Ed Kuepper (the Saints, Laughing Clowns) will be performing at this year’s Melbourne International Jazz Festival as part of the Laughing Clowns first Melbourne show since 1984. It was announced today that he will be replacing Mick Harvey as the new band member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Kuepper will now join Cave and his new bandmates - Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey, Thomas Wydler, Jim Sclavunos and Conway Savage - for a string of European festival dates including headline spots at the Southside and Hurricane festivals in Germany and the Oxygen Festival in Ireland.

Before he departs for Europe, however, Kuepper will perform exclusively at The Forum as a part of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival with the Laughing Clowns, his seminal post-Saints outfit. The group, which broke up in 1984, recently reunited for the Cave-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival. They will be joined at The Forum by internationally renowned musical innovator guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco) playing solo to kick off an incredible evening of music.

No word, however, on the future of both the Laughing Clowns and The Saints and whether the Laughing Clown’s first show in Melbourne since 1984 - will also be one of their last. Laughing Clowns are a piece of Australian music history come back to life. Often described as “jazz-punk, the quintet formed in 1978 from the ashes of guitarist Ed Kuepper’s seminal punk act, the Saints. Inspired by musical forms as seemingly disparate as free jazz, bluegrass and krautrock, their 30-year-old material still holds its own among the most progressive music being made today.

This historic Melbourne show will comprise original members Ed Kuepper and Jeffery Wegener alongside long-time saxophonist Louise Elliott, bassist Biff Miller and keyboardist Alister Spence.

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