Reforming The Saints reopens old wounds but Ed Kuepper is fine with it

The two teenagers met in 1970, during detention at Oxley High School in Brisbane. Ed Kuepper was there because his hair was too long. Chris Bailey had worn a Vietnam War moratorium badge and a women’s liberation badge to school.

“We hit it off right away,” says Kuepper, 68, speaking from his Brisbane music room in front of a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit packed with vinyl records and at least a dozen guitars lined up against one wall. “There was something that connected us. We were both outsiders and misfits in lots of ways.”

The two misfits would go on to form The Saints, an incendiary band that began in 1973, burned brightly and imploded just as majestically. Before Kuepper left the band in 1979, after falling out with Bailey, they released three ground-breaking albums in 20 months, starting with (I’m) Stranded in 1977.

Kuepper is about to go on a national tour under the name The Saints ’73-’78 to play many of those songs and celebrate the release of a box set of that iconic debut album.
There will be a notable omission from the line-up. Frontman Bailey, the kid Kuepper met in detention in 1970, died in 2022 at the age of 65. Kuepper is more than aware of the gripes from some circles about what he’s doing, including a statement from Bailey’s estate in June questioning the decision to reform the band, and complaining that his family were not consulted.

“People are entitled to think what they like,” Kuepper says with a shrug. “Chris played as The Saints for many years without me and some people said, ‘No Ed Kuepper, no Saints’. I was OK with them saying that. Now some people are saying the opposite. Well, I’m OK with that too. It’s not compulsory to come, and I think we’re being very clear in what we’re presenting.”

What they’re presenting is songs from those first three albums, which Kuepper wrote or co-wrote. He also played the furious, frenetic electric guitar that defined the band’s sound. And original member Ivor Hay, the band’s powerful, idiosyncratic drummer, is in the line-up. Joining them will be Peter Oxley, bass player with the Sunnyboys, who has played with Kuepper over the years in The Aints, and Mick Harvey, Nick Cave’s former foil in The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds, who will be on second guitar.

As for the frontman, Kuepper has chosen Mark Arm, lead singer with Seattle’s Mudhoney, who has always been vocal about his love of Australian alternative music (Cosmic Psychos, feedtime, The Scientists) and is a long-time admirer of The Saints.

“Eternally Yours and (I’m) Stranded were albums that were part of the feeding frenzy of music I had when I started getting into underground rock,” he says from an office at Sub Pop Records in Seattle, where he works as warehouse manager. “News travelled slowly back then. By the time I heard them in the early ’80s I had no idea they’d already disbanded.

“The Saints are a band Mudhoney has referenced musically over and over again. The horns on our records Under a Billion Suns and Since We’ve Become Translucent are inspired by them. And I remember, from very early on, whenever I’d sing ‘Come on!’ or ‘Yeah!’, I knew it was a nod to Chris Bailey.”

Arm has some skin in the game when it comes to standing in for a late, legendary frontman. In 2004 he toured with Detroit proto-punk legends the MC5, taking over vocal duties for the late Rob Tyner. So he’s well aware of the baggage and the responsibility of the role he’s taking on.

“The prospect of doing this was thrilling as well as frightening,” he says. “I didn’t want to let anyone down. I’m not such an arrogant a—hole that I immediately thought, ‘Oh yeah, of course I can do that.’ But I thought a bit about it and felt like that music is in my wheelhouse and I have a similar range to Chris. So I was all in.”

He’s currently in the process of hammering the songs into his brain, while trying to decipher many of the lyrics. “With Nights In Venice there are massive holes where I have no idea what Chris was singing, so I’ve sent queries through to Ed and asked for corrections,” he says, laughing.

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It has often been noted, but bears repeating, that the single of (I’m) Stranded, a snarled ode to alienation, was released in September 1976, predating the earliest punk offerings by The Damned (New Rose) and The Sex Pistols (Anarchy in the U.K.). Even though the band was lumped in with the punk movement, it was a club they never wanted to be a part of.

Kuepper came up with the song’s melody and first verse in 1974 on a late-night train ride from the city to his parents’ house in the suburbs. Feeling alienated wasn’t difficult for a young person in 1970s Brisbane, where Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had given police extraordinary powers.

“You stood a good chance of being harassed, so you kind of learned very quickly how to be fleet-footed,” Kuepper recalls. “I didn’t go out of my way to provoke cops. The aim was more to elude them. Fortunately, the cops were slow and they were stupid.

“Most of the time it was just really dull and stifling living there. But on the other hand, I don’t want to make out that it was miserable. It was actually kind of fun kicking against it. And the way I did that was to play and create music.”

It’s no secret that Kuepper and Bailey went on to have a combative relationship after the band’s break-up, often trading barbs in the press, with Bailey being dismissive of the first three Saints albums. But Kuepper noticed a shift in the months before Bailey’s death.

“In a strange way, when he died, it didn’t surprise me as much as other people,” he says. “He didn’t say anything to me at the time, but I remember coming home from meeting with Chris about the box set one day and saying to my wife, ‘It’s really f—ing weird that we are getting along so well.’ The conversations that we had during that time reminded me of being together in my parents’ garage years ago, having a drink and a smoke and talking about music.

“He used to really get on my nerves, and I no doubt really got on his. We were opposites in many ways, but we also had this strong connection and a mutual respect. Chris would always drag his heels and make every negotiation difficult when it came to The Saints. He had more difficulty than I did coming to terms with what we did back then. I just think those first three records are really good. So I’m so glad he came around in the end.”

The city that spawned The Saints has come to recognise their significance, honouring them with a mural near where they used to rehearse and a park named after Kuepper.
“Oh, it’s a lovely park,” he says. “It’s just down the street from where I grew up in Oxley. My plan is to annex the golf course next to it as well. And once they build the statue of me pointing nobly towards the eastern sun, my domination will be complete.”

And then Ed Kuepper, a man not exactly renowned for his riotous sense of humour, strokes his beard and hints at something almost resembling a cheeky grin.

The Saints ’73-’78 tour includes Melbourne’s Northcote Theatre on November 16 (sold out) and 17; Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on November 22 (sold out); and Brisbane’s Princess Theatre, November 23 and 24 (both sold out). The (I’m) Stranded box set is released on November 15.