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Nashville-based singer/songwriter/musician/producer Tuk Smith recently made his debut UK solo headline tour, alongside his killer band Restless Hearts. We managed to grab a quick chat with the infuriatingly talented and likeable Smith before the last night of the tour in Glasgow. As honest as ever, with Tuk, what you see is what you get. Bullshit-free. Check out the chat below:
When we last spoke, back in 2022 via Zoom, you mentioned that due to the costs involved, you didn’t think that you would be able to tour the UK; but here you are.
Credit cards! Zero-interest cards, and then I move stuff around! Look, man, I speak freely; you either have to do it that way, or somebody is paying for it. There are a lot of parents and grandparents doling out money for people’s bands right now. I don’t know if it’s always been that way, but it is that way right now. It is what it is – not my path!
Seven shows in eight days, not only that, but a hell of a lot of mileage between those shows. You have just come from Steelhouse Festival in Wales, but not just Wales: up a mountain in Wales!
Yep! We played Leeds – which was fucking rammed – and drove a couple of hours after the show to get to the hotel. Up early the next morning because with Steelhouse you have to check in early. We get there, and then we are onstage in front of five or six thousand people! You know me, it’s all go-go-go! And that is how it has always been.
Those shows, those miles, that’s an incredible undertaking for an independent artist like yourself. The costs must have been sky-high?
It’s the only thing that I’ve ever known. I’ve never made any money from being in a band, except in Japan, where they pay better. I’ll be happy if I break even on this trip. And people are showing up and buying a lot of merch.
This run included not only Steelhouse Festival but also a show at Maid of Stone Festival. Did you get a chance to hang out at any of the festivals?
I watched The Wildhearts at Maid of Stone as I’ve always been a fan of Ginger. We’ve always been buddies online. So when we were playing Maid of Stone, there was a pause in the middle of one of the songs, and I went to say something, and I heard a dog bark behind me! Which was fucking crazy! So I turn around, and it’s Ginger and his dog! So that was cool. Ginger is really cool.
Considering what he is going through with his terminal diagnosis, his outlook on life is so positive, and the shows have been insanely good…
I don’t know if I would be as fuck-you as him. I mean, I won’t know until I get there, but he doesn’t seem scared at all, which is crazy. But I like crazy motherfuckers. He is unhinged. More of those in the world!
Your sound is quite UK-centric. The UK and Cheap Trick…
Totally. Cheap Trick were also influenced by the UK, so there is no surprise there!
How did you find the inner strength to come back from missing out on the Def Leppard / Mötley Crüe stadium tour that was postponed due to Covid and reconvened with a different opening act?
I always tell people that there is something wrong with me. Because I just keep going. I am pretty much numb at this point…numb from being in the music industry. At this point, I don’t give a shit. As long as I can play some shows and put some records out, I mean, the band, we get along good; this band is sober, except for me, and I don’t really drink that much anymore, so there is no bullshit, it’s very peaceful.
But yeah, it took me a while to get over that; I lost my record deal, I lost my publishing deal, I lost that tour, and other tours…so I was angry at the world for a time, but then I got signed to a subsidiary of Virgin, and got dropped after ten months because I didn’t perform on “social media”. I don’t give a shit about that anymore because I don’t want to be an influencer. To me, success means doing what I want, on my own terms.
You touched on social media and the rise of influencers. The video for ‘Take the Long Way’ is very cool. But the signs you are all holding up about needing money to buy plays and followers make it all too sadly true to life.
Here’s the thing, and this is what is so ironic about that video: a lot of tours in the past I have lost to buy-on bands, which is part of the industry, and is more prevalent than ever – and I know how expensive it is to tour, so I understand when bigger bands take out buy-on’s – but when you talk to agents, etc, it is all about vanity numbers. And you can buy all that shit. I live in Nashville, and a lot of the bands have X followers, and X listens on Spotify, but they can’t sell 75 tickets to a show. So what is ironic about that video is that I hardly had any budget for that video, so I had to think of a way to do the video, and I was sitting at the traffic lights, and there was a bunch of homeless people holding up signs, and I said, well, that’s what I’m going to do!
Sometimes you get creative when you are lacking, and that’s why that video came about. It kind of pissed some people off locally; they took it personally.
But yeah, I’m on TikTok, so I have to do all the bullshit as well. I might be old-school; I will do social media, but doing the trends…if you can do that, then more power to you. Here is what is weird about social media platforms: they reward people who do trendy things, so you will see bands jumping on bandwagons because it is something that is working. When I got into punk and rock n’ roll, you were supposed to do the opposite of what everyone is doing.
The latest EP is ‘Troubled Paradise’; with you being busy as a producer and songwriter for other bands, this format works well for you.
I just think that EP’s are cool! The first album, ‘Ballad of A Misspent Youth’, only had eight songs originally, but when I got signed, they wanted more songs, so usually it comes down to money. For ‘Troubled Paradise’, I wanted to do a side-story from ‘Rogue to Redemption’ about these characters that I was writing about, so it worked well as a mini-album. Writing and producing for other acts does take away from me…
Are you busy once you return home from this trip?
I have a couple of clients that I’m working with right now, but I have been so fucking slammed producing, writing, and doing this too, these last few years, that I would like to have a little break for a couple of months. But, yeah, I’m working on some records with clients, so that will be cool.
In the latest issue of Classic Rock magazine, Rob Halford is quoted as saying: “It is the simplest thing in the world to write songs; but it’s the hardest thing in the world to write songs that live forever”. Would you agree?
Yes. I think that a lot of the mistakes that I made, and that other people make when they write songs, are that they overcomplicate them. It’s really hard, I mean, really hard to write a great song with a few ingredients. And if you can do that with a couple of chords that people remember, then you have done your job. It’s a skill set, for sure.
As a musician, as you keep going and your skills develop, you can kind of get caught up in smelling your own bullshit, and that’s okay if you wanna do that. In metal, you can stretch out musically, but if you put anything under the umbrella of rock, or even pop, then you have to figure out how to make it simple.
Which songwriters do you feel don’t get enough credit?
Man, there is a lot. Especially from the 70s. I am a huge fan of [American pop/rock singer and songwriter] Dwight Twilley, and also love those early Jesse Malin solo albums that were big. I loved a lot of those obscure bands; Silverhead with Michael Des Barres, they never really got their dues. Tons of power pop from the 70s; a lot of that stuff slipped through the cracks.
Looking ahead, you have a live show coming up with Cheap Trick; that must be such a buzz considering how much of a fan that you are?
Yeah, I’m stoked! I got to play with them with Biters some time ago, and then Rick [Neilsen] brought me onstage to do ‘Surrender’ with them, and Restless Hearts got to do a show with them in 2021, I think it was. To get invited back again is killer. They are always in my top three to five bands. Always. Dude, they are characters. And when you were talking about people not getting enough credit, Cheap Trick have never gotten the credit that they deserve. When you look at American rock bands, you have Aerosmith and Kiss; Cheap Trick – I think – have never gotten what they deserve.
Connect with Tuk Smith & The Restless Hearts, HERE
Interview – Dave
Live images – Dave Jamieson
