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The Living End
Biography
Australian punkabilly band the Living End started out jamming together and playing covers under the name Runaway Boys (after the Stray Cats song). Singer Chris Cheney had an obsession with the Stray Cats, to the point where, once he found Scott Owen to form a group with, he talked the piano-playing Owen into learning standup bass à la his American favorites. They met through their older sisters while attending the same high school, Wheelers Hill Secondary College, in Melbourne. Until they left school they went though a succession of drummers, developing a healthy following and reputation in Melbourne's active rockabilly scene.

While that scene gave the renamed Living End a couple of gigs a week, they quickly outgrew it, both in popularity and attitude. With 1995's EP/mini-album Hellbound, they turned their back on '50s rock revivalism and adapted that instrumentation to original songs steeped in U.K. punk. Their next EP, 1996's It's for Your Own Good, provided the first alternative radio breakthrough, with the song "From Here on In." During the six months the EP spent on the indie charts, they changed drummers for Travis Dempsey, still in rockabilly style, standing up at his kit.
Selected Discography
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