby!

If listeners want to investigate rockabilly style slap bass, which players should they take a look at?

Thomas Lorioux! Boom! (Mic drop).

VOCALS: JIMMY BARNES

The repeated title phrase in Sweet Nothin’s sounds so good in your voice because the vowels it contains are particularly distinct to you. Do you look for songs to cover which are heavy on a particular word/vowel sound, because you know it’ll come out especially ’Barnesy’?

Not really, there are sounds that sound good at the end of phrases, and some that some good in the middle, but more than anything it’s about the timing and the tone I go for. I’m sure there are some go-to ones, but it’s not a conscious choice. Most vowel sounds can be made to sound good. Sweet Nothin’s is just one of those great songs that’s a lot of fun to sing. I like the Brenda Lee version a lot, but I wanted
to approach it like Little Richard when I sang it, the way I pushed it. I wanted the microphone to distort.

Which singers should brand new fans of The Barnestormers’ sound look in to?

There are so many great rockabilly and rock ’n’ roll singers to listen to. When I say rock n’ roll, I tend to be talking Little Richard more than Guns N’ Roses – nothing wrong with them, but it’s more about that time period.

It’s very hard to go past early Elvis records. He was one of the best. The way he sang in 1956 was out of this world. Then you have singers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Billy Lee Riley (it helps if you have three names). Buddy Holly was incredible. Little Richard, Johnny Burnette, Eddie Cochran. Listen to The Stray Cats – those guys introduced a whole new audience to rockabilly.

It’s a long list. If you haven’t looked at rockabilly music before, you have a great journey in front of you.

DRUMS: SLIM JIM PHANTOM

On Lonesome Train, we get to hear your rhythms go extra-clickety. Is there a ’healthy’ way to play on the rims, so you’re not ruining your sticks?

Yes, on Lonesome Train I play on the rims of the snare drum. There are a few things to watch out for when you play this style. As you said, you can wear out sticks and shed a few splinters – a few divots in the sticks can also occur. Luckily, I have an endorsement deal with Vic Firth sticks and get a few complimentary pairs.

This style can also wreak havoc on the rims; warping and denting can occur, so a lighter touch is suggested.

The main thing to be wary of is the damage to your wrists and elbows, from the hard stick on hard surface of the rims – prolonged use of this style can definitely result in bone spurs, a sprained wrist, and
sore elbows. I feel these are occupational hazards, so get tough and plough through – if it’s the right Sound for the right song, you gotta go for it!

For new fans of The Barnestormers’ sound, which drummers should they go searching for?

A few of the countless drummers that I’d suggest listening to, if you dig my style on The Barnestormers’ record and the rockabilly style in general, would be Dickie ”Be-Bop” Harrell, (Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps), D.J. Fontana (Elvis Presley), Charlie Connor (Little Richard), Jerry Allison (Buddy Holly), Jim Van Eaton (Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Sun Records house drummer), Freddie Below (Chuck Berry), Ringo Starr, Earl Palmer (Eddie Cochran), Charlie Watts, W.S. ”Fluke” Holland (Sun Records session drummer),
and Willie ”Big Eyes” Smith (Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf).

The Barnestormers’ caricatures and album artwork were created by lowbrow pop artist and trashcomic icon Vince Ray.

The Barnestormers by The Barnestormers is out May 26 via Bloodlines.

The Barnestormers – The Barnestormers

Author: Jeff Jenkins

Jimmy Barnes. The Living End’s Chris Cheney. Stray Cats’ Slim Jim Phantom. Squeeze’s Jools Holland, and producer Kevin ‘Caveman’ Shirley. Five legends spread over three continents.

Supergroups don’t always work, but The Barnestormers’ self-titled debut is a success from start to finish because the aim is simple: having fun.

They’ve delivered a riotous rockabilly rave-up, with songs celebrating the origins of rock ’n’ roll. Remarkably, all the band members had not even met before embarking on this record. But it sounds like they’re all in the same room, ripping through classics by Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Bill Haley, Johnny Burnette, and Brenda Lee.

The songs range in subject matter from wanting a new car (Chuck Berry’s Dear Dad) to the working man’s tale of woe (Roy Orbison’s Working for the Man) and the wonderfully absurd Thirteen Women (And Only One Man), where it’s the end of the world and the singer is the only man left on earth.

They also revisit Johnny O’Keefe’s Wild One (using its American title, Real Wild Child), as well as Don Walker’s solo gem Johnny’s Gone, and a recent Cold Chisel cut, Land of Hope and Glory. And Cheney contributes a new track, 25 to Life, which sits comfortably alongside the classics.

The Barnestormers is one of 2023’s great party records. Drop the needle and turn it up loud.

The Barnestormers by The Barnestormers drops via Bloodlines.

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After The End

Author: Jane Rocca

It took a breakdown spurred by the death of his father and leaning on good friend Jimmy Barnes for The Living End front-man, Chris Cheney, to hit the reset button.

His debut solo album The Storm Before The Calm is a testament to the hell of a ride it’s been.

“I went into a tailspin when my father died 10 years ago and it finally caught up with me,” says Cheney, who relocated to Melbourne from LA with his wife, property advisor Emma Cheney, and their two daughters just as the pandemic kicked off.

“Dad’s behaviour and state of mind affected me when I was growing up, but I didn’t know it at the time,” he says.

“I was always about trying to impress him… he suffered from some kind of mental illness and was hard work for mum, but he wasn’t diagnosed and his behaviour definitely played a role in how I felt.

“When someone like that disapears from your life, I found myself asking, what does it all mean?”

Cheney says it also took a stint in Nashville to shed those demons through songwriting and pondering life’s bigger questions.

His solo record has been almost a decade in the making, and the first single, California, is an ode to the place he and his family called home for nine years.

Still Got Friday On My Mind reflects on his father’s death and the consequences of that loss among a whirl of country pedal steel.

Best known for his rockabilly/punk band The Living End and writing and recording eight studio albums over a 25-year career, it would seem Cheney has been living the dream life – a high-profile music career and longevity in the biz others only wish for.

The Living End managed eight top 10 albums, two making it to No. 1 (their self-titled debut in 1998 and 2006’s State Of Emergency) and many hung in the top five.

It was a whirlwind of non-stop touring and, for Cheney, leaving his wife Emma at home to mostly raise the kids without him. He might have hit the rock-star jackpot, but it meant he missed out on milestone moments with his kids.

Cheney admits he descended into alcohol and substance abuse after the death of his father Noel in 2012. A trip to St. Vincent’s hospital in Sydney in 2017 with kidney issues was the straw that broke the proverbial. It was the wake-up call he needed, accompanied by a bedside kick up the butt by his mate Jimmy Barnes.

“It was scary; the booze had finally caught up with me,” says Cheney who now also has a rockabilly side project with Barnes called the Barn Shakers.

“I rebelled and became self-destructive because I got sick of being Mr Nice Guy and wanted to see what it was like to be more reckless and careless,” Cheney says. “I waited until I was 35 to do that.”

Those seismic shifts almost led to a marital breakdown and a purging that went from the existential to the cathartic.

“Emma stuck by me and having Jimmy to support me was amazing,” Cheney says. “He really reminded me [of] the importance of family, the need to come good for them. He really set me straight.”

CHRIS CHENEY \ Saturday, July 30 at The Corner Hotel, Melbourne.

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Chris Cheney on going solo and finding redemption

Author: Andrew McMillen

‘The first 25 years of my life, everything I did turned to gold,’ says The Living End frontman. ‘So what do you do when that happens? If you’re me, you sabotage it and you f..k it up.’

On a Thursday afternoon in July 2018, Chris Cheney sat sipping a beer in the lead-up to his soundcheck at the nearby Queensland Performing Arts Centre. As the spiky-haired frontman for Melbourne-born rock trio The Living End, the ostensible purpose of our meeting was to discuss the band’s upcoming eighth album, titled Wunderbar.

The man himself was visiting Brisbane while touring with a larger ensemble in a tribute to the White Album, The Beatles’ 1968 release, in a series of concerts where his performance of While My Guitar Gently Weeps was among the set’s finest moments.

As we sat and drank schooners in South Brisbane amid workers from nearby construction sites clad in high-vis clothing – the sort of workers who have featured prominently in Cheney’s socially inclusive and progressive songwriting – there was a new musical undercurrent running right beneath us, and it was only by accident that an unseen release valve was kicked open.

One of the most curious songs on Wunderbar is titled Death of the American Dream, a typically raucous Living End track drawn from Cheney’s own observations of living in Los Angeles with his family since 2011 – but one which ends on a highly unusual note, with his bandmates silent while the singer and his guitar tease out an evocative solo coda.

The presence of that song’s gorgeous acoustic ending – as well as another Cheney solo track on the same release, titled Amsterdam – was a striking stylistic decision for a band best known for its bombastic rock stompers. Back in 2018, it got Review wondering: any plans to record a solo album under your own name, Chris?

“I’ve done it,” Cheney replied. “I recorded an album in Nashville. There’s six songs that are just my voice and acoustic guitar, and there’s six songs that I recorded with a band over there.

“But TLE has to be No.1 at the moment; we have a great opportunity, because of what happened with getting signed to (record label) BMG worldwide, so I’ve had to put it on the backburner,” he said, frowning. “I’m really happy with it. It’s a little bit frustrating that I haven’t been able to do anything with it. But those other songs? They’re not going anywhere.”

–

According to his bandmates in The Living End, the frontman’s solo aspirations go way back. Double bassist and backing vocalist Scott Owen, who co-founded the group with Cheney in 1994, reckons “it’s been at least a decade in the making. It rivals Chinese Democracy,” he says, referring to the Guns N’ Roses album that famously took 19 years to complete.

“That doesn’t mean that Chris rivals Axl Rose,” Owen says with a laugh. “Maybe he does in some ways. But all of Chris’s output is pretty great quality. Andy and I have probably been of the same opinion. We’re just like, ‘Dude, it’s awesome. Just put it out! Stop working on it, because you’ll work on it forever!’ I think it’s fair to say that 10 years is pretty close to forever, in the ‘making of an album’ terms.”

Drummer Andy Strachan, who joined the group in 2002, concurs. “I don’t know how many times he’s written and recorded this solo record, but it’s been going for a long, long time,” he tells Review with a laugh. “Writing songs is not a problem for him; he’s always had the material to do the record.”

According to the man himself, the lightbulb moment came while recording a solo version of the Crowded House pop classic Distant Sun for the 2010 Finn covers compilation He Will Have His Way.

Back in 2018, the news that one of Australia’s greatest living singer-songwriter-guitarists was deciding to go solo was an enticing notion. In a flash, it was easy to see Cheney’s potential future, performing into middle age and beyond under his own name, just like some of his songwriting heroes, Paul Kelly and Finn.

Four years later, on the eve of Bluesfest 2022 – the music industry’s first major multi-day camping event to be held since the Covid pandemic was declared – Cheney jets into Brisbane from his new home in Melbourne, where he and his family resettled last year.

Before meeting up with his Living End bandmates near Byron Bay on Good Friday, he’s in the Queensland capital to play one of his first shows with his new band, two months ahead of the release of his long-gestating debut solo album.

In the lobby, Cheney peers over his sunglasses and offers a handshake. We take a lift up to the hotel’s sky bar where, over a couple of beers as the sun sets in the city centre, he begins to unpack the circumstances surrounding a set of songs that feel to him as though they’ve been half a lifetime in the making.

Titled The Storm Before the Calm, it’s a surprising collection that foregrounds his voice – and thus his lyrics, which are often painfully self-aware – like we’ve never heard before.

“The idea was that the vocals would be front and centre, and loud – everything I’ve never wanted to have with The Living End,” says Cheney, 47. “I never really was happy with my vocals. You get to a point, I reckon, where — and maybe it’s not even just vocally – you just sort of accept who you are when you get a bit older, and you’re okay with it. And I’m okay with my vocals now.”

He corrects himself: “More than okay with them. I worked really hard on them … because it’s such a lyrically-focused album.

“That’s what the record is all about,” says Cheney. “A lot of people, I think, are expecting a sort of a ‘guitar hero’ record – but it’s kind of the opposite of that.”

There is darkness in the stories behind these songs, and after our meeting, Cheney emails an essay of sorts he’s written about where their inspiration lay. According to him, the album contains “tales of excess; I had kidney failure, self-inflicted (no longer an issue); relationship breakdowns, regrets, dealing (or not dealing) with my father’s passing, not caring about anything or anyone except trying to block out the pain with booze and whatever else was on offer; not sleeping; desire; making big mistakes, and ultimately asking for – and receiving – forgiveness.”

Sitting in the rooftop bar, surrounded by a rowdy crowd of young party-starters, the songwriter reckons the death of his father a decade ago was the catalyst for this surprising shift in his behaviour. “The first 25 years of my life, everything I did sort of turned to gold,” he says. “I didn’t make any mistakes, really; it was all from one success to the next. The band was flying high, touring the world; I met the girl, married the girl, moved into a house, had the kids. It was all pretty picture-perfect. So what do you do when that happens? If you’re me, you sabotage it and you f..k it up, because you go, ‘What else is there?’

“I don’t want to get into names, and that sort of thing, but I definitely betrayed my family and friends in a way, and ended up in this very dark place,” says Cheney carefully. “But part of me sort of liked it. I liked being in the situation where I had all this stuff to draw from, and show different sides that I didn’t know were there.

“I didn’t particularly like that side of me, and I’m sort of ashamed of some of the stuff that I did,” he clarifies. “But for some reason, I kept feeding it and I kept doing what I was doing. But I managed to make a record that I think is balanced, and there’s a personal triumph. I’m still here. I didn’t throw the record in the bin; I didn’t lose my marriage, thanks to my wife, who I owe everything to, because that could have been the case.”

This introspective subject matter is canvassed in the songs on his solo album, in a way that he’s never previously explored. For Cheney’s bandmates, hearing the songwriter open up in this way through his art felt like a breakthrough.

“Making it sound real was something that I wanted to really encourage him to do,” says drummer Strachan. “That’s what people want to hear, that ‘from the heart’ sort of stuff. In The Living End, he’s the guitar-shredder frontman guy – but as a solo thing, it just has to be raw and it has to be heartfelt. People are not stupid: they’re going to see straight through it if you’re trying to cover anything up.”

Before we part ways in Brisbane, I ask Cheney about his new role being the band leader in two different setups. He’s now simultaneously fronting one of the nation’s most recognisable rock’n’ roll groups, whose household-name status has been assured for more than two decades; he also fronts a new quintet, and there’s zero crossover between the two setlists.

“It’s such a novelty for me to have a piano behind me, and a lot of the songs were written with piano very much at the forefront,” he says with a smile. “I love being able to sing along with it, and with the Petty, Springsteen, Jackson Browne influence in a lot of these songs, the piano’s right up there.

“I’m loving that whole ‘bar band’ thing; it’s just working. The people who are coming to the shows are loving it because again, they’re seeing a different side to me – but it’s not diminished. It’s not a watered-down side project. I love it – and tomorrow night, I’ll put my other hat on, and try and blow the place apart again.”

–

The following night near Byron Bay, on the Crossroads stage at Bluesfest, Good Friday is a very good day for rock’n’roll fans, as the final four acts booked to play from 5.30pm onwards are The Angels, The Living End, Hoodoo Gurus and Midnight Oil.

Once the sun sinks beneath the horizon, the Melbourne trio attracts a huge crowd of about 8000 people spilling beyond the edges of the Big Top tent.

As they work through a “greatest hits” setlist including Second Solution, All Torn Down, West End Riot, White Noise and a hard-rocking cover of Tainted Love, the threesome comes across as something akin to an Australian equivalent of Foo Fighters, another band whose reach is bigger than most due to the songwriters’ willingness to lean into melodies that sound great when sung en masse.

Out the front, Cheney is in full showman mode, playing the character of the rockabilly demon, with a cheeky glint in his eye, that he has inhabited since this band broke through onto the national stage in the late 1990s. “There are very few things as uplifting and powerful as rock’n’ roll music, ladies and gentlemen,” he says to the crowd midway through the set. “There are no guarantees in this life, let me assure you, so you’ve got to enjoy the good times when they’re here. I want you to turn it up to 11 with this one. This is for all the misfits – for all the prisoners of society.”

Like Midnight Oil, The Living End are such an established machine that it’s just about impossible to imagine a mediocre live performance, let alone a bad one. But what’s different about them now is that the man at the microphone is finally unleashing that other side of his musicality, the one that’s been itching for an outlet for a decade, maybe longer.

Crucially, it’s an outlet with the full endorsement of his brothers in rock. There’s no sense of disharmony, onstage or off, from his two longtime colleagues in The Living End. “I know how much he’s bled and sweated over it, and probably shed many tears over it, as well,” says Owen. “It drives me and Andy up the wall sometimes, when Chris spends so much time changing things. I know how much of that has happened (with the solo album), and with all of that in mind, it just makes me even more proud and glad that the end result is so f..king good.”

Strachan, for his part, loves looking over his kit to stage right and seeing Cheney lost in the music, expressing himself through his guitar and vocals, letting everything out. “That’s the show: when he’s having a good time, we’re having a good time,” says the drummer. “It’s so fulfilling to see your mate living in the moment. I think he’s at his best when he’s just let his guard down. Playing with him constantly reminds me of how incredible he is.”

Rather than keeping him all to themselves, Owen and Strachan are as excited as the thousands of people gathered here beneath a heaving Big Top tent. They’re keen to see and hear what’s next for one of the greatest voices in Australian music as he strides out on his own.

The Storm Before The Calm is out now via Liberator Music. Chris Cheney’s solo tour begins in Brisbane on July 16 and ends in Sydney on August 13.

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Chris Cheney bares his soul on emotional solo debut

Author: Jade Kennedy

From ‘California’ to ‘Corner Shop’ – Chris Cheney gets raw and emotional on his debut solo album, ‘The Storm Before The Calm’.

Almost 30 years after co-founding dynamic Australian rockabilly band The Living End, frontman Chris Cheney is branching out on his own with the release of his debut solo album.

One listen to Cheney’s deeply personal new offering The Storm Before The Calm and one thing becomes abundantly clear: we’ve never really known Chris Cheney at all.

“The Living End have just never had songs that personal, for a start, and if they were, it’s sort of been represented under the umbrella of the three of us,” Cheney says, referring to bandmates Scott Owen and Andy Strachan. “Whereas this is just me, under my name, and people know it’s a solo project.”

Lead single ‘California’ was released in March; an ode to the place Cheney called home for nine years, until a global pandemic ushered a return to Melbourne.

Living in Los Angeles, Cheney says he found himself in some “incredible” situations that were particular to the “buzzing” LA music scene.

“You’re on stage at the Troubadour, and to the left is Chris Shiflett from the Fooies, and Duff from Guns ‘N’ Roses on the right, with Captain Sensible and my old mate Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats, because we had a band together and all of these different people would just come along and jump up and jam,” he says. “We did tours of that, and I was pinching myself. Like, that stuff just didn’t happen when I was living in Glen Waverley.”

LA was creatively “very inspiring” for Cheney, who began writing The Storm Before The Calm while living there.

“There’s a standard and a level there that is pretty darn high,” he says. “I like that, and I like feeling that pressure.”

After “tinkering” on some songs on his own, Cheney found himself working with Skylar Wilson in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2016.

“[Skylar] is just amazing; he’s from that whole Leon Russell school of piano playing and the band that he brought in were just fantastic,” he says. “They weren’t old Nashville, they were kind of young contemporary guys. They have all that old school Nashville chops, but they didn’t rely on them – they were okay with bringing in a few more modern-style licks and playing, which was nice.”

Cheney then worked with Aussie Justin Stanley, who had relocated to Los Angeles and worked with the likes of Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton.

“I showed him some songs and said, ‘Hey, you want to help me finish these off?’” Cheney says. “So he played drums and piano on ‘Still Got Friday on My Mind’ and ‘Lost in the Darkness’ and one other one, I think.”

‘Still Got Friday on My Mind’ is one of the tracks Cheney says he is “super proud” of, and it’s one that really allows fans into his deeper psyche, as it deals with the “sore point” of his father’s passing.

“I suppose for me, it’s a way of dealing with it, like any songwriter it’s like a therapy session if you just write it down on paper and put music to it and it’s a way of dealing with it,” he says. “But he had been very sick for a while, and I was going out to visit him one morning where he’d been particularly ill for the last couple of days.”

After arranging to see his father one weekend, Cheney “selfishly” went out the night before, and spent too long the following day “probably trying to find the Panadol” and overcoming the “messy” night before.

“And of course by the time I got there, he was gone,” Cheney says. “So it was a huge regret for me, and that was my way of saying, well I kind of wish it was still Friday night, then I wouldn’t be dealing with what was going on on the Saturday or the Sunday, whenever it was.”

Cheney says he is proud of the track, because it showcases what he wanted this record to be: “Where people go, ‘Wow, I didn’t realise that that guy could do this, I thought he just jumped around on stage and climbed up on a double bass and did the blazing guitar solo thing.’ So that’s what I’ve noticed from people that have heard the record, they sort of go, oh okay, so you’ve got that side to you as well.”

Cheney “really tried” to make the lyrical content of this record as “raw and personal as possible,” with nothing blocking their emotional depth.

“I think the whole key with this record was that there were a few times where I didn’t quite know if I wanted to say what I wanted to say,” he laughs. “It was a little too raw, a little too close to the bone, a little too personal. But what I found was if I didn’t say it directly and if I didn’t make it really simple and clear, then it just sounded like I was kind of skirting around an issue, and it sounded like it was watered down, or like I’d tried to sugar-coat something.”

After recording 10 songs in what he now refers to as the “Nashville sessions,” Cheney returned to his garage in Melbourne and continued writing, penning ‘California’ as well as follow-up singles ‘Corner Shop’ and ‘Football Team’ as well as ‘Little White Pills’ – which, incidentally, is about the most ‘Living End’ sounding track on the album.

“If it had just been the Nashville record it would have been quite a dark album, and I think I definitely would not have been as happy with it if it had come out three years ago as what I am now,” Cheney says. “Because when I got back to Melbourne, and the extra songs that I wrote, it seemed to balance it up. I found then that I had a complete record, and it would have been a different beast altogether.”

Cheney says that “as a sum of the parts” the album feels more complete now, even though it meant discarding half of those original 10 tracks in favour of some of the newer songs.

“The Nashville stuff was a little bit more probably country, Americana, that sort of feel – acoustic-based – and I think three of the more rock songs that I wrote on the album happened once I got back here,” he says. “When I hear it now, I feel like I’ve almost written – unintentionally – a concept record. Like there’s definitely a narrative that flows through it.”

Every time he tried to shy away from the real, Cheney says the songs “weren’t as good” – and that is why he brings so many personal demons to the surface on this record.

“As honest as it is, I think at the end of the day if you choose to go through the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb, you’ll see exactly what I’m saying and where it has all come from; but if you don’t you can just listen to the songs and listen to the hooks, and hopefully they’re the things that are the most prominent,” he says. “I’m one of these people that ruminates on things, and you probably shouldn’t do it, but I do. So I’ve had my fair share of lying there all hours of the evening, or making bad decisions. But we’re only human, aren’t we?”

Cheney says he hoped people would get a little bit of insight into who he is “without the big production and the thumping drums and guitars and everything that The Living End records normally have”.

“I didn’t know if people would buy it, and I didn’t know if I could really do it” he says. “Until you throw yourself into the studio and you strip everything back, and you just have a piano and sing along with that – which is what the first track on the record is, essentially just piano and a little bit of guitar and it’s all vocals.”

Admittedly, though, Cheney wouldn’t have exposed himself in such a way 20 years ago.

“I wouldn’t have have been able to listen to my vocals like that,” he says. “But I’m okay with it now.”

Cheney has also been exploring visual art – the artwork on The Storm Before The Calm is all his own – and has even held an exhibition this year; but it isn’t a new venture like many believe.

“As a kid, before I got into the guitar, I just sat and drew all the time,” he says. “I never had a pencil or a pen and a piece of paper very far from my grasp. I just used to sit and draw all day.”

Even The Living End logos and poster designs showcased Cheney’s artistic flair in the band’s early days. But using a brush and paint was a new experience, and one Cheney has embraced whole heartedly.

“I went from just kind of fooling around and trying to teach myself a few techniques to I’ve now got a garage that’s like bursting at the seams with all these canvases, and it’s been great,” he says. “It’s sort of very similar to song writing, you know, you just throw an idea at the canvas and then add something to it; if you don’t like it you paint over that bit then paint something else.”

Between the music and art, Cheney says the past two years have been the “most creative probably ever” in his life.

“It’s definitely re-awakened my love for visual arts, because it had sort of been suppressed, I suppose, over the last 10 or 15 years – I’ve just been so focused on the band,” he says. “And I don’t know, I just sort of forgot that I could draw and do all that stuff so it’s been great, and I’m kicking myself now that I haven’t done more of it over the years because it’s sort of become a new obsession.”

For now, music will once again take precedence for Cheney. He has a number of shows with The Living End between now and the end of the year, as well as a run of solo shows in support of the album.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m having to sell the idea too hard to people; they’re kind of like, okay, yeah, I’m interested in hearing that. That’s really nice,” Cheney says. “I guess the few times I’ve done outside of the band over the years, whether it be the ‘Distant Sun’ cover or the White Album or whatever, I think I’ve proven that I can kind of hold my own when I need to.”

The Storm Before The Calm will be released tomorrow, Friday 17th June.

Chris Cheney Tour Dates

Saturday 16th July: The Zoo, Brisbane
Friday 22nd July: Mojo’s, Fremantle
Saturday 23rd July: Jive, Adelaide
Saturday 30th July: The Corner, Melbourne
Saturday 13th August: Factory Theatre, Sydney

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My Rig: Chris Cheney

Author: Eli Duxson

“You know what, it doesn’t fucking make any difference what you plug into and run through, you get up there and you put on a ripper show – it all comes out of your fingers at the end of the day,” The Living End’s Chris Cheney laughingly and matter-of-factly explains.

Cheney has carved out a reputation as one of Australia’s best guitarists as The Living End’s charismatic frontman and axeman, but has ventured on his own path to release a solo album years in the making, The Storm Before The Calm.

Featuring tracks from earlier Nashville recordings, musings of his time in Los Angeles, and reflections of his childhood after his recent relocation back to Melbourne, the record reflects different parts of his life.

Synonymous with Cheney’s on-stage presence is no doubt his assortment of Gretsch guitars which he’d always had a penchant for, before he even owned one.

“There was just all those cool old photos and footage of those rockabilly guitar players which was one thing, and the playing was just next level which was what drew me to them,” he says.

Leading up to the release of his upcoming album, we thought we’d discuss his Gretsch affinity at length as well as the rest of his “complicated” live setup.

GUITARS

Gretsch White Falcon

“The Falcon’s just got this kind of extra mojo that I haven’t realy found, even when I’ve played other White Falcons, that guitar just has something. It just has that thing that I was looking for I suppose, that fine, good balance between the Gretsch kind of twang, that deep growl, and that bitchin’ AC/DC toughness with the string attack. Not only was it the best looking guitar, it had the sound as well.”

AMPS

Vox AC30 & Wizard Modern Classic

“It’s a lot more complicated than probably what people would expect. I have backwards cabs that are all plugged in, isolated, and all miked up, and then I have one front-facing cab. My main two cabs are and AC30, a new one, just a Hand Wired, and a Wizard 2×12 cab facing backwards, which has one of my 100-watt Modern Classics running into it. They are ridiculously loud, you don’t want to stand at the back of the stage when The Living End are playing – it hurts. The forward-facing cab I just have for some feedback and a little bit of monitoring because I like to be able to feel the sound. You gotta have that thunk hitting your legs, and to hit a note and get a little bit of feedback and that squeal when you need to.”

PEDALS

Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro

“Pedal-wise, I have a Ground Control switcher, so I have that in front of me to make adjustments if I need to. Basically I’m just running an Eventide TimeFactor, so all my delays are pre-set for different songs on the Ground Control, I have a trusty old Klon, and an Ibanez Tube Screamer that I’ve had since I was about 17 which never leave the board.”

SLIDE

VB Stubbie

Cheney is also known to not only enjoy drinking the Very Best on stage, but to inventively use it as a slide!

“A lot of people cringe at a few of the things I do to my guitars, but it’s all about putting on a show really – the multiple uses of a VB bottle! It cleans up alright though, it probably gets into the wiring over the course of 20 years or something but you just wipe them down.”

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BLUESFEST BRING ON THE END

Author: Unknown

The Living End are truly Rock Royalty. Formed in 1994 in Melbourne, it was 1997 when the band blasted through with their double A side single featuring ‘Prisoner of Society’ and ‘Second Solution’ – songs that have become festival anthems around the world. This five times ARIA-winning band are one of the Aussie treasures playing at Bluesfest this October. This will be the third attempt by the Byron event since the 2019 COVID-19 lockdown to host their festival. Mandy Nolan had a chat with Chris Cheney about the band’s upcoming Bluesfest gig…

When I speak to Chris Cheney the lead vocalist of The Living End, it’s Lockdown Number Four in Melbourne. The impacts of the virus have been massive for the entertainment industry.

‘It’s really frustrating when you look at the bigger picture of the entertainment industry, and people are nervous about putting events on.

‘The government hasn’t given the entertainment industry the support it needs.’

It’s something musicans like Cheney find annoying. ‘When the shit hits the fan, it’s the entertainment industry that steps up and puts on a concert to raise money.’ The reciprocal support for the music industry has definitely been lacking.

The landscape for musicians has certainly changed. When The Living End started it was all about the pub. ‘The pub was everything – we did thousands of gigs before we got on Triple J, we built the following from the ground up.’

Consequently The Living End has the smarts of a band who know how to play to a crowd. They are a powerful festival act.

‘It’s an endurance test getting through our show’ says Chris. ‘You have to be match fit – we also have to be fit in ourselves. The songs don’t sound the same unless you are at 200 per cent!’

‘This is the first time we have played Bluesfest. I haven’t been before, never been and never played it, so we intend to come out of the gates with all guns blazing, we will be like bulls at a gate!

‘Bluesfest isn’t specifically blues and roots but it’s the core and it’s our background,’ says Cheney.

The Living End are playing at Bluesfest 1–4 October. Tix from bluesfest.com.au.

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A Living End To 2018 Gigs

Author: Luke Voogt

Aussie rock legends The Living End lead a dozen-strong line-up of alternative bands in a series of gigs at Torquay over summer.

Barwon Heads drummer Andy Strachan was thrilled to play on Boxing Day at Torquay Hotel.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done (pub) gigs,” he said.

“Everyone’s generally pretty loose and ready for a good time – I think more bands should do it.”

The gig kicks off an Australian and New Zealand tour for the multi-ARIA-winning band.

“I’m super excited – there are waves almost everywhere (on the east coast),” Strachan said.

“We should do this as an annual event – go on a little a surfing trip.”

The band recently released new album Wunderbar, featuring the single Don’t Lose It.

Jimmy Barnes, Kacey Chambers, Eddie McGuire and Ray Hadley appear in the track’s video clip parodying talent shows. “It was the most fun we’ve ever had doing a video clip,”

Strachan said. “Generally, with video clips, there’s a whole lot of waiting around but this one was just hilarious from start to finish.”

TV presenter Tom Williams, a good friend of Strachan’s, turns the satire up to 11 as a corny talent show host.

“He’s such a charismatic guy and he doesn’t mind the taking the piss out of himself,” Strachan said.

Living End guitarist Chris Cheney plays Boy George-esque judge ‘Valentino’ while bass player Scott Owen plays a corporate producer.

“I don’t care what they do, they can fart into a lunchbox,” Owen says in the clip.

“I just want someone who’s going to make money.”

Strachan said “all fingers were pointed directly at me” to play third judge, the Delta Goodrem-inspired Alexis Dream.

Molly Meldrum plays an Elvis impersonator, while The Wiggles’ Murray Cook and Puppetry of the Penis also make appearances.

“We had to blur some of that,” Strachan said.

“There’s an adults-only version somewhere.”

The number of celebrities “snowballed” once Cheney phoned Barnes for the video, Strachan said.

“He says, ‘whatever you need mate, I’m there,’ in his Jimmy voice.

“We’ve done a lot of stuff with Jimmy in the past – he and Chris get along really well.

“If you had said 20 years ago you’re going to be mates with Jimmy Barnes from Cold Chisel … it’s so surreal.”

The Living End finished Wunderbar in a few “intense” months of recording in Berlin, Strachan said.

Cheney wrote most of the new album, which Strachan described as high-energy and “sonically different to anything we’ve done”.

“Chris has a song-writing gift … but we all chip in,” Strachan said.

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Throwing Off The Shackles

Author: Brendan Crabb

As Aussie rock mainstays The Living End return for an eighth full-length, frontman Chris Cheney tells Brendan Crabb about his relationship with their breakthrough anthem.

The Living End’s recent decision to launch Don’t Lose It, lead single from new album Wunderbar at small gigs in Sydney and Melbourne was greeted with enthusiasm by the punkers’ fanbase. However, a fellow journalist/photographer lamented to this scribe after the Sydney show that the veterans eschewed breakthrough hit Prisoner Of Society in favour of new material. “It didn’t seem the right time and place to play it,” vocalist/guitarist Chris Cheney says when told of this. “God, hasn’t he heard it a million times before like we all have?” he laughs.

“We’re so into the (new) record, that we just went, ‘Fuck it, everyone knows the other songs. This is the ideal opportunity to be a bit of a showcase of new songs.’ We’ve always kind of done that. We used to go out and do these secret gigs where we’d just play all new material, sort of road-test it. We stand behind it [the new album], and I think the audience could see that. The one thing people said to me was that they have a lot of character and personality, these songs. In an era where people aren’t making records anymore, we have made a record.”

What type of relationship does the frontman have with Prisoner Of Society nowadays? Cheney pauses before responding. “A love-hate one. No, I don’t hate it, it’s fine. It’s forever going to be the song that kind of put us on the map first I suppose. I think it’s a good song, I just don’t like the recording of it, I don’t like the version that we recorded… It was a different time. We were kind of part of that
whole punk/pop thing, and just the vocals are sung in a certain way that I’m like, I just wouldn’t sing it that way anymore,” the frontman laughs. “But I can appreciate the song, and I still think it’s a good song.”

While having a healthy respect for their past, including playing heritage-themed shows previously, the aforementioned willingness to forge ahead has meant 20 years on from the multi-platinum success of their self-titled debut, the trio sought fresh ways to create on album number eight. The trio — also featuring co-founder, double bassist Scott Owen and long-time drummer Andy Strachan — decamped to Berlin, Germany for recording and pre-production sessions on Wunderbar. They worked alongside producer Tobias Kuhn during the six-week stint.

“We only decided in like September that we were going to make the record, and then [by] January we were already making it,” Cheney laughs. “So there wasn’t a huge turnaround. Trying to pack up my house in LA in shipping containers and think about relocating [back to Melbourne] and trying to write a record at the same time was nuts.

“When we got to Germany, the songs still needed to be finished off and I really felt like they were influenced by just the surroundings. Every day I would get up, we were staying at an Airbnb and a hotel and a few different places, but you’d get up in the morning and then you’d walk to the studio. Just walking past the subway, past all the German signs, and your streets, sights and smells and everything, I found it was influencing me. It was just giving me this kind of… Just this different approach when I got to the studio each day because I was in a completely different environment. It’s hard to say exactly how it influenced the record, but I definitely think it’s got a lot of character that it wouldn’t have had if I’d just been sitting in my bedroom all day, every day recording.”

Of the new record, the frontman dubs the multi-faceted Death Of The American Dream as a “kind of political” but a predominantly personal statement partially inspired by his living in Hollywood for several years, while adding that the rest of the tracks on the record are not necessarily political at all. “There’s a couple of little statements here and there, but it’s a very diverse record this one. Whereas [2016’s] Shift was very introspective… That was actually quite dark and grim, to be honest, but this one I find is a little more optimistic. There’s a little more hope and a few more different kinds of subject matter that we’re tackling that I don’t think we would have tackled in our twenties.

“We’ve never been like the Oils or something and made a proper, full-blown [political] statement. It’s more just been about social issues and stuff that’s going on, as opposed to laying down our opinion.”

Wunderbar (BMG) is out now. The Living End tour from 1 Nov.

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The Living End On Taking A Leap Of Faith

Author: Alex Callan

It may have been 20 years since The Living End were talking about being a brat that talks back, but god damn, they haven’t lost the punk. If you don’t believe me give a spin to ‘Death Of The American Dream’, a track of their newest album Wunderbar.

“I’m stoked that you brought up that song because that’s probably my favourite off the record,” remarks the bands Double Bassist Scott Owen. “That one was just a bit of a jam and when we demoed it we didn’t have any lyrics written.

“So I just barked down the microphone. I was pretending I was on the phone to somebody and that was my phone call was the verses of the song. It was thing called ‘Can I leave my number’ as if I was leaving a message for someone,” he continues.

“We were more focused about getting the energy right to make it a banger of a song and didn’t care as much about the lyrics and Chris took it away and turned it into the ‘Death Of The American Dream’ which tuned it to a completely other dimension.

“It’s the first time we had every written like that. I didn’t expect it to turn into what it did, it was just something we did for a bit of fun and then it grew legs and got a life of its own.”

Recording the album over six weeks in Berlin, Scott spoke about how the band were “fish out of water” when they headed over to work with Tobias Kuhn, a producer the band had never met before.

“The whole idea was to take a bit of a leap of faith,” he says. “We didn’t want to play it safe and put ourselves in the same situation we have before, so instead we thought we would take an adventure and work with someone we don’t know in a place that’s really far away.

“It was a great idea; it was the best thing we could of done,” Scott expands. “Tobias was unreal; we got aong with him really well and had really similar musical tastes and ideas so it was a really good collaboration there in a sense.

“We try not to have too many preconceived ideas about songs and try to just let them go to where they want to be. We just want each song t have their own identity.”

Now back in Australia, The Living End will once again be hitting the road for the Wunderbar tour and bringing along West Thebarton for the ride.

“Truthfully, I don’t really know much about West Thebarton,” laughs Scott before continuing, “so I’m really looking forward to touring with them so I can check them out. We have just done a bunch of gigs in Europe which has been really good for us and now we have a few gigs between no and when the tour starts but we absolutely cannot wait to get back up there again.

“Being in a studio is great, but it feels like you’ve got the shackles on and everything is under the microscope so we all can’t wait to let lose on stage again.”