Glenn A. Baker has written that "From the release of the 'She Never Said' single in November 1980, this unique Sydney-originated entity has purveyed a distinctive, ethereal, psychedelic-tinged sound which has alternatively found favour and disfavour in Australia.

Jay Dee Daugherty (ex-Patti Smith Group) played drums from 1990 to 1993, followed by "timEbandit" Tim Powles (ex-The Venetians), who remains with them to the present day.

The Church's debut album, Of Skins and Heart (1981), delivered their first radio hit, "The Unguarded Moment", and they were signed to major labels in Australia, Europe, and the United States.

The Church continue to tour and record, releasing their 25th studio album, Man Woman Life Death Infinity, in October 2017, and their 27th and most recent, Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars, in March 2024.

A four-song demo was recorded in Kilbey's bedroom studio[10] and sent, through contacts from his and Koppes's old band Baby Grande, to the Australian branch of the Beatles' publishing company, ATV Northern Songs.

Both labels released the album in 1982, renaming it simply The Church and slightly altering the track listing to include songs from Too Fast for You and using a crop of that EP's artwork as the cover.

The band's trademark guitar sound was complemented by the keyboards of guest musicians Davey Ray Moor (from the Crystal Set, which included Kilbey's brother Russell) and Craig Hooper (from the Reels), who joined as an auxiliary member.

[8] Recording sessions in Los Angeles, with producers Waddy Wachtel (Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Robbie Williams) and Greg Ladanyi (Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac),[8][9] were a new challenge according to Kilbey: "It was Australian hippies versus West Coast guys who know the way they like to do things.

Album tracks such as "North, South, East and West", "Lost," "Reptile", and "Destination" bore the imprint of the faces, scenery, and daily life of the group's new, temporary home.

The band started negotiations with former Led Zeppelin bass guitarist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, who had a reputation as a sophisticated producer, but the record company and management vetoed their suggestion.

Gold Afternoon Fix was heavily backed by a promotional campaign from Arista and the band went on tour, hiring Patti Smith's drummer Jay Dee Daugherty.

Bringing in British producer Gavin MacKillop (Barenaked Ladies, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Straitjacket Fits) to supervise the sessions,[9] the band began to improvise the framework for the next set of songs.

The interplay between Koppes and Willson-Piper dominated throughout, especially on tracks such as "Ripple", "Kings", and the epic, aptly titled "Chaos", whose lyrics were a reflection of Steve Kilbey's unsettled lifestyle at the time.

His decision reflected two main factors: that the band had earned nothing for the two-week tour of Australia, and that he felt shut out of the creative process - a long-standing complaint that stretched back at least as far as Seance, if not further.

When it became clear that Daugherty would not be returning to the fold either, the remaining two took the opportunity to approach their music from new perspectives, abandoning their long-established roles and stylistic elements in favour of experimentation, spontaneity, and electronica.

Following the commercial failure of Magician Among the Spirits, the members of The Church turned their attention to other projects and Willson-Piper left Australia again in order to collaborate with other artists and write new solo material.

Loose in feel but rich in atmosphere, the eccentrically-titled Pharmakoi/Distance-Crunching Honchos with Echo Units saw a greater focus on concise, guitar-dominated songs, in contrast to the experimentation of Magician Among the Spirits.

Kilbey declared that the end was nigh: after a final, worthy swan song, with the working title Au Revoir Por Favor, the Church would be put to rest.

Arriving in August 1999 - less than a year after Hologram of Baal - A Box of Birds contained an unusual selection of songs from Ultravox and Iggy Pop to The Monkees and Neil Young.

Partially recorded in Sweden, NYC, and Australia, the resulting After Everything Now This, released in January 2002, saw a focus on the softer elements of the band, with responsibility for production and final mixing again resting on Powles.

Unique among the band's catalogue, the first disc, subtitled "remixture", featured a reshuffled, remixed, electronic version of the After Everything Now This album, the result of Tim Powles' collaboration with Sydney EDM musicians.

Under the guidance of manager Kevin Lane Keller - an American fan and marketing professor who had been working with the band since 2001 - the Church began capitalizing on the advantages offered by the internet and the independent music industry.

[30][31] In February 2007 came El Momento Siguiente, a second album of acoustic re-interpretations of earlier songs plus several new compositions and a cover version of the Triffids classic "Wide Open Road".

In 2006, The Church had embarked on their third improvised music project: to provide the soundtrack for a short film based on the renowned American science fiction writer Jeff VanderMeer's novel Shriek: An Afterword.

Coinciding with the tour, a book entitled No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church by Robert Dean Lurie was published in Australia, the US, and the UK by Verse Chorus Press.

In October, Second Motion Records re-released six early Church albums in the US, with bonus tracks and extensive liner notes by Willson-Piper, along with the Deep in the Shallows singles collection.

On 27 October 2010, the Church were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame by media commentator George Negus, while young pop singer Washington performed "The Unguarded Moment".

During this tour, they also played two intimate "Art Rock 'n' Roll" shows, one at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne and the other at the Factory Theatre in Sydney, where each member chose four songs from the band's catalogue, interspersed with a selection of concert staples.

In March 2013, there were the outward signs of internal problems in the band when Steve Kilbey issued a series of statements which indicated that he was considering leaving The Church due to a dispute over royalty payments.

In 2016, the band returned to the U.S. again twice, first for a more comprehensive headline tour playing The Blurred Crusade in its entirety and including an invite to the main stage with The Flaming Lips and Young Fathers at Mavericks Festival in San Antonio, Texas.