Isolated in Brisbane, the Saints released a punk single before the Damned, Sex Pistols and the Clash. As they reform after their singer’s death, they recall their journey from school detention to Top of the Pops

The story of one of the most extraordinary bands in rock history began in the most ordinary of ways, with school kids walking down the street. “It was a Friday or Saturday night, and I was going off to the cinema,” recalls Ivor Hay. “And there was Ed and Chris, and they were going off to a party. They asked if I wanted to come. We’re 15 or 16, and we managed to get a bottle of something. We drank, and we ended up talking and singing. And that’s how we ended up doing things together.”

Ed was Ed Kuepper; Chris was Chris Bailey. And the three of them, kids in Brisbane at the start of the 70s, would become the Saints, the band that kickstarted Australian punk, the band who released their first, thrilling single (I’m) Stranded in September 1976 – before the Damned or the Pistols or the Clash had got anything out – and then arrived in the UK the following year as a fully formed maelstrom of intensity and ambition.