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.

The Living End Get It Horribly Right

Author: Zachary Snowdon Smith

Any uni student knows that spending hours dawdling over an essay doesn’t necessarily make the finished product any better. Punk trio The Living End found the same to be true when they emerged from the studio with their quickest record ever, Wunderbar, which was produced in just four weeks.

“We didn’t sacrifice quality – it just meant that we got the job done without procrastinating,” says frontman Chris Cheney. “It almost made me worried that everything was going horribly right. You’re waiting for it. When’s the hurdle coming? When are we going to get stuck? But it ended up as the most fun record we’ve ever done – the easiest experience I’ve ever had in the studio.”

To record their new album, the band didn’t book time at Abbey Road or the Capitol Records tower in LA. Instead, they sequestered themselves in the quaint and tourist-free central German town of Rotenburg an der Fulda. In Rotenburg, the band started each day with a ten-minute stroll to Toolhouse Studios, where they met with Tobias Kuhn, a producer known for his frenetic energy during recording sessions.

Recording Wunderbar, Cheney found that Germany fulfills the Australian reputation for laid-back amicability better than Australia does.

“I find [Berlin] a lot more chilled to walk around,” says Cheney. “You don’t see anywhere near the aggression or the violence that I see on a daily basis in Melbourne. I mean, God forbid you were to walk down the street with an open beer. You can’t do that.

“It’s a funny kind of arrangement. The laws over there are looser. It’s almost like with teenagers: if you give them a little bit of responsibility, they tend to grow up and appreciate it and not abuse it. Whereas, in Australia, there’s this police state: ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ That tends to make people rebel against it. It’s a funny thing; even though Berlin’s a pretty crazy town, you feel very safe walking around there. I hate to say it, but I don’t feel like that when I’m walking around Melbourne sometimes.”

Even as Spotify continues to reduce albums to modular collections of tracks, Cheney takes pride in Wunderbar’s completeness, which he hopes will prompt a few people to listen to it all the way through before cannibalising it for playlists.

“As an album, it flows really well,” he says. “I know that’s a little bit defunct these days, but for us, that’s important. There were certain songs we really liked that didn’t end up on the record, because they didn’t fit… We’re not aiming to reinvent the wheel. We’ve dabbled a bit, but with this record, the strength lies in the fact that it’s a straight-up rock ‘n’ roll record.”

One standout track is the cochlea-pummelling ‘Death Of The American Dream’, which sounds a bit like the Living End’s take on Highway 61 Revisited. The mortifying spectacle of the Trump presidency has sparked a minor renaissance of anti-American political music. However, Cheney, who spent seven years living in the US, says that ‘Death Of The American Dream’ was written as a diagnosis, not an attack.

“As a kid, for me, America was Mickey Mouse and Disneyland and Elvis and Graceland and Cadillacs, this larger-than-life country,” says Cheney. “At the moment, it’s down on its luck. This song isn’t a piss-take on America at all. It’s saying, ‘I would defend the States forever’, and I love the place. I think you’ve got to go through a rough patch sometimes. They’ll find their feet again. It’s just going to take some time.”

Ultimately, Wunderbar may be most remarkable for its solidity – for the absence of the self-conscious reinventions commonly employed by bands who have spent 20 years on the road.

“You’re not supposed to get better as you get older,” says Cheney. “The shows aren’t supposed to be more intense, but I feel like they are with us. I look at some of the old footage and hear live recordings and it’s just terrible. But now, I feel like we can really play our arses off.

“Every single night, I go off on these different tangents and improvise, and the whole thing feels like it could run off the rails at any minute, but that’s the beauty of it. That’s the magic of a Living End show. We’re not just going through the motions. Maybe we have in the past at certain times, but I take more risks now. That’s what live music is.”

The Living End will tour Australia this November. Wunderbar is out now from BMG.