Know your product: Ed Kuepper reckons with The Saints’ legacy ahead of ‘73-’78 Tour

Australian rock legends The Saints are reuniting this November to celebrate the release of a special vinyl box set featuring their iconic 1977 debut album, (I’m) Stranded. Following the tragic death of former lead singer Chris Bailey in 2022, the touring line-up includes two founding members—guitarist Ed Kuepper and drummer Ivor Hay—alongside honorary Saints: Mudhoney’s Mark Arm on vocals, Sunnyboys’ Peter Oxley on bass, and former The Birthday Party/Bad Seeds guitarist Mick Harvey. Billed as ‘The Saints ‘73-’78 Tour’, the live shows will cover the sounds of their first three albums: (I’m) Stranded (1977), Eternally Yours (1978), and Prehistoric Sounds (1978), and lands at Freo.Social on Wednesday, November 20—with tickets on sale now. BRAYDEN EDWARDS caught up with Ed Kuepper to find out more about the band’s early years and bringing their classic tracks back to life on stage.

Upon announcing the vinyl box reissue, you said you found the process of putting it together both “thrilling and exhausting.” What were the most challenging and rewarding parts of being part of the process?

The exhausting part was that—and it wasn’t like I was working on it day in and day out—it took a long time editing it. There’s a lot of stuff that we didn’t include, and yet there’s a shitload of stuff that was. It was the booklet that took the longest time, just getting things into the correct chronological order, so it’s like a photo essay of sorts. You start at one point and then move through to a number of months or years after. It all took place in a relatively short period of time, so it took some time choosing what to include and exclude.

It’s almost like doing a biography or something. Because I was involved right from ’71, going through the music was easier because we knew what had to be included. It was a bit of an effort getting all the tapes together, but we managed to get that together and get them remastered with Don Bartley. It’s the first time it’s been mastered for vinyl in 40 years, and it sounds great. I was really taken; in fact, I think it sounds better than the original release.

Taking it back to the early years, you started learning guitar fairly young, which obviously shaped the course of your life up until now. What drew you to it in the first place, and how has it continued to maintain its relevance in your life since then?

From as early as I remember, I’ve liked music. It’s just always been part of me. What made me want to take up guitar was The Beatles. It seemed like the right thing to do. It was as simple as that. Also, I like what you can do with the instrument and that you can carry it around without breaking your back.

Listening to the first album, it really was a unique sound that didn’t really seem connected to other movements elsewhere, but I’m sure it’s very different when you’re on the inside. What kind of music were you listening to when you were writing (I’m) Stranded? And how did you see yourself? Were there bands you were looking up to and emulating, or were you embracing the fact that you were doing something quite different?

Well, we were doing something different because we wanted to. There were tonnes of bands that influenced us, but I didn’t want to be any of them. The Saints started when I was 16 or 17, but I did listen to music all my life, so all that stuff that I ever liked was an influence, but I guess there were some albums like The Stooges’ Fun House or MC5’s High Time;there was plenty going on, but many of these bands, like The Stooges, had broken up by the time The Saints arrived. We just got really focused on rock and roll. All the bands that played around Australia—every band you could kind of draw a direct comparison to something that was happening overseas—and I didn’t want to be like that. I wanted it to be something that had its own unique identity.

And how do you recall your early music was received in Australia versus overseas?

Originally, the overseas response was much better than what we got here. If it hadn’t been for the overseas response, I doubt we would have gone on to do three LPs. We probably would have done another single out of Brisbane, and unless something got picked up, we probably would have had to have knocked it on the head. The original Australian media response wasn’t all that positive. It kind of developed over the years, long after the original band had split up. The record still kind of kept circulating, so there were a whole bunch of people that were basing what they thought about it on what they heard, so it didn’t really matter by then if the record had originally gotten some bad reviews or not. A lot of it was due to the fact that the single, (I’m) Stranded, got such a great response, especially in Sounds magazine in the UK, which had this single of the week, single of every other week, single of the year, and so on. That’s basically what got us a record deal and got us going really.

What can people look forward to at the live show? We’ve talked about Stranded a bit, but I take it you’ll be celebrating your other first few records as well?

We’re covering all the material of the original band, not doing every song but covering all those albums. We’re doing a lot of songs that haven’t been played on stage before that I can remember anyway, and we’re bringing the horn section to WA, so it’ll be the real deal as much as it can be.

What’s on the other side of this tour for you? Is there anything musically you still want to do? Or anything else coming up we can keep an eye out for?

I’m doing what I want to do. I want to play music, and it’s what I’m doing. After this tour, I’ll be releasing an album that I recorded, and it will be coming out in the new year. Hopefully it will be continuation of my LP reissue project, and there’ll be more shows. At the moment, this Saints 73-78 tour has gone much better than we anticipated. We’ve added a number of shows since we announced it, which is gratifying and exciting. I’m sort of focused on the future, but not that far. I’ll also get back to making music with another group, Asteroid Ecosystem, an instrumental band I’m chuffed to be a part of. It’s a great group of musicians with Alister Spence on piano (Alister Spence Trio), Lloyd Swanton on bass (The Necks), and Toby Hall on drums, so there’s a lot to look forward to there as well.