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The Saints
 Brisbane's Saints predated the emergence
of punk in Europe by more than a year, and gave heart to a generation of Australian
rock fans and musicians disenfranchised by local record companies and radio
stations.
What became the Saints
grew out a Brisbane garage band formed in 1973 called Kid Galahad and the Eternals.
Kenya-born, Belfast-raised Irishman Chris Bailey sang. His friend,
German-born Edmund Kuepper played guitar. Both
their families had emigrated to Australia during the 60s. With Ivor Hay on piano they searched for rock and roll's
dark, wild side and made their versions even wilder. By the time they
became the Saints in 1974 they was confidently applying their Howlin' Wolf/Pretty Things/Stooges hybrid to covers of
songs like Del Shannon's "Runaway", Connie Francis'
"Lipstick On Your Collar" and Ike and Tina Turner's "River
Deep Mountain High", exploding them almost beyond recognition with
energy.
But they couldn't get
gigs. They weren't banned. People just thought they were horrible and
refused to book them. So the Saints came up with an alternative way to play
shows. They turned the suburban Petrie Terrace house Bailey and Hay shared
into their own "club", the 76 Club. Not to make money, just to
play. By 1975 Ivor Hay had moved from piano to
bass to drums, and they had a more or less permanent bass player in Kym Bradshaw.
In June 1976 the group decided it was time to record
and they down two tracks, " I'm
Stranded" (YouTube) and "No Time". Again they
couldn't interest anyone, and in September, in what was by no
means an easy undertaking in those days, the band pressed 500
copies themselves on a label they created for the occasion and
called Fatal Records. You could have your own copy by mailing
two dollars to Eternal Productions, 20 Lawson St., Oxley, Queensland.
The Saints sent copies
off to radio stations and magazines in Australia, and met with virtually no
interest. It was a different story with copies they send off to England. First of all, a little English
label called Power Exchange released it in the UK. Punk had just started to hit there…the Ramones had just
toured, and bands were forming like crazy…the
Pistols, the Buzzcocks, the Damned, the Clash…but almost nobody
had a record out yet. The Saints came first, to glowing reviews in Melody
Maker and Sounds (which picked it "Single of the Week"), and in
the US. Within three weeks EMI London
phoned their Australian branch and ordered them to sign this Brisbane group the Australian company
had to admit they'd never heard of.
EMI signed them in
November 1976 and dashed out their own pressing of "(I'm)
Stranded". Then they arranged what were supposed to be demos but
instead became the tracks released as the Saints' debut album, which was
named after the single. The whole thing was completed in a two day session
in December at Window Studios in Brisbane. A few weeks later the band
moved to Sydney to base themselves,
and travelled south to Melbourne. By May they were in England and it would be a long time
before Australia saw them again. We had to make
do with the impact they made during those short few months. They were never
stars. EMI didn't know what to do with them. Their main impact was on up
and comers like Boys Next Door, on the like-minded Radio Birdman and the
musicians of the future standing in the audience.
During those months
while the Saints toured Australia the whole punk think exploded in England,
and by the time they arrived their part in the story was forgotten - not
that it worried The Saints, because they never considered themselves punks
anyway. Not like that.
The Saints recorded a
second album in England, pushing more towards a soul/r&b
sound, but Ed Kuepper left before 'Eternally
Yours' was released. After another album, 'Prehistoric Sounds', the band
called it a day. Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay returned to Australia, Kuepper
forming the Laughing Clowns, Hay joining The Hitmen
and then returning to London to join a new version of the
Saints with Chris Bailey. While Chris Bailey has continued to record and
perform periodically with new European-based versions of the Saints, Ed Kuepper has pursued an incredibly active solo career,
interrupted by three albums and performances with an aggressive rock band
sarcastically or humorously named The Aints.
August 2004 saw the
release 4CD box set' All Times Through Paradise' chronicling the entire
Saints output between 1976 and 1978: their first three studio albums (I'm
Stranded, Eternally Yours , Prehistoric Sounds), B-sides (all remastered)
and a live set recorded at the Hope & Anchor pub in North London in
1977, only recently unearthed.
On July 14,
2007 in Brisbane the Queensland Music Festival saw the on-stage
reunion of Ed Kuepper
and Chris Bailey for their first public performance together since
1998 with a Saints line-up completed by another founding member,Ivor Hay, and on bass Caspar Wijnberg
who is a member of the latter-day "Swedish" Saints line-up
with Chris Bailey. Eleven days laterThe Saints play their
first Los Angeles show since 1987.
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