Ed Kuepper

Guitarist and singer/songwriter Ed Kuepper endures on Australia's rock scene as a solo act and a wildly inventive bandleader. He co-founded the Saints with Chris Bailey in 1973 and left five years later. He founded the experimental Laughing Clowns, who issued five groundbreaking albums including 1983's Everything That Flies. Electrical Storm, Kuepper's edgy pop solo debut, appeared in 1985. Eight subsequent albums charted, including 1991's Honey Steel's Gold and 1994's Character Assassination. Simultaneously, he formed garage/grunge band the Aints, who released three lauded studio albums including Ascension and Autocannibalism. After a decade apart, they re-formed in 2017. Kuepper's solo records continued unabated with A King in the Kindness Room (1997), Smile....Pacific (2000), Jean Lee and the Yellow Dog (2007), and The Return of the Mail-Order Bridegroom in 2014. In 2015, he issued Lost Cities and a score and soundtrack for 2015's Last Cab to Darwin. In 2023, he issued Mr Mirakle, followed in 2025 by After the Flood with Dirty Three drummer Jim White.Kuepper was born in Bremen, West Germany. His family migrated to Brisbane, Australia during the '60s. He attended high school with future Saints bandmates Chris Bailey and Ivor Hay, and in 1973, the trio formed Kid Galahad & the Eternals. When Jeffrey Wegener became their drummer in 1975, they were renamed the Saints (Hay became drummer when he left). The band's home base was Club 76, a music venue Bailey and Hay created in their shared rental house. Their independently released a debut single, "(I'm) Stranded," co-written by Kuepper and Bailey, became a regional hit and the band signed to EMI and released the classic debut (I'm) Stranded in February 1977. They moved to London later in the year, were misclaimed by a punk audience, and released the vastly different but no less successful Eternally Yours in May 1978. Kuepper left the band after the Saints released their third album, the R&B-saturated Prehistoric Sounds, in October. He returned to Sydney after the album's subsequent failure. He formed the Laughing Clowns, a rock, soul, and avant-jazz group in 1979 with drummer Wegener, saxophonist Bob Farrell, and bassist Ben Wallace-Crabbe. In early 1980, Ben's cousin Dan Wallace-Crabbe (ex-Crime & the City Solution guitarist) joined on piano. Laughing Clowns were embraced by post-punk audiences in Australia, the U.K., Germany, and, to a lesser degree, in the U.S. thanks to hip record stores and the underground music press.Their eponymous six-track mini-album appeared in May 1980 on Missing Link and won accolades for its bracing approach. Guitarist Kuepper and band manager Ken West co-founded Prince Melon Records to issue the group's material. Two subsequent EPs, Reign of Terror/Throne of Blood and Sometimes, The Fire Dance .... also appeared that year. After releasing the long-player Mr. Uddich-Schmuddich Goes to Town in 1982 and Everything That Flies... in 1983, they signed with Hot for 1984's Law of Nature, and 1985's Ghosts of an Ideal Wife. Following the band's dissolution, Kuepper decided on a solo career. He released Electrical Storm on Hot in June 1985. It was co-produced and played on by New Christs' guitarist Bruce Callaway, with drummer Nick Fisher and pianist Louis Tillett. It drew an abundance of laudatory critical notice in Australia for its sparse angularity and alien-sounding pop. In 1986 Kuepper founded And the Yard Goes on Forever (their name was paraphrased from the title of a 1968 Richard Harris album) as a touring group. Along with several studio players -- including Necks' pianist Chris Abrahams, and ex-Laughing Clowns' guitarist Paul Smith -- the band played on his second effort, Rooms of the Magnificent, which cracked the Top 100 at home. His third solo outing, 1988's Everybody's Got To, was licensed by Capitol in the U.S. and peaked at number 42 in Australia.Kuepper teamed with And the Yard Goes On Forever drummer Mark Dawson to record the electro-acoustic EP Today Wonder that also included several covers. In April 1991, he formed the Aints, a garage/grunge band that quickly issued three distortion-drenched albums: S.L.S.Q. in May, Ascension in December, and Autocannibalism in June 1992. Despite these albums being almost antithetical to his previous work, they earned acclaim from longtime fans and an entirely new crop of listeners in Australia and the U.K.The guitarist didn't abandon solo work, however. In November 2021, he released Honey Steel's Gold. Acclaimed globally, it peaked at number 28 on the ARIA charts. It was his highest-charting album to date.
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