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Interview with
LUKE McCHESNEY
from
FOREVER ENDS HERE

(9th July 2024)

Interview with Stephanie Tang

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Returning after a 5-year hiatus, Sydney pop punkers Forever Ends Here drops new single “Unspoken”. Their maestro of a singer, song writer and guitar player Luke caught up with Amnplify, to chat about the band’s upcoming plans, sound direction and lessons learnt from early days.

Steph: Hey Luke, for people that haven’t heard of the band before what are some must -know facts about the band?
Luke: We are a band that started a long time ago in 2011, and we were a band for six years. We called it quits in 2018, went on a long hiatus, and we’ve recently come back last year with a reunion tour. We were missing it loads, we were missing playing pop punk music, we felt nostalgic, and we wanted to come back, write and record new music that makes people feel like they did eight to 10 years ago going to shows.

Steph: Was 2011 when you guys first got together and started putting music out? What was the reason for starting the band in the first place?
Luke: We played our first show at the beginning of 2012. We were very young. I was 15, our bass player was 15. Our drummer who is my older brother, was 17. The three of us had already been playing music together in another band that was terrible. We were just your local talent show band that were basically trying to be Short Stack. We started taking it a bit more seriously, grow up a bit, we’re like, OK, maybe we could give this a go.
I think we just got lucky when we came into the scene, where we found that there were a lot of the bigger bands that started taking off overseas, and there was just this new wave coming through. We were really lucky with some early opportunities. We played our first show at the Annandale Hotel with Tonight Alive, who were one of our favourite bands at the time.
I don’t think we realized straight away how well it was doing. It was a year and a half, to two years later that we looked back and went, we’ve grown quite quick. Looking back, it was this really fun era where we were the same age as the people that listened to us. So, we knew what people liked because we were our own target audience.

Steph: Your latest single, “Unspoken” has just been released. It talks about nostalgia, coming of age, really leaning into the classic pop punk sound. I heard that it was inspired by early 2000s teen movies. What’s your favourite coming of age teen movie?
Luke: I had just watched House Bunny, and only learned that the singer of the All American Rejects is actually in that film. And I’d been eyeing him off the whole time going, I recognize that face. And then there was an All American Rejects song on the soundtrack and this wave of nostalgia washed over me. I remember texting the boys in the band straight away and I was like, this is what the new era has to sound like. Half the reason for the reunion was to make people feel nostalgic. What better way of feeling nostalgic than tapping into this coming of age movie vibe?

Steph: Is that the momentum you’re going to build on for future releases?
Luke: Yeah, a hundred percent. As the primary songwriter, the first people I have to please with the songs is the rest of the band. We’ve always been great friends, always loved playing music together. But this is the first song where they have become fans, and they listen to it on repeat over and over. It’s such a good feeling knowing that all of us are so passionate about it. So, it’s definitely the direction that we want to stay. It’s the genre of music that we’re having the most fun playing. And it’s just so nice to connect with it on that level.

Steph: What’s the biggest change in the music scene you’ve noticed since coming back?
Luke: I think the biggest shift is in social media and the way it affects the campaign of a release and the way we market things.
We grew up in the Sydney scene where people would play at the Annandale Hotel and there was a lineup of 12 bands every Saturday/ People would come watch and that’s how people would hear about you. Whereas now you can go a year without playing a show and constantly grow because you’re putting out TikToks and new music and it’s just a totally different era.
Trying to pick that back up again has been a struggle, but it’s a fun challenge. I’m enjoying making content and learning about the new scene and how that works. If you don’t tap into that, it’s missed opportunity, but it is like a full -time job.

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Steph: What content have you found resonates most with your fans?
Luke: I think for us, it’s just the honest, real raw stuff. Something that I’ve really enjoyed coming back after the hiatus is just going, we’re normal people that enjoy playing music and why should we pretend that we’re something else?
The sort of content that I’m loving posting is talking about how we feel, being transparent about how songs come together, and how we feel behind the scenes. There’s times where it’s exhausting and you put everything into one piece of content or one release and it doesn’t go so well. That’s something that as an artist growing up, I wished more artists spoke about.

Steph: What’s the biggest lesson that you learnt being in the industry so young, and what are you going to do different going forward?
Luke: The biggest thing I want to do different is just taking the time to stop and smell the roses and appreciate it a little bit more. We were at such an impressionable age, when we were touring full time, we had all these opportunities thrown at us. And it just became, this is what I do with my life. Just another day in the life. Coming back with that older perspective, and hindsight in mind, I just really want to appreciate all the little things.

Steph: Is there a band that you’re wanting to tour with? Any upcoming tours?
Luke: We actually don’t have anything booked. Boys Like Girls are the number one band that we listen to at the moment. The new Boys Like Girls record is incredible. And the early stuff is very much what’s inspired the new Forever Ends here sound. So I think that’s the bucket list band at the moment.

Steph: Is touring with some of those bands internationally something that you guys want to be doing?
Luke: 100 % if we had the opportunity. The Simple Plan tour was the most surreal few weeks of my life. They were the first band I ever went and saw when I was 1. To be on tour with them all those years later was a dream come true and they were the nicest people ever. I went to shake hands with Pierre to say thank you. And he pulled me in for a hug and said, acquaintances shake hands, friends hug.
They always had the time of day for us. They watched our set each night. They hung out with us backstage. They were just incredibly lovely.

Steph: What was one of your favourite shows or venues that you’ve played?
Luke: In 2015 we had had a bit of success playing some slightly bigger venues. Already at that point, we’re like, no, we miss playing the small rooms. We came back and played the Lair in Sydney, which was one of the venues that we played a lot growing up, 300 Cap. That’s still goes down as one of my favourite shows ever, the hometown show on the Back to Basics tour.
Theres something so special and intimate about being in a small room that’s packed out with people singing the words back at you. Everyone jumps up and down and sings the words back and you kind of just lose yourself in the show.

Steph: Do you guys have a dream venue that you want to headline?
Luke: I would love to play the Hordon Pavilion. I think that’s the top of the bucket list in Sydney. I also think the Forum in Melbourne is one of the most beautiful venues in the country. And I would love to play overseas. That’s one thing we never got to do before the hiatus.
Since the hiatus, I’ve spent a lot of time over in LA writing songs and meeting artists over there. And there’s such an amazing scene in America. So I would love to go play shows over there for sure.
The funniest thing I learned in LA, and this is a great tip for people who are going over there to write…find the assistants. Find the assistant producers to the big dogs. 90 % of the time they do most of the work behind the scenes anyway. So you’re actually getting the skillset that’s worked on all these major artists.

Steph: What’s a musician that you look up to?
Luke: Jack Antonoff from Bleachers, who obviously produces for artists like Taylor Swift and Lorde. During the hiatus, the bass player and I started another band called Everchange, which was much more like 80s synth inspired, and that was very heavily influenced by everything Jack Antonoff does.

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Steph: Where are you getting inspiration from, and how are you choosing the people that you’re bringing along on this journey with you?
Luke: One of the massive things in producing songs is that people forget you have to just be in a room with this person for a long time. When we were recording “Unspoken”, Craig and I spent hours and hours and hours on end sitting there, recording the same vocal line over and over and figuring out harmonies.
If you don’t get along with that person, you’re not going to get the outcome out of the song. We took the bones of the song to Craig. We had the chords, vocals, melodies. And he just has this magic touch that he puts on it. We record the parts and I’m like, I don’t know what you just did to that or what you added in the background, but you made it sound like magic.

Steph: What’s been the biggest challenge with getting the band back together?
Luke: We actually just recently moved in together. So we’re used to spending a lot of time with each other, but I think people forget that a band is also a business, and it’s not just a thing you do for fun. Re-establishing that business relationship, and trying to figure out budgeting, how that works, how invested at each of is. So just re -navigating that relationship and learning each other’s boundaries all over again has definitely been, it’s been tough.

Steph: You’ve got your single, you said you’ve got a few tracks in the works, you’re heading out to LA writing, where is the band going?
Luke: We’ve locked in the song that’s going to be the next single. It was a song that I wrote in LA. And I’ve been telling the guys since I wrote it, this is the one song we have that’s better than Unspoken. So we’re booking dates with Craig to jump back in the studio and track that. And then looking like it’s going to be an EP. That’s the goal.
We have probably the saddest acoustic song that we’ve ever released up and coming, something that’ll tug on the heartstrings a bit.

Steph: Do you ever worry as a musician you’re bearing yourself?
Luke: Yeah, I do. It’s been a weird relationship. I started posing myself off to that by writing hypothetically a lot. It might just be tapping into the idea of a movie character or something that I’ve seen a friend go through.
The new stuff that’s coming out is the most vulnerable and the most real I’ve ever been on a song. So I’m intrigued to see how the press campaign goes around it. I don’t know, it excites me being vulnerable now. That’s what creates the best art and getting that out helps me overcome some of those things.

Steph: Do you find that you get, more inspiration from the sad or happy times in life?
Luke: I think it’s a bit of both. I think I’m really lucky as a songwriter to have that outlet to get through different things in life. I went through a breakup recently. I was in a really tough spot for a couple of months over that. And I wrote the saddest song I’ve ever written. And the next day I woke up and I listened back to the song and I was like, I’m fine. I was like, I just got it all out and now I feel good.
So I think that’s when my most, obviously my most raw and vulnerable songs come out. But I like writing the happy songs too. As long as it’s not too cheesy, I like a good fun dance party vibe, make people feel good.
I think the genre of pop punk can actually bridge very quickly into like a childish bubblegum pop vibe if the lyrical content is too cheesy.

Luke even answered some rapid fire questions, to let us know more about him.
Favourite movie? Back to the Future
Favourite food? Satay tofu. If I could change my answer, I’m going to go back and say peanut butter sandwich.
Favorite venue to play? Oxford Art Factory.
Holiday destination? LA, but it’s not even as much of a holiday anymore. I would love to go to London
Favorite tattoo? I have a little cowboy and I can make him dance. And it’s my favorite thing ever. It amuses me all the time
Favourite Ice cream flavour? Hokey Pokey.
Favorite album? American Idiot by Green Day

Steph: Do you have a message for your fans who may be watching?
Thank you so much for sticking by us all these years. I know we touched on it earlier that I just want to take some time to be a bit more grateful and really appreciate you guys and we couldn’t do any of this without you. You truly mean the world to us and we’re so lucky that we get to share our art with you guys. So hopefully we’ll see you at a show soon. Thanks for everything you do for us. We love you. We appreciate you.

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Follow FOREVER ENDS HERE
Website – Instagram – Facebook – Spotify

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Press Release 28th June 2024 (below) HERE

FOREVER ENDS HERE
begin new chapter with 
pop punk belter
“UNSPOKEN” 

STREAM

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AMNPLIFY – DB