Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: Wild At Heart.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club play Splendour In The Grass at the Belongil Fields in Byron Bay on Saturday.

"It's Germany today," Robert Turner says. His voice is remarkably un-American for a man born and raised in San Francisco. "I'm surprised I remembered. Usually it's that kind of tour. Actually, usually I don't like to know here I am. It's cool getting to go to a new place every day or two and to wake up and you don't know where you are. It's a good thing."

The bassist for white-hot rockers Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is also quite used to roadwork. Since forming BRMC with guitarist Peter Hayes and drummer Nick Jago in 1998, the ultimate new garage band - Robert and Peter met at school and did begin writing, playing and cutting four-track demos in their garage - have spent the last year and a half touring in support of a debut album, BRMC, that literally kicked out the jams with its ethereal rock and burning white noise psychedelica.

Revelling in the luxury of being upgraded from van to tour bus, Turner laughs, "Upgraded, renovated, restored. That’s us. This is kind of like the never-ending tour though. We began in November 2000, and I think it’s now 250 shows or something but we've put a stop on everything in September. That's when we'll cut the next record.”

“We've had week off and couple of weeks off and as good it was, it was kind of frightening because you go through this period of shock and depression. There's something physical to do with your body constantly moving and being in constant movement so that when you stop like at home or sitting down it makes no sense to your body which still wants to be moving. It's a very physical thing. It's weird."

Originally named The Elements, the trio quickly renamed themselves Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - after Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in the 1950 classic street flick, The Wild One - after discovering there were plenty of other elements out there. When their 11-track debut emerged in 2001 critics took it in turns to go nuts.

"I didn't have any idea that the press would like it this much," Turner says. “And I'm usually of the school that if the press do like something that much then you are probably doing something wrong. It's been a fortunate thing because we haven't the support from radio and that world. It's been the thing that kept us going and got our name around."

BRMC make music that puts rock back on its pedestal. A shuddering, vast, quaking semi-psychedelic brood that echoes emotional catharticness, reflection meets honesty in a layers of fuzzed out chords and reverb. It's simply glorious.

"Our album is lot more subtlety than we'd like," Turner says. "Our live show is our chance to make up for one minor mistake. The songs have a lot of feeling and energy to them. It's all there if we go to that place. It's alright because the record's the place where you make all those subtleties and variations. I like records that you listen to them a lot of times and you don't catch everything at first, you've got to keep listening; they open up to you later. Albums I like the most, I often hate when I first hear them.”

"For a live show we really just like to make people wake up. We don't do many of the slower songs. We've never played Too Real live. We'll only play As Sure As the Sun or Head Up High. We don't play both in one night. We just like to keep the energy up. Actually, we're playing quite a few new songs."

And the next record?

"We're probably going to record in Europe and we'll produce it ourselves. We've become a better band live in the last year and that's the main thing we want to get across - without any bullshit. One of the first things we worked out was that your limitations are your greatest strengths. if you can draw more out of one pedal or one guitar, you'll get more feel than playing with any amount of machines or buttons. That's a really fundamental thing about this band. That's why we kept it a three-piece, that's why we never use taps, DATS or anything live or add another member. The more feeling or power that comes across live and on record from making good on what you work with, extracting the most from one thing, that's what we're about."

Turner's personal ambitions are as easily defined: to make music, make albums, play with Peter and Nick. "Keep it simple. That's what really does matters to me. Everything else is really a sacrifice to keep that going."