Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – Rogue To Redemption
Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts – Rogue To Redemption
Format: CD – Vinyl LP – Digital
Label: Gypsy Rose Records
Release: 2024
Release date: August 30, 2024
Tuk Smith is the kind of rock’n’roll ambassador you didn’t think existed anymore. Punk maverick from rural Georgia, Biters frontman, producer and solo artist, he’s seen the best and worst of a music industry in constant flux
By turns it’s left him critically acclaimed, poised for stadiums, dropped, burned out, back in the game and beloved by those for whom rock is still everything. Now based in Nashville, and with his own label Gypsy Rose Records, he creates from a more real place than most.
“I want to do something that means something to people,” Tuk says, “because a lot of shit nowadays is so disposable and so plastic. I just don’t connect with that. I’d like to do things that impact people positively. It’s a weird time on the planet, so to have songs about hope, but not be cheesy about it, it’s something I think we need with songwriting. That’s the kind of music I want to hear.”
The result is ‘Rogue To Redemption,’ Tuk’s second album with solo project The Restless Hearts. The sonic lovechild of Thin Lizzy, 90s power pop and melody-driven punk, it shows an artistic peak born from adversity. The sound of a man bottling a lifetime of experiences, stories and characters from working class America. A hero’s journey, picking up from 2022’s Ballad Of A Misspent Youth. And it’s all on him.
“I was dropped from a label, nobody would sign me” recalls Tuk, who wrote the album in solitude, mostly at a piano. “No booking agent would touch me. I had to figure out how to make my own records. I’ve always worked with other mentors, writers and producers, so for me to make this myself was a big leap of faith, because… you know, you might screw it up.”
Produced by Tuk and mixed by Chris Dugan (Green Day, Iggy Pop, U2), Rogue To Redemption was written over the last three years but recorded down to the wire – right up to the summer of 2024. Joined by long-term Restless Hearts compadres, drummer Nigel Dupree and bassist Matthew ‘Ponyboy’ Curtis, he cut the bulk of it at home. Six drum tracks were recorded locally, and the other four with Biters collaborator/mentor Dan Dixon in Atlanta – Tuk’s previous hometown.
“Nashville’s very different from the scene I grew up in,” he observes. “Atlanta’s very East Coast working class, Nashville’s more like L.A. But it pulled me back into focus, because if you’re going to be an artist in Nashville there’s so many great singers, writers and guitar players that I have to rely on my personal strengths. So that was the mentality, making this record.”
It also brought him back to the music he loved the most, which comes out in the modern and classic flavours of Rogue To Redemption. The melodic powerpop and punk likes of Jellyfish, Material Issue, Generation X and Buzzcocks filtered into his writing, complimenting the 70s richness that’s long permeated his work. You’ll hear it in Take The Long Way, the album’s rollicking yet deeply personal opener. An ode to persistence in the face of self-sabotage, Tuk wrote it in a fiery 15-minute burst.
“Rock’n’roll has this underlying theme of self destruction,” he says. “And this one is kind of like that, but there’s hope there. It’s been a common theme, being a musician. The fuck’s been beaten out of me.”
Lyrically, inspired by storytellers like Tom Petty, Phil Lynott and Bruce Springsteen, Rogue To Redemption comprises a Born To Run-esque series of vignettes – observation sprinkled with Tuk’s own experience. A song like Glorybound might be interpreted as a reflection on his life, but it could also allude to numerous lost, disenchanted or overlooked souls in society.
“Those are the kind of characters I like,” he says, “the underdogs of the world. I’ve always been attracted to those. When I was a teenager in my hometown, the way I felt then, I would want to hear a song like that. Sometimes I write songs that I want to hear, and that was one of them.”
Website: http://www.tuksmithandtherestlesshearts.com/
Tracks:
01. Take The Long Way
02. Glorybound
03. End Of An Era
04. Still A Dreamer
05. Little Renegade
06. Lost Boy
07. Blood On The Stage
08. Rogue To Redemption
09. When the Party’s Over