Legendary Australian musician Ed Kuepper recently released a new album, ‘The Return Of The Mail-Order Bridegroom’.
Next month he’ll be taking the album around the country. When I found out I’d be interviewing Ed Kuepper I knew his single ‘The Way I Made You Feel’ from when I was 11 and that was about it. While some resources are great for being thrust into an interview with minimal knowledge, sometimes they’re not.
So I thought I’d try and find out who the real Ed Kuepper is. As the words “Who is Ed Kuepper?” left my mouth, they were quickly met with a wall on one side and a hard place on the other leaving me only with room to shuffle sideways in order to redeem myself for sounding like an unprepared journalist.
Where to from here? Straight to business! Diving right into the “whys” of Ed’s new album, ‘The Return Of The Mail-Order Bridegroom’. “It came on after doing a completely by request tour last year and I decided that I wanted to reappraise what I do myself and I thought a really good way of doing this was to open it to the people who've supported my career over the years.
“It was by request and by that I mean it wasn't a situation where people would be given a list of songs to call out, it was completely, ‘alright, you request the songs from my repertoire’ not covers of Led Zeppelin songs or anything like that. If people requested that kind of thing I had security beat the shit out of them.”
{youtube}TOQ3uKluj0M{/youtube}
The album features reinterpretations of the likes of the excellent 'Rue The Day' from Ed’s 2000 album 'Smile... Pacific' as well as The Saints classic 'Swing For The Crime’. “I wanted [the album] to bring on something new so at the end of the [By Request] tour I had a couple of hard drives full of live recordings, and I started going through them and I thought this is just too hard.
“So I looked back at wherever people had posted what was actually played on a night and I picked a number of songs and just went into the studio and recorded them. With the exception of ‘No Regrets’ this is basically a by demand album made specifically for the fans.”
“When people hark back to a particular time where things were supposedly better, it’s not completely true.”
With all that Ed has seen throughout his career, how does he think the development of the internet has changed the music business. “It's meant that a lot of labels have gone under, but it's also meant that the means of production and distribution have shifted a lot so you can sort of get things out there, though you still have to get attention to yourself.
“You don't have to be doing crappy deals with record labels; you don't have to be waiting forever for distributors to pay you for all your stock... I'm not being totally cavalier about it, it's just that when people hark back to a particular time where things were supposedly better, it's not completely true.”
While Ed was unsure whether he’d be embarking on a third leg of the ‘Solo And By Request’ tour, he has plenty of projects to keep him busy. “I'm going to be working on the soundtrack for an Australian feature film called ‘Last Cab’. And I'm working with the [Brisbane] Powerhouse theatre company on a musical ... So those two things with a handful of shows, plus I'm recording for a new album, so quite a lot but not much that will be publically revealed until next year.”
Ed Kuepper: Solo And By Request Dates
Fri Aug 1 - Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns)Sat Aug 2 - Railway Club (Darwin)
Fri Aug 8 - The Gov (Adelaide)
Sat Aug 9 - The Old Museum (Brisbane)
Thu Aug 14 - Settlers Tavern (Margaret River)
Fri Aug 15 - Fly By Night (Fremantle)
Fri Aug 22 - Soundlounge (Gold Coast)
Sat Aug 23 - The Green Room, Imperial Hotel (Eumundi)
