I caught up with Andy Strachan, the drummer for the Living End, who proceeded to set me straight on all things Australia – especially the myth that Fosters is Australian for beer.

Suburban Horror: I know that you guys are from Australia. What is the difference between the fans in Australia and the fans here in the States?

Andy Strachan: It’s pretty similar really. We have passionate fans, so we are very lucky and grateful for that. And that doesn’t really change anywhere we are – whether it be America, Australia, Japan, wherever we are we have extremely loyal fans. I guess the main difference would be the size of the crowds because we haven’t really exploded over here as much as we’d like to.

SH: Well you are closing tonight!

AS: We’re closing tonight. Hopefully, there won’t be that much heat exhaustion, and people will stick around and have some fun.

SH: I’m actually going to Australia. Melbourne and Sydney.

AS: Melbourne is the place to be. It’s where we live. It’s great.

SH: What’s the main difference between the U.S. and Australia?

AS: There is no good coffee in America. I hate to be rude, but it’s true. At the moment as we speak, it’s freezing cold at home and damn hot here. You’ll probably get some good weather in the spring, coming from such cold weather back home. But, what was the question?

SH: Oh, the main difference.

AS: Size! America’s gigantic, and Australia, in comparison, is a dot on the map. We could do a whole national tour in Australia in four or five weeks, whereas it takes months and months and months on a bus here. It’s a big place.

SH: What do you guys do to keep sane on tour?

AS: That’s a damn good question. I don’t have the answer because that’s probably the hardest thing to do on tour – keep sane and healthy. We do try, and we are lucky in the sense that we’re all pretty good friends so we have a really great team around us, like all our crew are really great people. That really plays a big part in sanity – being around great people.

SH: What do you guys do for fun?

AS: Back home I guess? On tour there isn’t much time for extracurricular activities, but Scott and I surf a lot. We like to surf. I like to cook a lot and make coffee. That’s my three big passions outside of music, I suppose. But, as a collective, music is pretty much what we love doing. We all get a pretty big buzz out of playing our instruments and playing in the band. It’s kind of what we live for. Anything outside of that is pretty much secondary.

SH: If you could go on any tour with any band, dead or alive, who would it be?

AS: Oh god. Queens of the Stone Age, current. The Beatles. God, who else? There are so many amazing bands. I would have loved to have seen Guns and Roses back in the day, around that first album period. The Clash. The Police, yeah. The Police would be definitely up there in the top two or three.

SH: Do you have any interesting tour stories?

AS: Plenty! I don’t know how much I can tell you. This tour in particular – we’re usually well behaved and look after ourselves – but we’ve had some big old night drinking sessions. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the weather; you can’t get enough liquid into you.

SH: So is Fosters really Australian beer?

AS: I’m sure it’s Australian beer, but no one really drinks it. You can’t buy it easily over there.

SH: Really? The commercials here always say, “Fosters: Australian for beer.”

AS: Nah. I don’t know what the story is there. We drink VB - Victorian Bitter. And there is a brewery in Adelaide in southern Australia called Coopers. It’s pretty much an organic beer and pretty amazing.

SH: And healthier.

AS: Oh I don’t know about healthier.

- Magic Stick Mish