There’s nothing like a good comeback and next month one of Brisbane’s best grunge bands are back after 11 years for a one night only reunion show at the Barra Bar, Springwood Hotel. GC Live had a chat to Ash from Endless Nameless recently about the upcoming reunion show, how the music scene has changed over the last 10 years and about the documentary he is filming to go with the gig.
It’s been 11 years since Endless Nameless broke up, what made you decide to do the reunion show?
I don’t think it’s actually been 11 years. Last time we played a show was in December 2010, but we did break up before that sometime in 2009. Possibly. *laughs* It’s hard to say, it’s all pretty fuzzy, but definitely the last show we played was at the Hard Rock in December 2010. It has just been a long time coming you know? Over the years you listen to the music and I had the idea ages ago to just get together and do a one off show, but with the way that the band had broken up I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to do it. So eventually last year I contacted ex band members and everybody said yeah alright, let’s do it!
That sounds like something straight out of a movie! You are also filming a documentary along with the reunion show, can you tell me some more about that?
Yeah sure it’s exactly like a movie *laughs* it’s exactly like ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas’ *laughs* No it’s nothing like that. When everybody agreed to do the reunion show, me being me, I thought well let’s take this up to 11! So I just went all out. I believe I didn’t even tell everybody from the band, I just did it. I just organized it and started filming it. On the first rehearsal I had a film crew waiting and some people weren’t impressed with that *laughs* Go hard or go home you know what I mean? We are talking about Endless fucking Nameless here, are you kidding me? What, we are going to do things the normal way? I don’t think so. It is basically a two-part documentary. One part is telling the Endless story which is kind of convoluted. Everyone’s got their own version of what happened because by the end we were all doing our own thing and sort of split as an entity. So the documentary is going to tell the story of what happened in 2005 to 2010 and at the same time cutting in with that will be the road to the reunion which has taken a lot longer than we thought. It is being filmed by Bad Octopi. Jimmy (Watts) is a legend. If you are in the Brissy music scene, you know Jimmy, he does film clips and live recordings and this will be his first documentary.
The music scene in Brisbane has changed a lot over the years, this documentary may reflect on that somewhat?
Look man, I don’t think the black and white part of the scene changes. You’ve got bands, you’ve got shows. I mean definitely the way the music scene operates has changed a lot in the last 10 years. It’s ridiculous how much it has changed. Back then it was all about Myspace. Bands had Myspace and you got to put your songs on there and it was about how many plays you got. Endless was up to like something like 140 thousand plays which was massive compared to all the local bands that were around that we were playing with, we were kicking ass. But then in 2019, we are not on Spotify, we are not on any of the new stuff, we packed up our Myspace and that was it. You know, when we broke up that was the end of the band. That is why it is so epic that we are actually getting together to do this!
What are some of your fondest memories of the early days of Endless Nameless?
Look I mean, when you first start a band and you don’t even know if anyone is going to like it and you are just doing it with a bunch of guys because you enjoy playing music together, and then you make an EP and you start playing shows and people are really getting into it and it’s 2am at the Phoenix Club on like the 28th of December and it’s packed and you’re like this is fucking awesome! Then you get to support cool bands, you get to travel around the country, festivals in Adelaide, wake up on the beach in Newcastle, you know like just crazy things.
How did Endless Nameless first get together?
Well Danny had been a drummer from when he was very young and I bought my first guitar when I was about 20 years old. I was always into music and punk rock especially. Danny was into punk rock so we just started smashing out a couple of chords, loud and angry and I just naturally started writing songs and as time went by, we got better at our instruments and we recruited some others and yeah, you got a band!
Who are some of your biggest influences as a musician?
Definitely Local H, Local H would have to be number one. A lot of the Aussie bands, like we were mad into bands that a lot of people haven’t heard of these days like Motorace, Beaverloop. Then of course you’ve got your Jebs (Jebediah), Something For Kate, that sort of thing. The Grunge movement is obvious you know. Merging punk, rock and metal together to be able to play all three genres in the same genre is great.
Endless Nameless is the hidden track from Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ is that where you got the name from?
Yeah, the Australian distribution and printing of ‘Nevermind,’ didn’t have Endless Nameless on it. So a lot of Australians had no idea, especially back then, people didn’t have smart phones so people couldn’t just google it. So in 2008 I had to explain it to people and the amount of times I would show people the song and they were just blown away. Unless they were a full-on Nirvana fan, nobody knew.
The line up for the Endless Nameless reunion show is quite a mix of genres, how do you think that will go on the night?
Well that’s how it always was for Endless, we always played with a mixed crowd. Like whether we were playing with glam rockers from the Gold Coast, The Chevron Whores or whether we were playing with a joke band like the OK Cowboys or rock Bands, punk bands, pop bands. We played with everyone. Especially now I think people have a diverse taste in music. It is kind of like a mini festival like Big Day Out where you’ve got 40 different bands from all different genres and people love it. I don’t think you need to segregate gigs into a certain genre. We got a punk band, a blues/rock band and an acoustic pop band.
The reunion gig is at the Barra Bar at the Springwood Hotel, which holds a special place in the Endless Nameless hearts, can you tell me some more about the venue and why you chose to have the reunion there?
In 2008 we had sort of played everywhere you could play in the valley in Brisbane and we had toured up and down the coast, gone to Sydney, gone to Adelaide, Newcastle, we had done everything. We were kind of looking for somewhere around home where we could play. We were living in Logan at the time and we wanted somewhere local we could play because that’s where a lot of our fan base was. We had a meeting with the manager at the Barra Bar and he said ‘Alright guys, I will give you a three week residency, you can play Saturday nights, three weeks in a row and we will see how you go.’ Back then we were just playing on the floor in the corner of the Barra Bar. Three weeks in, we packed it out, they loved us. They built a little stage in the corner and a year later it was going so well that they were having bands every weekend and we were playing there whenever we could. We played there so many times. Then they built the big stage there. I would like to think that maybe Endless had a little bit to do with that. We were there yesterday setting up for the lighting and the filming for the documentary on the night and they showed us the green room. The green room just used to be the storage room so we used to have our amps packed in there when we were loading in and there was hardly any space and we would be getting ready in there with a bottle of Jack Daniels and stuff and now it is an actual green room with a table and chairs and it’s like wow. It’s great.
Endless Nameless back in the day; and yourself especially were well known for destroying and smashing up your guitars and things, it’s very rock and roll, will we see some of that on Feb 16?
Yeah well I mean like Nirvana was a pretty big influence and The Pixies and you know, guitar smashing people. I guess everyone will have to come and find out if we do it again. We are keeping the set under wraps, we want everyone to enjoy themselves. It is going to be loud, it is going to be crazy, it is going to get a little unhinged. But it is also going to be something different that everybody didn’t see back in 2008. We will be playing our first EP, ‘The JD Dairies’ in full, which was actually released in 2007 so it is a 12 year reunion for that EP. We will also be playing a bunch of stuff that has been written between then and now, stuff from our second EP, stuff from our new record that we are almost finished doing now.
So there is a new release coming from Endless Nameless?
Yeah, this is our last show ever. This is it, we are not going to do the whole Motley Crue thing and sign documents saying that we will never play again, but I am telling you right now that this is the end of Endless Nameless. We can’t work together as a band. We haven’t been able to since 2010 and one thing we have learnt coming into 2019 is that we can just barely do it *laughs* this is the end. And we have one more release of music, it is going to be called ’20 Years Of Fucking Up.’ That’s how long we [Ash and Dan] have been playing together. Go out with a bang, hopefully! The Endless Nameless documentary will be available on Youtube once complete. The plan is to have the new album ready to sell at the show. We are doing a limited run of about 50 copies. I have got seven shirts and about 5 stickers left over from 2010 that will be available, we might just chuck them out into the crowd. We will chuck them into the crowd and people can fight for them, that’s what we want, we want the crowd to go apeshit on each other, tear each other apart over these shitty green shirts that we printed in 2008 that didn’t sell. We’d love that. *laughs*
Endless Nameless play their reunion show at the Barra Bar at the Springwood Hotel of February 16th along with Brother Fox, SLOJ and RHINO. Get your tickets now via Oztix.
Click HERE for tickets.
Click HERE for the Facebook event page.
