As the members of British Sea Power are first to admit, rock music seldom sits well with the great outdoors. It may have its roots in rural American music - blues and country - but it long ago became a predominantly urban phenomenon. "It's always cities that inspire music," notes frontman Scott Wilkinson as we trudge up a hill outside Firle, East Sussex. "People think it's hard to put this kind of thing in a song. They have an idea of glamour, of what is exciting, and it always seems to come from cities."
Indeed, over the years, the countryside has taken on slightly negative connotations in rock music. It's the place where self-indulgent hippy bands went to "get it together", or jaded rock stars from Jimmy Page to Noel Gallagher cut themselves off from the rest of humanity in rambling mansions. "It's seen as the antithesis of rock music, but walking in the outdoors gives you the same exhilaration as music," frowns guitarist Martin Noble, a rambler and birdwatcher since his teens, who arrived this morning fully prepared with rucksack, walking boots and Ordnance Survey map. "It can move you in the same way that music does."
Martin has a point: it's a sorry soul indeed that isn't thrilled to bits by the view from Firle Beacon, which stretches over the Sussex Downs and includes British Sea Power's current base of operations, a house in the tiny village of Selmeston, where they're recording the follow-up to last year's Mercury-nominated Do You Like Rock Music? "I've noticed, since we moved there, that people in the countryside are still wearing almost exactly the same clothes that they were when I was a kid, growing up in the Lakes," says Scott. "The countryside doesn't change much. It's resistant to fashion, which is another reason the music scene might consider it pretty unfriendly."
And so the quartet remain anomalous: a band whose inspiration comes not from an urban environment, but a rural one. They went through a phase of decking their stages out with foliage and stuffed birds and are famed for eschewing the comfort of hotels for camping while on tour. They have organised their own mini-festival at "the highest pub in the UK", Cumbria's Tan Hill Inn (instead of a support act there was a talk on local birds of prey) and played "Britain's most westerly gig" in a Scilly Isles pub. "We were advertised as 'a band from the charts'," notes Scott.
But it's the Sussex countryside with which their music is most associated: perhaps uniquely among current indie rock bands, they have a song about the beauty spot of Cuckmere Haven. Indeed, British Sea Power's songs come so heavily loaded with references to the area that fans have already organised a walk that mirrored a number of today's locations. The impetus seems to come mainly from Martin and the band's bassist, Scott's brother Neil. Neil can't be with us today, having just moved to a house on the Isle of Skye that apparently has neither hot water nor a toilet. "When he lived here, he used to go through phases where he'd just walk off," says Scott. "I don't mean, like, round the corner, I mean 20 miles. I used to live with him and you'd see him getting a bit restless and he'd say, 'I think I'm going to sleep outside tonight', and he'd just walk off into the countryside with a sleeping bag."
There are plenty of churches on the 14km circuit we are walking - at Berwick, the murals were provided by members of the Bloomsbury group - but the one that looms largest in British Sea Power mythology is located on a hill in Lullington. Neil chanced upon it during one of his "tramps", and it inspired a beautiful song, The Smallest Church in Sussex. The song details its history - "it once was larger" it notes, most of the original building having being destroyed under Cromwell - hymns its solitude and features the haunting sound of the church's organ, recorded surreptitiously. Today Scott gives it a quick try: it's still in working order.
The walk takes us through, and arrives back at, Firle, which brings us to the Ram Inn, the unlikely venue in which British Sea Power launched their first album. After playing alongside Sussex folk singers the Copper Family ("they didn't want paying, they just wanted a keg of Harveys Ale," nods Scott approvingly), they camped in the pub garden. "Three-quarters of the band come from the Lake District and this place was the nearest thing we could find to the Lake District around Brighton," says Martin. "We had about a hundred people in the back room." It now functions as the gastropub's dining room. We order lunch, and Martin returns to the theme of British Sea Power's improbable relationship with the Sussex countryside: "The hills here are really smooth. It's not difficult terrain, but it's beautiful. There's a sense of magic about it. And walking gives you thinking time. Your thinking is more productive if you're moving at the same time." And with that, they drain the last of their pints and head back to Selmeston to finish their album.
• Alexis Petridis walked route 3924 (British Sea Power's Sussex), a "moderate" 16km.
