The Smoking Hearts formed in early 2004 out of extreme disaffection with the musical climate of the times. Their contemporaries, men with big mouths and no guts, seemed obsessed with screaming loudly and saying nothing, haircuts with designer labels, and becoming infamous on the basis of antics over musical merit, turning the supposed underground into little more than a Hello magazine shoot.
With The Smoking Hearts, what you see is what you get; five intensely passionate young men playing the music that matters to them. Hailing from George Street, a strip of sanity in an otherwise insignificant corner of the country, The Smoking Hearts don’t need haircuts or criminal records to sell themselves. They’ve got songs.
These nuggets of red hot rock and roll build upon a tradition of the music they love, from Johnny Cash and Little Richard all the way through to Motorhead and Pantera, creating a sound variously described as “a brash sleazy garage mix of punk and metal†or more succinctly, “music to strangle dogs to.†This is not music for anguished bedroom hours spent worrying about girls, it’s loud, fast and thrives on whiskey, cigarettes and an incendiary stage show.
So far, The Smoking Hearts have sold all 750 copies of their limited first self-released CD, Blood Money, three slabs of brutally vital rock and roll, and have just put the finishing touches to its follow-up, Give ‘Em Hell with producer and occasional sixth member, Thundering Dave Kestrel. Blood Money received praise from fanzines as far away as Germany, brought the band to the attention of a major independent UK rock label, been played on independent radio on both sides of the Atlantic; Give ‘Em Hell shows even greater potential. However, it is in the live arena that the band truly excel, having played gigs the length and breadth of the UK alongside the likes of The King Blues, Capdown and Winnebago Deal, as well as supporting Misfits on their 2005 UK tour.
As long as haircuts and rock star feuds continue to sell records, The Smoking Hearts will be there on the frontline, providing a punk n roll antidote to their far less substantial contemporaries.
The Smoking Hearts are:
Rodd Lethal – Voice
Nobba – Guitar
Barker – Guitar
Rev. Spark L Horse – Drum set
Rotixx – Bass guitar
The Smoking Hearts - Give Em The Suit - Music Video!
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