The Whitlams, Scott Owen (inset) | Image supplied

The Whitlams Recruit The Living End’s Scott Owen for Tour Revisiting Their First Three Albums

May 18, 2023

The Whitlams will revisit some of their earliest material with a retrospective tour in September and October that will see them drawing on material from their first three albums: 1993’s Introducing The Whitlams, 1995’s Undeniably The Whitlams and 1997’s Eternal Nightcap.

All three albums featured the distinctive double bass-playing of the late Andy Lewis, who died in 2000. For the band’s upcoming tour, The Living End‘s Scott Owen will be handling double bass duties for the first hour of the show, which will specifically see The Whitlams playing the best of their first three albums.

The Whitlams – ‘Gough’

“Scott and I have been talking about this idea for five years, and at last our schedules have clicked,” Whitlams frontman Tim Freedman says. “Terepai [Richmond, drummer] and Scott will absolutely explode in these early songs, and it will be thrilling to hear the energy that Andy Lewis brought to the first line-up so long ago on stage once again.”

The Whitlams – Freedman, Richmond, guitarist Jak Housden, and keyboardist/bassist Ian Peres – will kick off the tour with a show at the Hoey Moey in Coffs Harbour on Friday, 22nd September. From there, they’ll play shows in Toronto, Wagga Wagga, Albury, Melbourne, Sydney, Springwood, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Fremantle. See dates and venues below – tickets are on sale Thursday, 25th May.

The Whitlams’ most recent album was last year’s Sancho. It marked the band’s first new record in more than a decade and a half, following 2006’s Little Cloud. 2022 also saw Peres replace longtime bassist Warwick Hornby, who had been a member of the band from 1999.