The Saints go marching on, and on and on …
Brisbane icons The Saints have released a new 4LP box set of the punk rock band’s studio and live recordings from 1976-’77 – and you can still catch them live as their current tour nears its end.
Inspiration isn’t known for always appearing at the most convenient moment. Fifty years ago Ed Kuepper found himself at the Auchenflower train station in Brisbane when an idea for a song popped into his head.
That song, when it finally made it to seven-inch vinyl, changed music. (I’m) Stranded not only put The Saints on the map globally, it goaded thousands of other garage bands into taking their own affirmative action.
(I’m) Stranded, borne of a DIY “punk” ethos, was originally released on the band’s own Fatal Records. BBC Sounds in the UK soon dubbed it the “single of this and every week”. The song earned the original four-piece band an international record deal and a critical acclaim that still resonates in 2024.
“I don’t know who writes those things,” Kuepper says with mock disdain of the Auchenflower reference in the record company bio. “But, yes, it happened there. Songs were coming to me all over the place. I can’t remember. Maybe it was Taringa?”
While that germ of an idea arrived out of the ether, the finished song was completed by Kuepper and his band mate, vocalist Chris Bailey.
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“It was finished in much the same way that anything we did was,” Kuepper says. “I would write some music. I’d generally write a guide lyric for a verse and a chorus, then Chris (now departed) would extrapolate on those lyrics or rewrite them and add his own interpretation of the melody. We would run through the songs in that kind of process. I’d either tape a song or just play it to them, and it just sort of evolved from there.”
Formed in 1973, the original lineup of The Saints recorded three seminal albums: (I’m) Stranded (1977), Eternally Yours (1978) and Prehistoric Sounds (1978). That lineup was Bailey, Kuepper, Ivor Hay on drums and Kym Bradshaw on bass. After the first album Bradshaw was replaced by Algy Ward.
Bailey and Kuepper had their creative differences. Kuepper went on to release a slew of successful records under his own steam as well as with The Laughing Clowns and other entities. Bailey continued using The Saints moniker until he passed away in April 2022.
With the early records long out of print, Kuepper has worked hard alongside Tim Pittman and Larry Hardy from US label In The Red to secure a re-release of the original (I’m) Stranded LP in a box-set format. The new configuration features four discs in either vinyl or CD formats.
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The collection also includes a book full of ephemera, live material and a previously unheard original mix of the LP that pre-dates the one we all know.
“We recorded the album, excluding the singles cut in May, in late October 1976 over a period of about two days or something, then at the end of that we listened to the rough mixes,” Kuepper says. “It was initially meant to be a demo session but the band decided, ‘You know what, we’re not going to be able to do it better than that’. Surprisingly, EMI agreed.
“Rod Coe, who was overseeing the album recording, took the tapes, then sometime later we got sent some test pressings and I didn’t like the mixes. I thought they were too wide, too conventional. They were kind of ‘clear’ in a way, and the band didn’t sound like that to me. So Chris and I went down to Sydney and remixed it, and that version is the one that came out.
“When we were looking at putting out some kind of a reissue, I went back to see what else was there. I found those first Rod Coe mixes and I really liked them. I’m quite familiar with the first album as it is. I often really love to hear different versions of things. I still think we made the right decision, but the first mixes are better than I thought at the time. It sounded like Chris’s voice might have been louder in the mix, possibly dryer. He actually sounds really good, dry like that. And that was another aspect of it – I thought just the way the vocals are positioned in the mix makes it quite interesting to listen to.
“The original album (in the box set) has been remastered. We did that from the original tapes. There hadn’t been a new cut done for vinyl for 40 years, apparently. I think in a lot of ways, the new cut sounds better than any other version I’ve heard.”
To mark the release of the box set, Kuepper assembled The Saints ’73-’78 for a run of dates that have sold out like wildfire around the country. The band features original band members Kuepper and Hay, alongside Mick Harvey (guitar), Peter Oxley (ex-Sunnyboys on bass) and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm. The tour concludes in Byron Bay at the end of November before heading overseas next year.
“We had a lot of singers pop up as possible contenders,” Kuepper explains of Mark Arm’s involvement. “A guy that worked as my tour manager a little while ago is a good friend of Mark’s and he must have overheard the conversation. He said, ‘Well, why not Mark?’ I remember being really impressed with Mark with that Wayne Kramer MC5 thing (he sang with the band in 2004). I thought his voice had a slightly similar sort of tonal quality to what Chris had, and that’s the sound that works in the band.”
(I’m Stranded) Deluxe Edition 4LP Box Set is out now. Check out The Saints ’73-’78 tour dates at feelpresents.com