HELLO GOODBYE
It began at a high school alco-party. Narkiness and betrayal brought down the axe.
These top Oz-punks were nearly called Kid Galahad & The Eternals. Instead, Ed Kuepper had to leave The Saints. But how did the rupture happen?
It was at a party, in a hall in Brisbane. I’d been boasting to kids at high school about this rock’n’roll band I wanted to do, so they plied me with drink and got me to go up on-stage. I remember I tripped up and fell into the amplifier. I was friends with Chris [Bailey, vocals] and Ivor [Hay, various instruments] and they joined me. We used this covers band’s gear: Ivor played piano, Chris grabbed the microphone, I played guitar and we did I Want You, a Troggs B-side. We were all drunk and the people whose gear it was flipped out. About a month later I got the courage to ask them, do you actually want to be in this band? We had a number of different rehearsal spots: the shed in Ivor’s garden, my parents’ garage and Chris’s bedroom. Kid Galahad & The Eternals, I think that was my name. It was inspired by the Elvis film, obviously, and a group of decadent aliens in Zardoz, the dodgy science fiction movie Sean Connery was in. It had a nicely ’50s ring to it, and I was into that, but it was a bit of a mouthful so we changed the name to The Saints early in ’74. These days, I’d probably keep it. I think that sound people know as The Saints was there immediately. There are recordings from the time and the songs are slower, they have a slightly narcotic feel to them, but there’s a different kind of intensity when you start to play in front of an audience – nerves would have had a lot to do with it, plus, you just wanted to make an impression. We got faster. We weren’t getting gigs, nobody was booking us and we’d never make money. Most people thought we were a shit-house band, the worst band in the history of Brisbane… there just wasn’t enough motivation for us not to all be on the same page. It was fun without doubt, a really, really good time. We’d moved to London and recorded the second album [May ’78s Eternally Yours]. We felt really optimistic about it. It flopped. The tour wasn’t particularly successful either. Chris and I… there was a certain tension. I have to confess I’m not a particularly easy person to get along with when everything’s going badly, and I was maybe a bit narky. Chris quit the band after that tour. We still had an album to do, and I asked him if he’d rejoin. We recorded Prehistoric Sounds. There was a lot of acoustic, horns… a bit of a departure. I was happy with it, but I dunno, Chris wasn’t. I’d persuaded everyone to do it, but the resistance was making it less enjoyable. I wanted to go back to Australia. Chris didn’t. We got together and played each other some songs. He didn’t like what I presented and I didn’t like what he presented. Basically, we decided to end it, but to not announce it until after the record came out. It was at a meeting, at Chris’s place in Hampstead, that he said he wanted to continue The Saints. As far as I can remember, my words were, “I think that’s a bad idea, but if you want.” I felt we’d taken it as far as we could. I was back in Brisbane for Christmas. I was fucking floored when I read that he’d been auditioning people when we were recording Prehistoric Sounds. Had I known, I wouldn’t have agreed to him continuing to use the name. You know, he’s written songs that I think are good, but putting any group of people together and calling it The Saints… the original band had something quite unique. We were all friends at school, it wasn’t like I’d just put an ad in the paper. We’ve done reunions [in 2007, ’09 and ’10] and they weren’t as good as they should have been. The main thing I think that kinda stops him is a combination of ego, and in my case, a slight sense of betrayal which is hard to totally forgive. But Chris… he was just a fucking pain in the arse to work with! He is a pain in the arse to work with, and he’d probably say I always was. I wouldn’t do it again. Ian Harrison
The Church Of Simultaneous Existence by The Aints! – the “hypothetical fourth Saints LP” – is out now on ABC Music.
“I fell into the amplifier… we were all drunk.”