SCREAMING Jets guitarist Jimi Hocking admits returning to the stage without Paul Woseen next month will be emotionally challenging.
The Newcastle pub-rock legends are still reeling after Woseen - the band's founding member, chief songwriter and bass guitarist - died suddenly three weeks ago in a Melbourne hospital. He was 56.
On Friday the Screaming Jets released their ninth studio album, Professional Misconduct, their first fully original record since 2016's Chrome.
Nine of the 10 tracks were co-written by Woseen.
"It's been pretty sad around here and been a weird three weeks trying to work out what to do," Hocking said. "What's appropriate, what's not appropriate? What do we feel like doing?
"We've got this album we've worked so hard on for the past couple of years and it's released today.
"It's a bittersweet outcome. In a way there's a feeling of, thank god we actually pulled our finger out and got in the studio earlier this year to actually record this record because otherwise we could be sitting here with the loss of our beloved Paully, and we had all this stuff that didn't get to see the light of day and it deserved to."
Professional Misconduct features the ballad Second Chance, a song Woseen ironically wrote about all the things that go unsaid when a loved one passes away.
"Not in a million years did we think we'd be singing these words that Paully wrote about that, about him," Hocking said.
"It's going to be tough on [frontman] Dave [Gleeson]. It's one thing to stand there and play guitar, which is what I'll be doing, but to actually verbalise those words from an emotional place is gonna be a tough one."
Woseen played his last show with Screaming Jets at Darwin's One Tropical Day festival, just six days before he died on September 15.
Hocking said Woseen had an infected tooth in Darwin and "he didn't look so well", so his bandmates assumed that was the only problem.
Six days later the band was notified by Woseen's partner that he was ill and that she'd called an ambulance. Hocking, who lives in Melbourne near Woseen's home, rushed to the hospital but his friend of 30 years had already died.
Woseen's family have not released the cause of death.
"It was too late. It was a terrible shock," Hocking said.
Hocking said Woseen liked to describe himself as a "pirate duck" because, "on the water the duck is all smooth and swimming along and looks organised and together, but underneath the water they're going batshit crazy to make themselves float and move."
Hocking also remembers Woseen as an "eccentric character obsessed with songwriting" and an "incredible bass player", but most importantly, a loyal friend.
"We all loved him," he said. "He was as flawed as anybody could be in our lifestyle, but he was a beautiful guy and he genuinely cared for all of us.
"He's a serious loss to our friends circle, apart from the band."
Woseen's death leaves Gleeson as the only original member of the band that soared out of Newcastle in the late '80s to become arguably Australia's last great pub-rock band with iconic songs like Better, Helping Hand and October Grey.
Screaming Jets have committed to a 20-date tour to support Professional Misconduct, which begins on November 3 at The Triffid in Brisbane and finishes at the Toronto Hotel on February 23.
Baby Animals' Dario Bortolin will be filling in on bass throughout the tour.
Following that, Hocking says the future is undecided for Screaming Jets, but he suspects the band will live on.
"It's gonna be very strange to do a band that Paully started, in many respects, without him, but it's what we do," he said.
"Some 30-plus years later with all the ups and down and changes, but this has been our project. I don't think everyone will just drop it in a moment just because.
"I imagine we'll move on and do some other things, but it will be very strange."
