After a period, Kuepper and Bailey left Oxley High and moved to Corinda High.

The band played it's first real gig in 1973. Chelmer Hall was host to a function for Corinda High and the band played. History does not record the audiences thoughts.

In 1974 the band would rename itself the Saints, which was chosen for a good gang-style ring to it, as well as echoing the fifties garage bands. Ivor moved to bass and the band tried out drummer after drummer. One Laurie Cuff is recorded on the tape from Kuepper's parent's garage that would later resurface as "The most primitive band in the world". Later they played with Jeffery Wegener (who would also play with the Laughing Clowns and the Birthday Party, and return to the Saints in the eighties), who also attended Corinda High.

By 1975 the band were be organising gigs themselves, with their booking agency Eternal Promotions, and performing at a Communist Party benefit. In early '76 they entered a Battle of the Bands with Ivor on drums and Doug Balmanno on bass guitar. Not surprisingly, they bombed out.

Bailey's sister rented a terrace house opposite the copshop on Petrie Terrace and Milton Road, near the Windmill Cafe. Bailey moved in to the basement and, when his sister moved out, Hay and Wegener moved in. The band would frequently play parties there, until the storefront was smashed in by an unhappy neighbour. Unperterbed, the crew nailed boards up and splashed "Club 76" across the front of the place.

The club would be closed eventually when the Department of Health discovered the "club" had only one toilet.

Eventually the band would get a bass player of seemingly permanent status. Kym Bradshaw entered the group after answering an advertisement in the paper (allegedly - few can remember at his appearenece at all) and the band booked time at Bruce Windows Studios. It had occured to Kuepper one day that if he simply called Astor Records - where he had been working in the warehouse - and asked, they may actually press a record for him. They replied that country artists did it all the time.

Booking two hours at the studio with Mark Moffat in the production chair, the band recorded "(I'm) Stranded" and "No time". The recordings are so raw that Ivor knocking over a bottle at the end of "Stranded" can be heard through the drummer's mic.

The track remains to this day one of the best peices of punk ever recorded. Bailey's lyrics are simple, yet very effective. The opening line "Like a snake calling on the phone/I've got no time to be alone" is both hilarious and ingenious, and his snarl belies the anguished isolation of the final verse: "they cut out some heart and some brain/been filling it up with dirt/do you know how much it hurts/to be stranded far from home?"

The master tape was taken to Astor, who pressed the 45 on the Saints' own Fatal Records label. Kuepper then spent some time mailing them to record companies and journalists around the world.

When the record was heard in the UK - warming quickly to the throes of punk - it would be received with thick hyperbole. Sounds magazine would make it's famous quote: "The single of this and every week." it was proclaimed. "The Quo or Ramones? This pounds them into the dirt." The band, previously ignored by everyone on the face of the earth, suddenly became hot property. The London office of EMI issued orders for the Sydney office to sign the group, despite the protests of local branch. Artist and Repitoire manager Chris Barnes and EMI's in-house producer Rod Coe flew to Brisbane to get the band into the studio ASAP.