Andy Strachan, Drummer, The Living End
Yes.
Now that you found Adeline, what have they done that Reprise wasn’t doing before?
Well, it’s pretty early days, but the reason we went with Adeline is just because they kind of understand where we’re at, and they’re not all caught up in the whole, uh, you know, ‘a million copies isn’t enough’ mentality.
They are letting you guys do your thing, essentially?
Essentially, yeah, they are willing to sort of let the band grow in a natural way, rather than, you know pushing all the money in one area.
Do you think Billie Joe’s early support helped this?
Yeah, you know this sort of goes without saying, that the guys have been sort of helpful for many years now, but Billie Joe isn’t really incredibly involved with this deal, but he has some part in the label, I’m sure, but he doesn’t really get involved with the day-to day runnings.
How has the tour gone throughout the world? Europe, Japan, New Zealand, how has it gone for you guys?
It’s been great; it’s been a busy year. It’s been very busy, but Japan’s always amazing for us, one of our favorite places outside of Australia, you know. New Zealand was great, it was very sweaty and very back to basics kind of punk rock.
That must have been wonderful.
Yeah, it was awesome. Anytime in the UK is good time, but you know, we got to play in places that we haven’t been before, to brand new audiences in Dublin, Scotland.
You guys have played Warped Tour, actually before your time in 1998, and again recently. How did you enjoy the Tour, for your first time?
Yeah, it was great, and a pain in the ass at the same time. It was so hot, and miserable, but um, you get to play in front of great crowds every day, and you get to meet a lot of great people, but you know, it was, as you know, it was a heat wave for the entire time. This was coming straight out of an Australian winter.
That must have been rough.
Yeah, the first show of that was, you know, a great slap in the face. Once we got used to it, it was great.
For the song “Wake Up,” why did you guys choose to use children at the end? To me, it sounds a lot like Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”; the damning indictment made in the same context.
You know, I mean, you can certainly draw parallels to that, it’s basically, as the title of the song says, we’re trying to get a point across. Some of the crazy stuff that’s gone on in the world in the last few years, it’s absolutely insane, and our kids, and our kid’s kids; it’s never going to be the same again now. You know, Scott and I just walked around Ground Zero…
Oh wow. How riveting was that?
It was fucking amazing. I was trying not to cry, choking back tears. It’s just amazing that people can make a decision like that to cause such a…you know, so many lives were lost, and so many lives are still affected today.
The war never ends.
Exactly. It’s never gonna be the same again. So with the whole “suicidal education, it’s been sold to our generation” and generations to come, you know, that would bring you back to that original question, to have kids sing that lyric, it just brings it home in a way—for me at least. That was the reason behind it, it’s a creepy kind of a song.
You guys have horns on a lot of your songs, especially on State of Emergency. Why didn’t you bring them here?
Um, money. But we did do a big tour at home, around Australia, and we brought them with us then.
Okay, so then you were able to play more of your back catalogue, like “Blood on Your Hands” and others.
Well, we could have, but we didn’t. We played a lot of the State of Emergency songs that had horns, and played “Uncle Harry” with the horns, and you know, a few songs like that. We used a horn section from a band called the Hunters and Collectors, who are just basically gods from where we come from, so it was a real honor and privilege to play with them.
This is your second time in the US this year alone. How do you feel you have been treated in the United States? How have the crowds been?
It’s up and down for us, I think. I mean, it’s been great, but, you know, it’s really hard to gain a momentum over here, I think, just because it’s so far away, and we can’t tour here all year round—we have other markets, and family, and things like that to consider. You know, I think the fans, the people that do go to the shows, truly love us, or truly love the music, and we get a great reaction I think, once a fan, always a fan kind of thing. We really appreciative of that, but it’s be nice to, sort of step up.
Do you think it has anything to do with the, sort of, obsession with dance-rock? Do you think it makes it more difficult, or is it just another obstacle the band has to overcome?
Well, I think, you know, every year there’s a new flavor, that’s just never going to change. We are happy doing what we do, and I think, like I said before, once you’ve seen the band and you’ve got the records, or whatever, then you can make your own mind up, and I think we’ve got fans for life. It’s, I guess it’s hard, because we’re not a fad band, and we’re not riding on someone else’s coattails, I suppose.
The one’s that have lasting power are the one’s that don’t ride coattails, though.
Yeah, yeah. I think it might have something to do with the fact that we don’t have millions of dollars to put ourselves on billboards, and things like that. In this generation, the advertising is so hard to promote yourselves without lots of money.
You’re right. I’ve heard from others that you’re music has been featured on network and cable television. In fact, someone said you’re music was on “Laguna Beach” (a show on MTV) and that’s how they came to find you. Now she’s an obsessed fan. Any avenue, I guess, would work.
Yeah, I guess we’ve just got to keep pushing away. We believe really strongly in what we do, and you know, it goes back to that, I guess you’ve got to see the band live to really understand what it’s all about. Hopefully, you know, when we play to small crowds each time, that small crowd tells another couple hundred people, and who knows what will happen.
How do you choose which songs to put on the setlist? Given your large catalogue, what would make you choose one track over another?
[Laughs] That’s the bane of our existence, really. It’s always a really hard thing to choose a setlist, you know, because there are so many songs, and, at the moment, we are trying to play as many State of Emergency songs as possible, obviously. It’s a day-to-day thing, we always have to think, we should play this song there, that one there… We do listen to people on the street, who say, you know ‘Can you play this song?’ and you know, we did that last night, we played ‘Monday,” and we played something else we hadn’t done in a while, though I can’t remember what it was at the moment. We do have a core set, a list of songs we have to play.
How rigorous is the touring schedule? How do you guys bring the fire and desire to play every night with the same level of energy?
I think the three of us have, uh, we’re still hungry, we want to sell records, and, for me, it’s like playing in a team sport like football or something. You’re up on stage and if you’re not giving 110%, you are letting your team down, so we have that mentality of going out as a band, and playing as a band. Our music doesn’t sound right if you don’t play it with intensity. We sort of dug our own grave in a way, you know, we have to put in 110% or it doesn’t sound right. That’s what I enjoy about music: sweating my ass off and getting blisters and locking in.
For us, it doesn’t matter if there are 30 people, or 30,000, because that’s the kind of spectrum we’re under. At home we play massive festivals, and in Japan [as well], but we come to small places like this in the States and we play small crowds.
How do you like the dichotomy of that; how does that play in your heads?
Playing to small crowds?
Playing to small crowds versus the 30,000 person festivals, I mean.
It doesn’t really change. We still have the same, you know, nervous tension before the show, and we still play 100mph and, you know, we all love the intimacy of the small crowd, but there’s nothing like the chant of 30,000 people. It’s a nice balance, I think. It’s a completely different gig, but for us, it’s just playing live. It’s what we do, and it’s what we love about music, so it doesn’t matter to us.
One last question, on a much lighter note. A friend of mine asked me to ask the band members, chicken or beef?
Shit, it depends on who’s cooking, doesn’t it? [Laughs] We’re all fans of both, we really are; it depends on who’s cooking, you know—but it has to be chicken breast. Can’t be those thighs—they are dodgy. Food is another one of our passions in life, so, you know, we’re pretty happy to eat whatever’s on the table.
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