The Laughing Clowns
| Laughing Clowns | |
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| Origin | Sydney, New South Wales, Australia |
| Genres | Rock, post-punk, alternative rock, free jazz, punk jazz |
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| Website | facebook |
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Laughing Clowns, sometimes written as The Laughing Clowns, is a post-punk band that formed in Sydney in 1979. In five years, the band released three LPs, two mini albums, and various singles and compilations. Laughing Clowns' sound is free jazz, bluegrass and krautrock influenced. The band formed to accommodate Ed Kuepper's growing interest in expanding the brass-driven sounds created on The Saints third album, Prehistoric Sounds, and by adopting flattened fifth notes in a rock and roll setting while using a modern jazz styled band line-up.
Along with The Birthday Party, The Go-Betweens, The Moodists and The Triffids, the Laughing Clowns also sought fame in Europe during the early '80s, and gained an international cult status. All four aforementioned groups have cited Laughing Clowns as an influence at some point in their respective careers.
Laughing Clowns were formed in April 1979 in Sydney as a rock, soul, avant-jazz group by Bob Farrell on saxophone, Ed Kuepper on lead guitar and lead vocals (ex-Kid Galahad and the Eternals, The Saints), Ben Wallace-Crabbe on bass guitar, and Jeffrey Wegener on drums (ex-The Saints, Last Words, Young Charlatans). In late 1978 Kuepper had quit punk rock band, The Saints, in London – where they had relocated – due to a rift regarding future direction with fellow founder, Chris Bailey. Kuepper preferred "less commercial, more cerebral material" as seen on the band's third album, Prehistoric Sounds (October 1978).
When Kuepper returned to Australia in 1978 he had contemplated musical retirement, however he reconnected with two old school friends, Farrell and Wegener, at a party and they coaxed him into forming a new band. Both Farrell and Wegener had associations with The Saints: Wegener was an early member in 1975 and Farrell was one of the Flat Top Four, which performed backing vocals on "Kissin' Cousins" for that band's debut album, (I'm) Stranded (February 1977). Ben Wallace-Crabbe had played in a Melbourne band, The Love, with Wegener, and completed the initial line-up. A proposed single by The Saints, "Laughing Clowns" / "On the Waterfront", through EG Records was not recorded by that group due to the difference of opinion between Kuepper and Bailey. Each track appeared elsewhere: "On the Waterfront" on The Saints' first post-Kuepper EP, Paralytic Tonight, Dublin Tomorrow (March 1980) and "Laughing Clowns" provided Kuepper's new band's name and their self-titled six-track mini-album in May that year.
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