North Side Chronicle, October 2004, with Scott Owen

Author Unknown


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Riding high on sold out shows around the country, the living end has decided to include three extra gigs in Brisbane and the Gold Coast later this month.

The talented three-piece band recently returned from the US after touring with Blink 182 and No Doubt, bringing their unique sound back to Australia.

Since first appearing on our charts seemingly our of nowhere in 1996 with their hit 'From Here On In' the boys have come a long way, pumping out a stream of hits.

Halfway through its comeback tour The Living End is focused on the future penning tunes for their next albuim, due next year.

How has the Australian tour been going?
Scott: Good. It's been a pretty relaxed kind of tour. We haven't done all the small towns like we usually do, we've just done major cities , but its been excellent. We've played really big venues which has been full. It's been a really good response, especially to the new couple of songs. We also found out we have lot of young people in the audience which is great to see. We had a young audience five years ago, so its awesome to see we still do have young fans.

Were you surprised at how well received you were, given that you've been off the radar for a while?
It was a bit of a surprise, we don't know what to expect anymore

You've recently released 'From Here On In' CD and DVD which is a singles collection and a look at The Living End's career from the beginning - how does it feel to look back on how far you've come.
It was actually pretty weird watching the DVD for the first time. There is a lot of stuff on there that I'd completely forgotten about. It puts it all in perspective. When you are at the point where your three albums in and spent that whole time touring, its hard to remember what order things happened in and what the path was. It's so easy to get tied up on day to day details. So yeah, its great, It made me feel good to see it all put into perspective. I'm not the kind of person to pay myself on the back and say well done. I'm more worried about what's going to happen in the future. So it was good to see how far we've come.

Has the band changed much during this time?
I don't think we've changed a great deal. We're still into the same stuff we were back when we first starting making music. We've got a pretty similar idea to what good music is.

Two new songs are on the album, what influenced the decision to release these on there instead of waiting for a new one.
We are doing a new album early next year as well, but it seemed like a good idea. It (From Here On In) is a strong album, we have 12 singles on it and it just seemed like a good idea to tie up the past. We had all these videos full of stuff just sitting around for years and we thought 'we've got to do something with it' like make a doco or something. But its taken us this long to get it together, So now its time to move on and do other things.

You play the double bass, how long have you been playing and what prompted the decision?
I've been playing for 12 years. I was a big fan of the Stray Cats and rockabilly music when I was finishing high school. me and Chris really wanted to play rockabilly music and if we were going to have a rockabilly band we needed a double bass.

So what's in store for the future of The Living End ?
All I know is that we're recording early next year. We've already got heaps of new songs and we're still doing demos at the moment. We're going to keep writing and belting out new tunes. The well doesn't run dry at all so there's plenty of songs coming out. We don't know what kind of direction it is going to take, that is something we never plan and let the songs speak for themselves. We are all pretty keen to have a musical shift and do something a bit outside of The Living End box.