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.”
Raised in Griffin, GA, Tuk always felt like an outsider. The androgyny of his early heroes like New York Dolls clashed with the macho, blue-collar backdrop of ‘Tuck’s Powerdome’ – his father’s weights gym, its walls adorned with slogans like ‘Shut Up And Train’. Emblems, perhaps, of a tenacity that’s stayed with Tuk (Joshua until he was 17, when a local tattooist gave him the name he still goes by) ever since.
You’ll hear it all in a song like Little Renegade, which mixes the bite of Bon Scott-era AC/DC with gorgeous pop nuances and Mott The Hoople twists. “Isn’t that rock’n’roll, the dichotomy of it all?” he suggests. “The dudes I liked in bands would wear girl clothes, but they were wild motherfuckers.”
Right now Tuk’s wild days are behind him, replaced with “workaholic” hours in front of ProTools, producing other bands and running his label. But that old tearaway streak – the fire that makes him such a commanding prospect – lives on in anthems like End Of An Era. A bittersweet “drunken sing-along” with shades of Oasis and glam rock glitter, it could be read as a meditation on the changing rock landscape, the wider world, or even a relationship.
Again, there’s that dichotomy he speaks of. “Rock’n’roll is essentially the illusion of not giving a fuck, right? Like, you know Axl Rose was doing sit-ups and jump rope, and Paul Stanley was on a cardio machine, and they come out and act like it just happens. The point is I sit at that piano many hours, working on this stuff.”
Now with gigs coming up in Europe, the UK and Japan, Tuk has the sort of mental clarity afforded by the perspective of time. Less frustration, more gratitude. “I’m hyper-focused on trying to be a good person. It [Rogue To Redemption] came from a totally different spot, as opposed to like ‘I gotta get a hit!’… It had some piss and vinegar, but it was different. It’s kind of a weight off my soul. I’m just grateful that I’m still doing this.”
So if any of this resonates with you – if you crave rock’n’roll with substance, an edge, 21st century eyes and an old soul’s heart – you’ve come to the right place.
