The Saints’ Ed Kuepper, 60, marks 50th album in 40th anniversary year of I’m Stranded

IT’S a year of round numbers for The Saints’ Ed Kuepper, as he notches several milestones including his 50th album.

Ed Kuepper. pics by David Kelly

FROM his work as a founding member of seminal Brisbane punk The Saints to his time as singer and guitarist of post-punk band Laughing Clowns, through to storied solo career and recent stint as a touring member of Nick Cave’s backing band The Bad Seeds, Ed Kuepper has firmly established himself as one of Australia’s most eclectic, prolific and revered musicians.

It is shaping for a year of milestones for Kuepper, who turned 60 in December. The Brisbane-based guitarist has just notched up his 50th release with new album Lost Cities, and September marks the 40th anniversary of the original release of The Saints’ first single (I’m) Stranded, which predated both the Sex Pistols’ debut single Anarchy in the U.K. and The Clash’s White Riot in the annals of punk history.

Kuepper has not kept a running tally of his recorded output over the years, but admits the looming anniversary of the first Saints single motivated him to add them up.

“This is actually 40 years since the first release, so it made me kind of tally up the things that had been done between then and now, and it worked out quite nicely,” he says.

“It’s the 50th if you don’t count a number of significant anthologies that had already been released. I don’t draw the line between what I released as a solo person or what I did with The Saints.

“If you look at the credits on those (first three) albums, a lot of that stuff is mine; I formed the band, so they’re my records. Other people were on them ­— and they were very important components — but they’re still my records, as much as they are (Saints frontman Chris) Bailey’s or drummer Ivor (Hay’s) records as well. They can count them in their own discographies if they like; I don’t care.”

Ed Kuepper is philosophical about how life has turned out.

Kuepper has reunited with Bailey on several occasions over the past decade, notably with Hay for the Pig City music festival at University of Queensland’s St Lucia campus in 2007, and for 2009’s All Tomorrow’s Parties concert series, which was curated by Nick Cave. Kuepper most recently played with Bailey for a series of low-key acoustic shows, which included performances at Back Bear Lodge, in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.

When asked if he has any plans to mark the anniversary of (I’m) Stranded by regrouping with Bailey again, Kuepper is circumspect.

“It was good, it worked really well but to kind of take it further required I think an attitudinal change on at least one of the participants’ behalves to make it work,” he says.

Kuepper has spent the past couple of years touring his “solo and by request” shows, and says the loose format of these performances — which involve audience members shouting out requests for any song from his vast back catalogue — has kept him on his toes.

“I didn’t promise that I’d be able to play it, No.1 qualification, and two, if I could, I wouldn’t necessarily play it in the way they might know,” he says. “What I wanted to do was get to the core of each song and there’s nothing like being on stage by yourself in a room full of people and having some song from 20 or 30 years ago, or even more recently that wasn’t played live that much, and having to remember it and even make something new with it.

“It’s not so much that I don’t like playing with other people; it’s just that there’s something you can kind of hit playing solo that’s really hard to do when there’s a full band around.”

Lost Cities was clearly designed to be played in this format. There is minimal added instrumentation on the album, but what Kuepper manages to do with a guitar, effect pedals and his voice is impressive. He says the title “kind of references just about all the themes on the album and there are sort of references to things disappearing, not the least being my memory”, but is quick to point out it’s not a concept album.

“They’re all connected but it’s not a slogan title sort of thing – it drifts away from you as soon as you try to reach and grasp real meaning,” he says.

Lost Cities is thematically and musically diverse, but a couple of songs in particular seem to broadly address societal ills and the current political landscape, including opening track Pavane, which includes the lyrics “The words that they speak are used to concea/ the things that they know but don’t want to reveal” and Fever Dream, which contains the refrain “I’m trying to keep my mind open but fever dream has gripped the land”. Despite the tone of these tracks, Kuepper bristles at the suggestion the album is pessimistic overall.

“I wouldn’t call the album downbeat; I’d say it’s atmospheric, I’d call it dreamlike at times because I think that’s sort of a state that … I won’t speak for other people but the state that I have to kind of find myself in to break writer’s block.

“I think maybe a song like Fever Dream harks back to a time when I was a lot younger and there was actually a feeling around when I was a 17-year-old that things would kind of get better, and it hasn’t. Not that everything’s kind of gone to shit totally, but sometimes when you try to connect with what’s going on all around you, seemingly everyone has to make the same mistakes and go over the same old things time and time again.”

When asked what the uninitiated should expect from his current tour, Kuepper replies in typically self-deprecating fashion.

“Well it’s going to be really fantastic. I’m incredibly handsome and charming and you can’t miss it. It’s a live experience, come along.”

Ed Kuepper plays The Old Museum, Bowen Hills, April 21; Byron Theatre, Byron Bay, April 24; and No.5 Church St, Bellingen, April 29-30