The Broken Ribs And Cracked Heads Of Brisbane's The Strums

With their new EP, Brisbane quartet The Strums are stating it true: We Are A Fucking Rock N Roll Band. And if their recent misadventures are anything to go by, they're certainly living up to the title.

Frontman Jai Sparks has been in the wars, reinjuring broken ribs (suffered in a cycling accident) while crowdsurfing at a Toowoomba gig with Wolfmother, going through a table mid-set at Caxton Street Seafood & Wine Festival, and carving a nice gash in his noggin while supporting The Bennies at Crowbar, the end result being a trip to the emergency ward and some head glue – not before completing the gig though.

"I was having a beer and I thought I should probably go to hospital, and then it started getting a bit foggy."

“I usually just jump up on the kit and muck around, and I [did that] and smacked my head on a metal beam coming down,” Sparks remembers. “It hurt but it wasn't that bad; I just thought I was sweating heaps. But then looking at the reaction from the audience I thought, 'Something's happened.' You bleed a lot when it comes from your head, and I hadn't had a full head crack like that before.

“I was feeling a bit weird [after the show]; I was having a beer and I thought I should probably go to hospital, and then it started getting a bit foggy,” chuckles Sparks. “But they glued it all back together essentially; there's still glue stuff falling off at the moment. But we're always getting hurt, there's always something happening. It would be boring without it.”

Hard working and hard living, clearly, The Strums recorded their new four-track live, together, with an agreed maximum limit of four takes to get the songs album ready.

“The idea recording was if it was any [more real] we'd be in your lounge room playing it at your face,” Sparks enthuses. “We gave ourselves that challenge and if we couldn't get it in four then we weren't going to get it, and the only song that took four takes was the song that didn't get on – all the tracks on there were either one or two takes. At the end of the day if your band's no good live you probably shouldn't play.”

Adding to the occasion of this release is the first official Strums fan tattoo. And far from being shy about it, the inside lip piece was inked up on video, with the band using the footage in the promo clip for the EP.

“This chick has one tattoo on her back but she's not tattoo crazy or anything, and she says, 'I'm thinking about getting a Strums tattoo,' and I said, 'That's a pretty big commitment,'” Sparks laughs. [So I asked] if we could pay for it and exploit the whole thing because it's brilliant. But we released the film a bit earlier because everyone thought we were having them on, it was just photoshopped or something, but it's legit.”