I can't remember how I first came across Aussie punks the Saints, but I'm so glad I did. Debut album (I'm) Stranded is an absolute blast - right up my street in its tough, loose, raucous, devil-may-care attitude, similar in feel to the Stooges, and deserving of being much more widely known rather than overshadowed by lesser albums from higher-profile first-wave British bands.
Now it's been re-released as a deluxe box set, founding members Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay have formed a band to rip through its songs live once again, and the Guardian's Michael Hann has spoken to them about the Saints' short and fractious but trailblazing history.
Fingers crossed this new incarnation of the band does indeed make it to Europe - not least because it features not only Mudhoney's Mark Arm, filling in for late vocalist Chris Bailey, but also former Bad Seed Mick Harvey.
It's a neat twist of events, given that Harvey followed in the Saints' footsteps back in the early 1980s by making the move to Europe in search of more accepting audiences. Harvey arrived in Blighty with the Birthday Party, whose frontman Nick Cave has said of the Saints before they left Australia: "They were kind of god-like to me and my colleagues. They were just always so much better than everybody else. It was extraordinary to go and see a band that was so anarchic and violent." And then, when the Birthday Party imploded, bassist Tracy Pew briefly became a member of the Saints. All in all, Harvey's current participation in the project seems very fitting.
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