Melbourne rockers The Living End are on the verge of releasing a new album, and vocalist Chris Cheney has been talking about the relief at getting the album finally out, as well as the fact that none other than Hold Steady singer Craig Finn is responsible for some of the album’s lyrical ideas.
Speaking on Triple J, Cheney said of new album The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating, “Oh man it’s just such a relief to get people to hear the song finally. Because it’s been like a year and a half of writing and probably three years or something since the last record so you sort of get to the point, well I did last year, where you just wonder whether you’re going to make a record or whether anyone is going to hear it.”
He added, “We always seem to go through 30-40 songs and you’re just living in a rehearsal room so it’s really surreal to actually be in this moment where people are hearing the song and responding to it.”
The record comes out on July 22, and has been a long time coming after White Noise came out in 2008. The band has been experimenting with new songs live, performing under the moniker of The Safety Matches, before Cheney left the country, eventually heading to New York where he collaborated with Finn on some of the album’s lyrics, particularly the title track.
Cheney said, “This was one of the first songs written for the record. I wrote the lyrics with Craig Finn from The Hold Steady while I spent three months in NY at the start of last year co-writing. I hooked up with him and he’s a hell of a lyricist.”
