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Ed Kuepper makes his Opera House headline debut with drummer Jim White

Sydney – Monday 29 March 2021. The Sydney Opera House today announced that Australian post-punk, singer-songwriter and guitarist Ed Kuepper and legendary drummer Jim White will perform 45 years’ worth of Kuepper‘s music, with a twist, across two shows in the Studio on Sunday 13 June. Together, the game-changers will reinterpret versions of Kuepper’s back-catalogue in a blistering and rare performance of post-punk mayhem.

Co-founder of The Saints, chief architect of the uncompromising Laughing Clowns and The Aints!, and master songsmith of a breadth of solo works, Ed Kuepper is widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest rock artists, and a notable early influence for bands such as Nick Cave's The Birthday Party, The Go-Betweens and The Triffids. In this Opera House appearance, Kuepper will be joined on stage by brilliant drummer Jim White – an Opera House alumnus who has performed at several Vivid LIVE festivals with the Dirty Three, Xylouris White, and alongside Cat Power.

"Jim is one of the finest drummers I've seen and heard anywhere, totally gets inside of whatever he's playing in an unpredictable and exciting way, been wanting to work with him for a long while." - Ed Kuepper

Kuepper’s music legacy includes co-founding the influential 70s proto-punk band The Saints, the genre-defying, experimental group Laughing Clowns in 1979 and The Aints! in 2018, while also recording over 15 solo albums across several decades. Throughout his career, Kuepper has pushed the boundaries of not only conventional music but of the post-punk genre, showcased spectacularly in Laughing Clowns where he created a unique sound by incorporating free-jazz, bluegrass and krautrock.

"I like how Ed Kuepper - like Lou Reed or Bob Dylan - doesn’t want to replay the hits as was and at the same time doesn’t pretend to not have a past nor a future. In working with the musicians they play with, they revisit their material in new and old ways as well as creating new material and it’s not a binary problem, an ethic that seems relevant to all things to me.” - Jim White

Head of Contemporary Music Ben Marshall says: “Ed Kuepper and Jim White are Australian music royalty whose subterranean influence locally and globally runs deep and long. I firmly believe there’s no culture without subculture, and both these artists emerged from the underground long ago to contribute more than their fair share to modern music. Ed Kuepper stands tall as a figure alongside Nick Cave and David McComb and last took to the Opera House stage as a member of the Bad Seeds in 2013. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to honour his continued creative restlessness but never dreamed it’d be as part of an inspired pairing with the inimitable Jim White, co–creator of some of the most memorable concerts ever staged here. To hear Ed Kuepper’s work refracted through the prism of Jim White’s drumming will be exhilarating, familiar and an immense privilege. Don’t miss this.”

The matinee and evening performances will celebrate the release of three retrospective albums on 28 May 2021 - Ed Kuepper: Singles ’86 - ’96Laughing Clowns: Golden Days - When Giants Walked the Earth, and The Aints! Live At Marrickville Bowlo.

LINKS

Laughing Clowns (Live at All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)

For media information, please contact:

Ying-Di Yin
Communications Specialist
0432 159 645
yyin@sydneyoperahouse.com