Fasterlouder.com.au, 10 September 2004, with Andy Strachan

Article by: girl_of_rock


From Here On In With The Living End

It was definitely a pleasure to catch up with Andy Strachan, the drummer from The Living End. Both indulging in early morning coffees, we were as bubbly as one could be at such an early hour.

The Living End have been touring a lot in recent times around the United States as well as Japan, portraying to the rest of the world just how strong the Australian music scene is.

What has been some of the highlights of all this touring?

“Every day’s a highlight for me. I love it, but I’d have to say Japan was amazing. It always is… the food over there is amazing, the people are great and the shows were fantastic too.”

What are the fans like in Japan?

“They’re just crazy. They’re just so passionate. Apparently what they do over there is they buy their tickets early and then they sit with the album for a couple of weeks and kinda rehearse. They get the lyric sheets and work out how to sing along to all the songs… it’s quite an honour really.”

Talk about dedication from the Japanese fans.

“America was fantastic too. There was a lot of touring going on over there. The Jet and The Vines tour, The Aussie Invasion Tour that we did with them was fantastic. Every night was sold out I think.”

Did you get along well with the guys in those bands?

“Oh, they were great, yeah, absolutely. It was just so good to be part of that. It was actually four Aussie bands with Neon included, just travelling around the country making people sit up and listen. It’s so good to be Australian sometimes.”

Okay well it’s all been good so far, there’s got to be some downfalls to all this touring.

“Being away from home for so long can get a little bit tedious. We were in America for… must be three months or something in total, cos we did the tour of our own and also the tour with Blink 182 and No Doubt. It seemed like we were there forever and the coffee over in America is shithouse in everyway. The downfalls are kinda good as well if you know what I mean? Living on the
bus with eight other stinky guys and not being able to have a shower whenever you want one… is kinda like being on a school camp I suppose.”

Hmmm, that’s a lot of stinky guys! Remind me to never enter the territory of a tour bus any time soon. Now you’re finally back home and about to embark upon a nation-wide tour, any insights with what the fans are going to be in for?

“Well, the new album is basically a collection of all the singles that the band’s released over the past 7-8 years or something, so we’re gonna do all the singles… just promote the album. We’ll do some obscure ones as well.”

Obscure songs hey? Definitely raises my curiosity…

“We have a special surprise during the set but I’m not gonna tell you that yet.”

I guess it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if you told everyone would it? [laughing]

“[Laughs] It’s gonna be slightly different to what we’ve done in the past. It could be phenomenal or it could be less than phenomenal, but we’ll wait and see.”

Alright, time to dish some dirt. Who gets up to the most antics when on tour?

“Probably Scott. He’s the one who stays up the latest drinking or you know… partying if you like. Generally we’re very well behaved and we don’t do a hell of a lot of partying outside of the bus. We tend to stick pretty close together and the crew that we travel with… they’re all great guys and we tend to hang around and tell stupid jokes together. Sit up the back of the bus and talk shit basically.”

Reminds me of all the time spent on a school bus. Any annoying habits?

“[Laughs] I’m sure there’s plenty of them. Super Dave is the guy who is our bass and drum tech and he’s like one of those Energizer bunnies. Whenever he’s awake he’s like 110 decibels. He’s always running around trying to make people laugh which he does fairly easily.”

This is sounding more of a good habit, what’s the annoying part?

“He tends to wake me up in the morning which is a bit annoying but it’s kinda funny at the same time. He always gets up early and I’m always the one sleeping in and he’ll always try to wake you up. He’ll always put something in your bed as well before you go to sleep… a little surprise like a bottle of water or something that’s not very nice and when you crawl into your bed at four in the morning you find all sorts of things.”

So I take it he doesn’t offer you a coffee when you wake up then?

“[Laughs] It’s generally me or Scott that make the coffees. Our record company over there actually bought us an espresso machine, which was very nice, cos we were complaining so much about the coffee over there.”

Modern Artillery (2003) did really well entering the Aria charts at #3, this must have made you feel pretty good about the direction which things are currently heading for the band?

“Well it was really exciting for me cos it was the first full length album that I’d recorded with the band. So from my point of view it was one of those achievements where there was a lot of pressure, well I put a lot of pressure on myself probably while we were recording this album… so I thought to get out of the blocks at three was a pretty good start and it was a good time. It’s been a long time between drinks for the band and it was almost a relief to get an album out there.”

Andy is the most recent addition to TLE after previous drummer, Travis Demsey departed the group after 5 years. However, Andy has, seemingly, handled the predictable pressures that come with entering an already established band quite remarkably.

“Like I said, I think most of the pressure came from myself, or within the band. We’re fairly keen to do the best job we can and we tend to put pressure on ourselves, but probably more so me thinking, ‘Ahhh shit… what are the fans gonna think of a new guy coming in, especially taking over Trav who was so visual and flamboyant as a person and a drummer.’ A lot to live up to I suppose but so far so good. It was a pleasant surprise that everyone accepted me straight away you know? As far as I know anyway. [Laughs] So it was good.”

“It worked out better than I anticipated actually, it was really good. The
pressure generally comes from us. We wanna keep improving… be the best band
we possibly can.”

There’s a new DVD that you guys have coming out, I’m hoping to see some of the antics that you all get up to, but what should one expect?

“Well yeah, there’s a lot of that. It’s a compile of the footage from the album basically. It’s from the very, very early days with Chris and Scott and their original drummer, Joey, back when they were very rockabilly and playing tiny little clubs with not too many people there, moving up to where they left off with Trav and obviously me joining and everything. There’s a stack of footage from America and from their first trips over there… it’s pretty funny stuff. There’s over two hours of basic documentary kinda stuff and the three of us kinda talk our way through it as well, do some interviews and then there’s also what they call a ‘super gig’ which basically runs like a normal show but every song’s from a different country or festival. In total there’d be well over three hours of Living End stuff.”

The new album, From Here On In, is also the name of the upcoming DVD. I know it’s one of the band’s past songs off the It’s For Your Own Good EP, but does it hold more meaning than this?

“Yeah it basically came from that song but it kinda sums everything up from the start to where we are today and then the next album could be anything. It’s kinda just like a bookend… it’s almost like we’re starting fresh for the next album.”

The new song, I Can’t Give You What I Haven’t Got, could you tell us a bit more about it?

“Well Chris wrote the song and lyrics obviously but my perception from where I stand is… I guess it can relate to anything from day-to-day life, girlfriend/boyfriend, husband/wife kind of thing, to being in a position like we’re in or any sort of job really where the boss is kinda breathing down your neck and ‘I can’t give you what I haven’t got.’ The song came about pretty easily, it just worked. We got back from America and just went straight in and recorded that one and another song that’s also gonna be on the new CD as well.”

Nearing the conclusion of out interview, I asked Andy, "is there any last thing you’d like to add to the fans out there?"

“I think we’re very, very lucky. We’ve got an amazing, passionate fan-base and they’re fantastic. I hope that everyone enjoys the shows and enjoys the little surprises we have in store for everyone.”

There’s that mention of a surprise again. I’m incredibly impatient when it comes to surprises, but that's all the more reason to catch them on their National Australian Tour in September/October of this year.