Australian retro-billy Chris Cheney is a rocker through and through, his piercing guitar solos adding extra oomph to the radio-friendly polish of his band, The Living End. With a new album White Noise and a new record label, The Living End are once again pumping on our stereos. So what better time to see what’s playing on theirs?

The Beatles – Octopus’ Garden
I won’t lie, this was my three year-old son’s favourite song for about two weeks, so it copped a flogging and made it to the top of my ‘most played’ list, would you believe. I have always been a fan of the Ringo songs, though. I think that the songs Lennon and McCartney wrote for Ringo say a lot about the way the duo felt about the sticksman. With A Little Help would be my favourite.

The Finn Brothers – Won’t Give In
The album they made together – Everyone Is Here – is the one album that, no matter how much I listen to it, I cannot get sick of it. It applies to so many situations. I love the gentle power of this song. It has an effortless flow to the melody and the lyrics sound like a perfectly natural stream of thought.

The Band – Rag Mama Rag
This is just a fun song to me. There is so much soul in the musicians, and the fact that they all switched around instruments on this track shows that their talents are natural. This is one of the few of their songs that retained the country-swing beat that it was written to, rather than being played in half-time like so many others.

The Clash – Rock The Casbah
To me, The Clash were the best band ever at marrying different styles of music together and still sounding unique – rock’n’roll, punk, reggae, soul. This song has such an infectious groove and really showcases Topper as a songwriter.

The Band – The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down
The version of this song that I prefer is the one from The Last Waltz concert. The song itself is such a wonderful insight to the deep South, and it is delivered by Levon Helm with so much emotion, you would believe it if the song were his own family story.

Elvis Costello – You Left Me In The Dark
His North record is a very unlikely favourite for me. Sitting somewhere between jazz and classical, it is definitely at the lighter end of the scale as far as my taste goes. But it is not only the superbly-crafted songs, it is also the incredibly gentle and dynamic playing that I love. There is a real elegance and grace to this song, which for someone who comes from a new wave-punk rock background, shows some serious growth in Elvis’ imagination.

Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
I think it’s just the sheer simplicity of this song that sucks me in. It is sung with a real looseness, which is inviting, and the backing track is so minimal that there is nothing to divert your attention from the voice. This is the genius of simplicity.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put A Spell On You
Once again, it is the simplicity and the restraint that this song is played with that creates such a mood and leaves so much space for the vocal to fly above it all. The vocal is recorded in such a harsh way that it feels to me as though it’s gonna rip out his throat. With such a simple song like this, it is easy to hear the personality of the musicians in their choice of voicings as they throw little improvisations into parts.

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Words by Chris Cheney and Zolton Zavos