“I still argue that the Saints started punk rock . . .The Saints were Australia’s greatest band, and Chris Bailey was my favourite singer.”—Nick Cave

Bob Geldof famously stated that “rock music in the ’70s was changed by three bands: the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, and the Saints.” The first two have received their fair share of attention, but Guitar & Vocals is the first book about Australian legends the Saints, whose 1976 debut single “Stranded” defined the snarling, buzzsaw sound of punk rock—and was the first DIY punk single to boot.

When its songwriters, singer Chris Bailey and guitarist Ed Kuepper, split in 1978 after just three albums, each went on to have a long and eventful career. Bailey fronted various iterations of the Saints over multiple albums until his death in 2021, while Kuepper led the brilliant and iconoclastic Laughing Clowns before embarking on a successful solo career. More recently Kuepper has reclaimed his legacy with the Saints by putting together “The Saints 73-78” (with original bass player Ivor Haye) to perform his and Bailey’s classic songs worldwide.

Clinton Walker was there to witness the birth of the Saints in a small, sweaty room in Brisbane in 1976, and over the following decades he charted the subsequent stages in the lives of his old high school mates in numerous articles and reviews, as well as interviewing Bailey and Kuepper repeatedly. Guitar & Vocals collects this journalism; written with the urgency of the everyday, it offers an insider’s view into the music and lives of a pair of star-crossed collaborators, who fell out but never lost touch with one another, even as they and others waged a history war over the true legacy of the Saints.