Waves, Towradgi Beach Hotel

October 31

The Living End's Andy Strachan has been doing the hard work ahead of their upcoming shows.

"I've probably left it a bit late but I've just started trying to go for a run every day to get the fitness back up to where it should be," Strachan says.

"I can guarantee we don't go through the motions. You've got to strap yourself in for one of our shows - it's pretty brutal."

They're also relatively rare these days, largely due to geography.

Strachan lives in Victoria, bassist Scott Owen in NSW and guitarist Chris Cheney is over in Los Angeles, so that tends to make it hard to just jump in the Tarago and head out and play a series of pub gigs.

Which is why, for Strachan, the latest series of shows are special.

"They're special in the sense that we don't get to do them any more," he says.

"We used to jump in Taragos and drive up and down the east coast most weekends.

"We don't get to do this very often - it might be another couple of years before we get back through those parts of the world again."

While having band members living in different states and countries is unusual, Strachan says it works for The Living End. And, after doing it for more than a decade, some time apart probably helps keep things fresh.

"We used to be so full-on," Strachan says.

"We used to rehearse five days a week without fail, if we weren't touring or recording. We did nothing but play music, which was awesome.

"But I suppose that set us up to the point now, where we don't really need to do all that.

"When we get together now it's like a party.

"So in that sense it's unreal - we all look forward to catching up with each other and we look forward to playing shows.

"We celebrate it a little more now, whereas back then that's all we knew."

As well as having some fun, the band will also use the time together to work on material for a new album.

It'll be their first since 2011's The Ending Is Just The Beginning Repeating, which might seem like a long time but Strachan says a three-year gap between albums isn't unusual for The Living End.

"This time around we're going to get in and try and put some songs together while we're together for this run of shows towards the end of the year," Strachan says.

"Everyone's got a bunch of ideas. I would hazard a guess that Chris has a hundred songs sitting around waiting to be realised. So he might throw a few songs he's already got up his sleeve at us when we're in the studio.

"But hopefully we're going to get in there and just play. The coolest thing can happen with us - at soundchecks we can just jam and it sounds great, to my ears anyway.

"So if we can just press the red button at the right time and capture some of those spontaneous moments then that could really shape a record."