Page 31 - Black Velvet Magazine Issue 107

BV107 pg 30-35 Tuk Smith centre.qxp_BV107 pg 31 02/12/2022 21:54 Page 2

BlackVelvetMagazine.Com - 31

Something
Something

To Prove
To Prove

he pandemic of 2020 created havoc for a lot of us, but none more so
Tthan for Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts. After releasing their debut

single, ‘What Kinda Love’, on January 10th, 2020, the world went into lock-
down a couple of months later. The band had been lined up to open for Mötley

Crue and Def Leppard on The Stadium Tour as well as to release their debut
album. Unfortunately, Tuk’s exciting dream soon came crashing down and he

found himself without a label, album and tour, and back at square one.

ut, in the music world, you don’t just give up when Anything I could do to go against the norm when I grew
Bthe chips are down. Tuk picked himself back up off up, I would do. If it was Christian, I was anti-Christian. If
the ground, dusted himself off, and got back to work. Wel- everybody ate hot dogs, I was putting pizza pamphlets up.
come ‘Ballad Of A Misspent Youth’, the dazzling new rock If everybody was listening to country music, I was listen-
‘n’ roll album by Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts. ing to British anarcho-punk. So, to me, I took it to the ex-
It’s an 8-track release, which kicks off with the title treme, and that’s probably a blessing because I was able
track, ‘Ballad Of A Misspent Youth’, in which Tuk sings to view the world through a completely different perspec-
‘Born spitting blood at the world from the wrong side of tive.
the tracks, burn every bridge and never look back’. Black He felt like a lost soul back then – and reveals that he
Velvet begins by asking Tuk if that was him. He tells us, still does, to this day.
“That song is part autobiographical, but, also, I’m just “Yeah… I still feel like I don’t fit in and I feel like an out-
speaking about all of my friends that I grew up with; peo- sider when it comes to the music industry. To be honest, I
ple I’ve been in bands with. I’ve always hung out with peo- feel like an alien. I still feel like this planet isn’t my home.
ple like that. It was easy for me to write about that It’s very uncomfortable. There’s got to be some other peo-
character because I can relate to him personally and with ple that feel that way.”
the people that I’ve been around. Yes, it’s accurate, be- We think there are many other people that also feel
cause I didn’t come from shit… very humble beginnings, that way. Probably many music fans, and fans of Tuk him-
in a small town, and me and a lot of my friends have a chip self, for starters.
on our shoulders, so yes, it’s very accurate.” He’s not so sure though. “I don’t know how regular
When he thinks back to his youth, he remembers what people feel or what they’ve been through. I definitely feel
motivated him into the musical direction that he headed. that there’s probably an audience that can definitely relate
“2020’s hindsight,” he says. “I hated where I grew up. to the kind of things that I’m singing about or talking about
I hated my high school. I hated what was popular with all – which I hope there is. I didn’t write the album hoping that
of that negativity - that’s why I was drawn into punk rock, a lot of people could relate to it, I was just trying to be true
and drawn into rock ‘n’ roll, and drawn into rebellion, and to myself and authentic when I was writing about it. And
it’s one of the things that’s made me anti-establishment. that’s all you can do.”

TUK SMITH & THE RESTLESS HEARTS