On Monday, Bedfordshire punk’n'rollers, The Smoking Hearts, self-released their debut album Pride of Nowhere on their own George Street Records. With 13 songs clocking in at under 30 minutes, it rattles around with the shitkicker spirit of Backyard Babies, if perhaps they hotwired a Mustang, sandblasted the gloss and glam clear off it, and drove it headlong into a demolition derby. It’s The Computers minus the doo-wop, and lasts just long enough that it doesn’t outstay its welcome.

With that in mind, we caught up with Simon Barker, one of the band’s guitarists, to find out amongst other things just why the band are intent on getting one of their song titles, ‘Thrash B4 Gash’, tattoo’d on as many folks as possible…

How did you meet?
“Well we’re all from the same area, 3 of us went to the same school together. Rod [vocals] and Matty [drums] both played in other local bands so we knew them from playing gigs together, and just became friends that way. There was a point where all the bands we’d been playing in had fizzled out. Most of the other bands in the area were playing stuff we weren’t really interested in, so we decided to get together and start playing the kind of music we wanted to hear.”

How do you translate what sounds to be a very “live” orientated sound to working on record?
“Well we pretty much knew what we wanted the record to sound like, so we spent time in the studio getting everything sounding just right. But once we had that, we just played the songs the same way we would live. It was recorded over a relatively short period of time, which I think in a way worked to our advantage as we wanted everything to sound just as ferocious and energetic as it does live, and I think we achieved that. It was never meant to be a polished thing, we wanted that element of rawness.”

Why the decision to self-release?
“Well we had sent the record to a few different people, but in the end thought ‘why wait for things to happen, when we can make them happen ourselves?’. We’ve always been a self-sufficient band so doing it for ourselves wasn’t anything new.”

We’ve found it hard to come up with any dirt during our rigorous, typing-shit-into-Google levels of research, but we understand the band formed in Bedfordshire. Has coming from there shaped your music in any way whatsoever?
“Yeah, completely. A lot of our songs are based on frustrations of being from here. It’s not that it’s a really bad place, but it’s pretty much the middle of nowhere, a place where nothing really ever happens, and growing up around here knowing that all this cool shit is happening in the big towns and cities, you feel a bit trapped and of course get pissed off with it.”

What bands do you consider as part of your scene or as your peers? Is there anything recognisable as a “scene” as such in Bedfordshire?
“I know Luton has a bit of a scene and Bedford too, but we’re from a tiny little village miles away so we could never really be a part of that. We’ve always been a bit isolated in that way, but really it’s only made us hungrier, made us work harder to get this band going places. There’s a few bands from the Bedfordshire area that I would consider our peers – Aghast, Wolf Law, The Radiating Eyes.”

Watch the video to ‘Juliana Blue’ by The Smoking Hearts:

What marks you out as different to other bands around at the moment? Even using “punk” loosely, it’s a very saturated genre.
“We play punk rock, fast, heavy but still melodically. We have a rock’n'roll element without losing any of the ballsyness or becoming cheesy. I think that sets us apart for starters. We’ve all pretty much learnt to play together, and discovered all kinds of great music together, and I think that as a result of that we’ve carved out a sound that is ours alone.”

At what point did you realise “oh shit, stuff’s really starting to happen!”? Or has that moment not even come yet?
“I guess a couple of weeks ago when we first started getting contacted by magazines and stuff like that. With the record coming out, it’s a very exciting time for us.”

To ruthlessly quote from the official press bio: “So many people are happy to live their lives without ever stopping to consider whether they are doing what they really want to do, or if they are just content to become their parents and grow old gracefully. Fuck that.” Purely playing Devil’s Advocate here, what’s so wrong about people wanting the quiet life?
“Well if that is genuinely what you want then there’s nothing wrong with it, but I think it’s fair to say that a lot of the people who end up living the quiet life just seem to end up in it after never really having a proper crack at what they want. I can’t say ‘this is wrong, this is right’, I can only speak for myself, but I’m just saying it’s not something I’d be content with.”

What’s the best and funniest shows you’ve played?
“The best shows for me personally were supporting Gallows a couple of years back, as we were a pretty new band getting to play in front of these huge crowds, miles bigger than we ever had previously played to, in towns we’d never got to play in before. The funniest was probably a house party we played where a friend decided to streak during our set. He was dancing around the band wearing nothing but a bow-tie, it was hilarious, if a little off-putting. I think there’s footage online if you really want to see it.”

[Show as slideshow]

What’s the story behind the ‘Thrash B4 Gash’ tattoos? Who got it first? Why did more people start getting it done? And what came first – the tattoo or the song?
“The first tattoo came before the actual song. Our friend Jonnii had got it done with a DIY tattoo gun made out of an old tape player! We had just finished this song, about a friend who was with this girl who kinda walked all over him and treated him like shit, and we needed a name for it. We racked our brains and then thought of this ‘Thrash B4 Gash’ tattoo and it seemed perfect given the theme of the song. After we recorded it, a couple of guys in the band got it done, then a whole bunch of friends got it done, and it’s just carried on from there. Why not try it yourself at home?”

And finally…can you tell us a joke?
“Last night I was set upon by three blokes in an alley, but I managed to knock one out… not the best time for a wank, but still.”

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Pride of Nowhere, the debut album from The Smoking Hearts, is out now on George Street Records. If for some reason you can’t work out how to buy a copy all by yourself, go check out the band’s MySpace page for more details. In the meantime, why not click here to get a free download of ‘George Street Wrestling’ by The Smoking Hearts? We’re too good to you.