What Are The Living End Up To In 2019?

The Living End is the best Australian punk rock band, period. That being said, they are still doing their thing and are fitter than ever. Let´s take a look at what this restless trio of musicians and friends has for us this year.

Pure Taboo – Breathing An Inspiration

Inspiration subjects are very important for upcoming projects of the band. Pure Taboo – the digital series that debuted back in 2017 has been a true inspiration with the darkest fantasies of men. While the project has been dedicated to adults only, it features a lot of socially awkward subjects that we are happy to discuss in vocal manner. As for the series itself – it updates a couple of times a month with 4K quality, still exploring the most twisted fantasies!

Late 2018 “Wunderbar”

After singer, songwriter and guitar player Chris Cheney relocated himself to Australia, the entire band is back to sharing the same city after long years. Cheney had decided to relocate himself and his family (wife and two daughters) to Los Angeles in 2011. Besides this move, the band had a contract signed with German label BMG for international distribution and decided to go into the studio to cut a new album to follow up to the strangely dark Shift (2015).

The band established themselves in a recording facility in Berlin and booked only four months for the whole process: writing the material, preproduction, recording, mixing and mastering. According to Cheney it was a great move because it kept them focused on the job going full-steam ahead the whole time. They worked with German producer Tobias Kuhn and, according to their own words, they had a very healthy and productive relationship with him.

Cheney (43) seems to be more devoted to the song than he has ever been in this record. He says that he had to struggle with Tobias at first because he wanted to have more guitar solos and flashy licks in the songs but after they heard the structure altogether and Tobias suggested him to focus on other aspects of songwriting. The result is a record that features a great guitar player as Cheney will always be, but working to make choruses bigger, songs tighter and the band more a unity than ever before.

Because the album was produced by Tobias, recorded in Berlin under a BMG contract, they have historic German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen as guests. The two bands met when The Living End was invited to open up their concerts in the last tour. Also, Tobias was the producer of the record that turned long-time veterans Die Toten Hosen from a club classic to a stadium band.

The Supporting Tour

After the record came out on October of 2018, the band embarked in a full-on worldwide tour which is the first after touring North America three times and Europe twice in 2017. Part of it is going to be as the support number of no others than the Stray Cats! (I´m so excited I could jump in the chair). Just imagining a two-guitar solo between Brian Setzer and Chris Cheney makes my head flip backwards. Also, going there and listening to hit after hit of two of my favorite bands off all time would be the best night of my life.  They are playing Europe this summer and there are already sold-out shows in the 40-year tour of the Stray Cats in England.

The Probable Tracklist

Their last record is filled with some of the best stuff they played in many years. The bass lines are among the top of Scott Owen´s playing and Cheney is like those old players who start looking at the game from a different perspective showing his virtuosity, but at the same time playing chords for the songs. So, I think that the track list for this summer will have a lot of new songs from the ground breaking record. They are going to play old hits for veterans like me and songs like White Noise or Prisoner of Society won´t go missing either. I hope they hide some gems of their lesser-known albums too to make it a little more exciting.

Conclusion

2019 shall be a huge year for The Living End and hopefully I can save up to go see at least one of the Stray Cats shows. They are the best onstage band in the world, and it seems as if age was is doing them better instead of worse; they are the Australian Rolling Stones of Rockabilly Punk. If you can buy the record, you won´t be disappointed either, it sounds as good as it did back in the old days.