Springsteen to cover The Saints’ Just Like Fire Would on his new album

Recent news that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will include a cover of The Saints’ Just Like Fire Would on the January-due High Hopes has put the spotlight on the Australian band.

Overseas blogs are discovering the Chris Bailey-fronted band, while England’s The Guardian ran a list of their five greatest songs. The Saints were touring the UK last month.

The spirit of High Hopes seems to have materialised during their 2013 Australian tour. As Springsteen explained, “I was working on a record of some of our best unreleased material from the past decade when Tom Morello (sitting in for Steve during the Australian leg of our tour) suggested we ought to add High Hopes to our live set. I had cut High Hopes, a song by Tim Scott McConnell of the LA based Havalinas, in the ’90s.

“We worked it up in our Aussie rehearsals and Tom then proceeded to burn the house down with it.  We re-cut it mid tour at Studios 301 in Sydney along with Just Like Fire Would, a song from one of my favorite early Australian punk bands, The Saints (check out I’m Stranded).  Tom and his guitar became my muse, pushing the rest of this project to another level.  Thanks for the inspiration Tom.”