Kimjar
10-19-2006, 10:45 PM
Picked this up in Canberra last week, and I'm bored enough to type it up. If this is posted somewhere else, feel free to deletey this thread. She asked him some really stupid questions, but I guess it's good to have something different to the standard boring interview questions.
BMA Street Press, 5/10/06
Be All, End All by Erin Hill.
When I spoke to Scott Owen of The Living End, the boys had just left Adelaide and were in Buronga, which is apparently somewhere near Mildura, NSW. The Living End are a week and a half into their All States of Emergency Spring Tour and they've just played a fair few WA shows. "We've got a hell of a long and winding road ahead of us," Owen tells me. Interested in the reality of the situation, I suggest that spending a couple of months in a Tarago touring the country is your average, respectable music fan's idea of a great time. Unfortunately for Owen, a mere week and a half into the tour, the Tarago is not as big as it once appeared. Indeed, it has a tendency to shrink upon re-entry, although Owen does concede that this may, in fact, just be a "state of mind".
The Living End is touring with WA rockers End of Fashion ("they're bloody excellent") and relative newcomers to the indie scene, Red Riders, from Sydney. "We hadn't heard of them before, we just liked the sounds of them and it's worked out really well. In fact, the good thing about both [End of Fashion and Red Riders] is that they love a drink after their set, so by the time we've finished they're tanked and it works out kind of nicely." Owen is unprepared to admit to any fall out from such an arrangement, so it's probably best if we leave that to our imaginations.
Recognising that circa 1998, every kid who went to a state high school boasted that Chris, Andy and Scott had gone to their school (myself included), I take this opportunity to clarify what school they actually went to. "Chris and I went to Wheelers Hill High School." Oh. Well that's a bit disappointing. But they did have the same colour jumpers as us (maroon), so it would seem that certain claims weren't entirely without merit.
The Living End has been around for close to ten years now, and if one thing's clear it's that jeans still manage to get tighter. So just what is Owen's take on the neuvo-punk stylings? He ponders "I definately don't think they suit me. But the body is a good shape. There's no need to fluff out the body."
But more importantly, during their time together, The Living End has built up a solid fan base on the back of all-time favourite single Prisoner of Society and their albums The Living End (1998), Roll On (2001) and Modern Artillery (2003). So how do the lads feel about the new set of fans that have discovered the boys seemingly on the basis of latest release State of Emergency? Owen explains that "that's the beauty of the gigs we're doing. There is a younger crowd that has cottoned on to the band just from this album.
"It is nice to have people like us for what we're doing now, as well as it's good to have the fans who like our stuff from the past," Owen continues. "Any great kind of difference to [The Living End's] sounds is all about a jump in quality. We've put more thought into writing each song on it's individual merit. It's hard to explain. We chose to give each song it's own identity, where in the past we've been more skitz with the songs, trying to get big musical changes through each one."
For the new album "we had a shit load of songs and we worked on each song a hell of a lot, which meant we ended up having to pick the best. The quality is what matters, what was important to us... The new album has been a lot more work than the other three. We thought we were going to make our album real quick but the songs turned out having more depth [than first realised], so you have to live with them and make them better.
"As the album progressed we heard what we wanted to be hearing from it. So you can't drop the ball. We were really pedantic, no stone unturned, which is great because we don't have any regrets and there is no question of 'what if?' It was a stressful, trying and difficult process, but that's the only way to get rewards."
Rewards indeed; State of Emergency debuted at number one in the Aussie Charts and The Living End has continued this success with the release of four singles, What's On Your Radio, Wake Up, Long Live the Weekend and, more recently, Nothing Lasts Forever. This is "lucky and tremendous" for Owen. "It's a result we'd never had before. It seems all worthwhile - all the stress and worries and difficulties were worth it, instead of pain."
Those in the know will realise that complimenting the aforementioned singles is a line up of stellar film clips. "None of us really know anything about film making," Owen explains, "so we left it in the hands of directors, who we'd picked." For Owen, the use of children in the Wake Up clip particularly succeeded at "hinting to all the political innuendo, messages and images" implicit in the track. "We're talking about timeless issues, which we are never going to be able to get away from [The nature of power and politics] is always going to be an issue."
At "six weeks and forty-something gigs," it's by all means a "massive regional tour" for the lads. Owen explains that The Living End is more accustomed to the smaller tour but that this time around, with "bigger concert venues, our own shows - we're not supporting anyone - it's a real buzz and it's nice to see things on the up." Lucky for us Canberra folk, the Royal Theatre is their grand finale. And with regard to the ACT's liberal pyrotechnic attitude, Owen is pretty pumped about the Canberra gig, thinking it will "go off with a bang." Awesome.
The end.
BMA Street Press, 5/10/06
Be All, End All by Erin Hill.
When I spoke to Scott Owen of The Living End, the boys had just left Adelaide and were in Buronga, which is apparently somewhere near Mildura, NSW. The Living End are a week and a half into their All States of Emergency Spring Tour and they've just played a fair few WA shows. "We've got a hell of a long and winding road ahead of us," Owen tells me. Interested in the reality of the situation, I suggest that spending a couple of months in a Tarago touring the country is your average, respectable music fan's idea of a great time. Unfortunately for Owen, a mere week and a half into the tour, the Tarago is not as big as it once appeared. Indeed, it has a tendency to shrink upon re-entry, although Owen does concede that this may, in fact, just be a "state of mind".
The Living End is touring with WA rockers End of Fashion ("they're bloody excellent") and relative newcomers to the indie scene, Red Riders, from Sydney. "We hadn't heard of them before, we just liked the sounds of them and it's worked out really well. In fact, the good thing about both [End of Fashion and Red Riders] is that they love a drink after their set, so by the time we've finished they're tanked and it works out kind of nicely." Owen is unprepared to admit to any fall out from such an arrangement, so it's probably best if we leave that to our imaginations.
Recognising that circa 1998, every kid who went to a state high school boasted that Chris, Andy and Scott had gone to their school (myself included), I take this opportunity to clarify what school they actually went to. "Chris and I went to Wheelers Hill High School." Oh. Well that's a bit disappointing. But they did have the same colour jumpers as us (maroon), so it would seem that certain claims weren't entirely without merit.
The Living End has been around for close to ten years now, and if one thing's clear it's that jeans still manage to get tighter. So just what is Owen's take on the neuvo-punk stylings? He ponders "I definately don't think they suit me. But the body is a good shape. There's no need to fluff out the body."
But more importantly, during their time together, The Living End has built up a solid fan base on the back of all-time favourite single Prisoner of Society and their albums The Living End (1998), Roll On (2001) and Modern Artillery (2003). So how do the lads feel about the new set of fans that have discovered the boys seemingly on the basis of latest release State of Emergency? Owen explains that "that's the beauty of the gigs we're doing. There is a younger crowd that has cottoned on to the band just from this album.
"It is nice to have people like us for what we're doing now, as well as it's good to have the fans who like our stuff from the past," Owen continues. "Any great kind of difference to [The Living End's] sounds is all about a jump in quality. We've put more thought into writing each song on it's individual merit. It's hard to explain. We chose to give each song it's own identity, where in the past we've been more skitz with the songs, trying to get big musical changes through each one."
For the new album "we had a shit load of songs and we worked on each song a hell of a lot, which meant we ended up having to pick the best. The quality is what matters, what was important to us... The new album has been a lot more work than the other three. We thought we were going to make our album real quick but the songs turned out having more depth [than first realised], so you have to live with them and make them better.
"As the album progressed we heard what we wanted to be hearing from it. So you can't drop the ball. We were really pedantic, no stone unturned, which is great because we don't have any regrets and there is no question of 'what if?' It was a stressful, trying and difficult process, but that's the only way to get rewards."
Rewards indeed; State of Emergency debuted at number one in the Aussie Charts and The Living End has continued this success with the release of four singles, What's On Your Radio, Wake Up, Long Live the Weekend and, more recently, Nothing Lasts Forever. This is "lucky and tremendous" for Owen. "It's a result we'd never had before. It seems all worthwhile - all the stress and worries and difficulties were worth it, instead of pain."
Those in the know will realise that complimenting the aforementioned singles is a line up of stellar film clips. "None of us really know anything about film making," Owen explains, "so we left it in the hands of directors, who we'd picked." For Owen, the use of children in the Wake Up clip particularly succeeded at "hinting to all the political innuendo, messages and images" implicit in the track. "We're talking about timeless issues, which we are never going to be able to get away from [The nature of power and politics] is always going to be an issue."
At "six weeks and forty-something gigs," it's by all means a "massive regional tour" for the lads. Owen explains that The Living End is more accustomed to the smaller tour but that this time around, with "bigger concert venues, our own shows - we're not supporting anyone - it's a real buzz and it's nice to see things on the up." Lucky for us Canberra folk, the Royal Theatre is their grand finale. And with regard to the ACT's liberal pyrotechnic attitude, Owen is pretty pumped about the Canberra gig, thinking it will "go off with a bang." Awesome.
The end.