The Living End

Context: The Living End were formed in 1994 by Chris Cheney and Scott Owen, who had met years earlier in primary school through their older sisters and began performing together from 1990 while attending Wheelers Hill Secondary College in Melbourne. Cheney and Owen had their first public gig at The Rob Roy in Melbourne in 1991. Cheney was a fan of rockabilly group Stray Cats and this prompted Owen, who originally played piano, to switch to double bass. The pair formed a cover band, The Runaway Boys, which performed Stray Cats and The Clash material. That group were named after a track, of the same name, from the Stray Cats self-titled debut album (February 1981). The Runaway Boys initially played in the local rockabilly music scene but expanded their audience by performing in regional towns. Cheney later recalled "[w]e played to all the jivers and rock 'n' rollers ... And we slowly drifted into Melbourne's rockabilly scene". As Cheney and Owen persevered, the band went through several drummers, while they were still attending school.  By 1994 Cheney and Owen were writing their own material and decided to change the band's name to The Living End - a reference to the film, Rock Around the Clock (1956). According to Cheney "It's an old '50s term, meaning 'far out', 'the greatest' ... We were still into the whole '50s thing, but we wanted a neutral name, one that didn't suggest any one style of music". With Cheney on lead guitar and lead vocals, and Owen on double bass and backing vocals, the group settled on Joe Piripitzi as their drummer. Cheney considered Piripitzi to be ideal due to his charismatic appearance.  During that year they recorded a track, "Headlines", which had been co-written by Cheney and Owen. The group sent a T-shirt and demo tape to Green Day guitarist and lead vocalist, Billie Joe Armstrong, and landed a support slot for the 1995 Australian tour by his band, Green Day. After that tour, The Living End recorded additional tracks for their debut extended play, Hellbound, which received moderate support from community radio stations. It was produced by the group and included "Headlines" from the previous year. Ed Nimmervoll, an Australian musicologist, described the EP's sound: "they turned their back on '50s rock revivalism and adapted that instrumentation to original songs steeped in UK punk".  In November 1995, the trio recorded their second EP, It's for Your Own Good, which appeared in the following June. The six-track EP was co-produced by Lindsay Gravina (Underground Lovers, Cosmic Psychos), Mike Alonso (Jericho) and The Living End for the Rapido label. It included their first radio airplay hit, "From Here on In", which was placed on high rotation by national youth radio network, Triple J. Shortly after, Piripitzi was fired as his lifestyle choices were holding back the band. He was replaced on drums by Travis Demsey (later in The Knockout Drops). With Demsey the group appeared at major festivals: Pushover and the Falls Festival. Demsey's drum style was compared with The Who's Keith Moon. "From Here on In" was used on the soundtrack for the 1998 film, Occasional Course Language.  The Living End toured Australia for a year, then in August 1997 they recorded new material to sell at their live shows. Their double A-sided single, "Second Solution" / "Prisoner of Society", was issued in January the following year. Also that month they had supported The Offspring on the Australian leg of their tour. "Second Solution" / "Prisoner of Society" peaked at No. 4 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and was certified double-platinum by ARIA for shipment of 140,000 copies. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1998 it won the Highest Selling Single category; and eventually became the highest selling Australian single of the 1990s. It lasted a record-breaking 47 weeks in the Top 50.  In October 1998 it peaked at No. 28 on the New Zealand Singles Chart. It was later featured in the game, Guitar Hero World Tour. "Second Solution" was used in the soundtrack for the 2002 movie, Cheats, which starred Trevor Fehrman, Matthew Lawrence, and Mary Tyler Moore. Early in 1998 "Prisoner of Society" was issued as a separate single in the United Kingdom and, the following year, in the US. The single appeared in the top 200 of the UK Singles Chart, and peaked at No. 23 on the Billboard's Alternative Songs Chart.  The band signed with Modular Recordings for the release of their debut self-titled album, which appeared on 12 October 1998, and was co-produced by Gravina with the trio. It peaked at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, became the then-second highest-selling debut rock album in Australian music history and, by 1999, was certified 4x Platinum for shipment of 280,000 units. Their next Australian single, "Save the Day", was issued in September 1998, a month ahead of the album. It made the top 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart. It became their highest charting hit on the New Zealand Singles Chart, where it reached No. 10. From the album, a total of six singles were released including a live cover version of "Tainted Love", which was issued as a radio-only single on Triple J. At the ARIA Music Awards of 1999, The Living End won two more awards: Best Group and Breakthrough Artist - Album. At the ceremony they were also nominated for Album of the Year and Highest Selling Album. In October 2010 their debut album was listed in the book, 100 Best Australian Albums.  The Living End's second album, Roll On, was recorded during July 2000 with Nick Launay (Midnight Oil, Models, Silverchair) producing and appeared in November that year. It peaked at No. 8 on the ARIA Albums Chart and reached the top 40 in New Zealand. Although Roll On was a more creative work, Nimmervoll mentioned that they had "broadened their musical scope while keeping in tact what made them unique - the instrumentation and the socially-aware lyrics". The album did not achieve the status of their earlier album as it was certified platinum for shipment of 70,000 copies. Despite this, fans consider it to be as strong as the self-titled album; "[it's] an absolute scorcher! That's what years of live honing can do for a band that was already white-hot".  Cheney later stated that he was trying to prove to critics that The Living End were not a band simply defined by their hit, "Prisoner of Society", and the album showed this by displaying other influences, as well as their traditional fast-paced rockabilly music. Rolling Stone' Jenny Eiscu compared it to The Clash's creative breakthrough, London Calling (December 1979), as they "stomp all over the boundaries between punk, reggae, rockabilly and plain old rock & roll - and it still sounds like a revelation, twenty-two years after [T]he Clash did it. The pupils don't quite outpace the masters here ... But the band is obviously having such a riotously good time that you'd be a sucker not to stomp your foot and join the party". Much of the style was comparable to 1980s hard rock and pub rock, as well as many tracks being obscure mixes of many ideas, resulting in 'procrastinating' structures. This defined the album's creativity.  The album's first two singles, "Pictures in the Mirror" and the title track, peaked into the top 20 on the ARIA Singles Chart. "Pictures in the Mirror" also reached the top 20 in New Zealand, while "Roll On" peaked at No. 33 on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart, and appeared in the top 150 of the UK Singles Chart. In March 2001 Billboard's review of Roll On described their sound as "Aussie punkabilly", while the group's lyrics show a "socially progressive attitude, discussing prejudice, racism, and political conflict". The trio received US-wide coverage by playing on both Conan O'Brien's and David Letterman's late-night variety shows. The album included "Carry me Home", which appeared on the Guitar Hero II soundtrack. However, touring in support of Roll On and the related singles was halted after Cheney had a car accident on the Great Ocean Road, rendering him unable to play for a significant period of time: he was "hospitalised for 2 months". He had been on travelling to the house of a member of fellow Australian band and tour mates, Bodyjar. CANNOTANSWER

Question: Did Living End ever go on tour or television?
Answer: The Living End toured Australia for a year,