There aren’t many bands who admit to discriminating against parts of their audience.

But turn up to a gig by Australian four-piece The Beards without facial fuzz and prepare to feel alienated.

To say the band is obsessed with chin foliage would be an understatement.

Each member of the band has a full beard and a beard name they live by: frontman Johann Beardraven, bassist Nathaniel Beard, drummer John Beardman Jr and guitarist Facey McStubblington.

Every song they have written over the course of three albums is about beards – including Got Me A Beard; It Only Takes A Fortnight To Grow A Beard; You Should Consider Having Sex With A Bearded Man; and If Your Dad Doesn’t Have A Beard, You’ve Got Two Mums.

Their latest European tour is entitled Euro-bout To Grow A Beard.

And their stated aim is to do “whatever is necessary to make sure people grow beards”.

“Having a beard makes you superior in every way, whatever field you choose to follow,” says Beardraven.

“We are obviously musicians, we followed that path, but our beards are so good if we wanted to take an engine apart or fly a rocket into space we would be equally good at that.

“We celebrate all types of beard as long as they are proper beards. I don’t know if you can call a soul patch a beard, and we don’t like moustaches.

“We want you to have a full beard, from sideburn to sideburn. If you’ve got a beard, you’re all right with us."

There are, of course, some of our population who are physically unable to grow the correct chin appendage – but Beardraven believes there are ways around this problem.

“Women come to our gigs wearing false beards,” he says. “If they have got long hair, they can tie it around their face to create a fake beard. We would rather a fake beard on your face than no beard at all – you’ve got to hide your beardless shame.

“Women should be supportive and only date men with beards. I think with women a lot of it is a state of mind. When it comes to growing beards, they give up too easily.”

Beardraven claims not to remember a time when he didn’t have a beard, and follows in a line of proud beard-owners, with his parents both sporting facial hair.

“When the band started it was all about beards,” he says. “We didn’t play music, we just had beards and hung out together talking about them and yelling the word beard at each other.

“We would take to the stage and scream out the word ‘beard’. The initial gigs didn’t go well, then we learned to play instruments and the songs got better.”

With three beard-centric albums already out, and a fourth written and half-recorded, the band’s hairy obsession isn’t waning.

“The songs come more naturally now,” says Beardraven. “Because our beards are longer and better, we are better as people. We are more inspired than ever to express our love of beards.

“I’ve tried to write songs that aren’t about beards but I find it doesn’t work – it creeps into every area of my life. I don’t know anything else other than a love for beards.”

And the beard is definitely here to stay, with Beardraven denying any dark nights of the soul staring at the mirror with the razor in his hand.

“Asking questions like that, you don’t understand how pro-beard we are,” he says. “We would never entertain such thoughts. We are going from strength to strength as our beards go from strength to strength.”

But in reality, is the beard simply a metaphor for a man’s place in a post-feminist world?

“I just say having a beard is the right thing to do. We are certainly not trying to make any statement – other than ‘I look great’.”