13. The SaintsPrehistoric Sounds
I like all the early Saints albums and some of the eighties ones as well I might say but I think that Prehistoric Sounds is their best album. It came at a time when people really weren’t ready for it; in 1978 it had all these soul brass arrangements on it. They finished recording it and got dropped by their record company and broke up by the time it came out. But it’s such a great album – it’s something of a mini-masterpiece. Not every track on it is brilliant – as with most albums – but it’s really way ahead of its time; everyone was trying to play stuff like that in the early 80s.
It’s a punk soul album and the songs are so great. They’d gotten to a great point with their songwriting, too. Unfortunately Ed Kuepper and Chris Bailey parted ways after that album and so that album got a bit lost. People in Australia know that album because everyone was really excited by the third Saints album whereas in England it was kind of over and so everyone went, "Well, what’s this?" and just ignored it. They just weren’t ready for it and it wasn’t anyone’s idea of what The Saints were supposed to be playing. In Australia everyone was open to it and it’s a highly regarded album there.
I haven’t really worked with Ed but he did come on the last Bad Seeds tour and it was nice to work with Chris. He’s asked me to work on some records of his but that didn’t really work out. Some of these people are quite eccentric and I enjoy Chris’ company; he’s a pretty full-on character but it was good working with him on ‘Bring It On’. Those first Saints albums were really important and I think Prehistoric Sounds is the best one.
