Graham Reid | | <1 min read
The Saints out of Brisbane were certainly the vanguard of a style which would be recognized as punk with songs like (I'm) Stranded, Wild About You and the Ramones-like speed-thrash of Demolition Girl in '76.
But there was more to their musical palette as soon became clear when singer-guitarists Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper really took control of their direction.
By their superb All Fools Day recorded at Rockfield Studio in Wales they were stretching into classic songs like Just Like Fire Would and this one, See You in Paradise which with its mellow mood, guitar part and Bailey's drawling vocal sounds like the greatest Eighties song Jagger-Richards never wrote.
Time magazine noted of Bailey, “his willingness to experiment with sounds and a consistent refusal to model his music on fashion has made Bailey one of Australia's most interesting rock musicians”.
Needless to say that contrariness meant the follow-up album Prodigal Son was a much tougher and alienating proposition . . . and both Bailey and Kuepper went on to carve out distinctive solo careers.
Bailey was interviewed at Elsewhere here when he was living in Malmo, Sweden in the mid Nineties.
He's a smart man and this is an ear-catching song.
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For more oddities, one-offs or songs with a backstory see From the Vaults
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