Hard-Fi. A household name of the indie/ alternative scene in the early 2000’s, a band once nominated for the Mercury Prize and two Brit Awards, and one of few bands to play five consecutive sold-out shows at Brixton Academy off the back of their debut album, ‘Stars Of CCTV’. I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with frontman Richard Archer to satisfy the curiosity of all indie rock fans whose adolescence may have very well been soundtracked by the authentically British lyricism of Hard-Fi. We touched upon the band’s experience playing in Scotland throughout the years at the infamous Barrowlands and King Tuts, their early beginnings as songwriters, and advice for bands navigating the current indie scene.
“The idea for doing an EP rather than an album was this whole, kind of, the band’s getting back together! Wahey the lads are back together! thing was no grand plan, it was more of the back of a fag packet kinda situation. And so, the way it sort of evolved was more like we did a gig, it went down really well so let’s do some more shows, okay, what are we gonna do now? Next year is the 20th year anniversary of the Stars Of CCTV album which we wanna mark somehow, and, you know what, the first Hard-Fi record was an EP, so we thought let’s do an EP and get some new music out there. It would be a nice thing to have and it means we can get on and do what we wanna do next year and whatever.”
Hard-Fi live in 2024. Photo credit: garymatherphotography.
“There’s a couple of songs on there that are brand new, there’s one that we wrote a couple of years ago and revisited in a Hard-Fi style (‘Always and Forever‘), and there’s also one we wrote 10 years ago, because after the third album (‘Killer Sounds‘), we started writing for a fourth album and then realised everyone had got fed up, so we sort of… stopped, so it’s one of those tunes that I always thought, “Aw, I’ve always liked this tune!”.
But with, ‘Don’t Go Making Plans’ for instance, it started off as this groove, quite happy sounding, so I wanted this slightly heavier lyric to counterpoint that. At the time, this was last year, seeing a government who basically didn’t seem to give a shit about anybody, and was not making any effort to make anyone’s lives better, instead just wanting to make stuff better for their mates and their cronies. That came together quite quickly and was very timely, so there’s a broad spread in there, touching on stuff that’s happening in the world and other stuff that’s more retrospective and focusing on quite nostalgic, thinking back to falling in love for the first time and those feelings you got, and realising that you won’t have that again.”
“Back then we recorded our first album by ourselves on a laptop in an old taxi office, but if you recorded more than 10 or 12 things it would crash and just give up, whereas now you can do literally anything.”
Ahead of their November UK tour in release of the EP, Hard-Fi make their long-awaited return to Glasgow at the Garage on November 25th. Richard reminisced with me some of his most favoured memories of playing in Scotland in the past:
“The one that really stuck with us was Barrowlands, because we had some incredible shows there, I think we played there 2 or 3 nights in a row, and it was just… bananas. It had a great atmosphere, I was walking around before the gig trying to find a football so we could have a kick about and a lady accosted me, like, “Oh, we’re coming to the show!” and gave me a little tour of the area, it was so nice, and then the shows were MAD. I really get why everyone goes on about it. King Tut’s as well, we played there the night out first single charted! So yeah, we’ve got loads of little fond memories of playing up there, and always seemed to pinpoint highlights of our career.”
Archer then went on to discuss the band’s early beginnings throughout their time cutting their teeth in the live circuit, going from playing in bars to 200 people to supporting Green Day in Milton Keynes in front of 60,000 people. He spoke of modern up and coming acts that have caught his ear, such as Amyl and the Sniffers, Good Health Good Wealth and Tom A. Smith.
I asked Richard for any advice to give to new bands on the scene to which he replied, “I don’t know if I’m the right person to ask!”, before presenting me with a surfing analogy of riding the wave at the right time, comparing Hard-Fi’s rise coinciding with a flourishing scene of British bands like Kasabian, The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, Maximo Park and Kaiser Chiefs:
“In one week you could go out and you could see us, you could see Kasabian and all these bands, it wasn’t too much money then either, so a lot of it is just timing really. If we had come out 2 or 3 years earlier, no one would have given a shit.”
“It’s like waiting for a wave, I’ve never been surfing so I’m talking out my arse here, but I IMAGINE it’s like waiting for a wave when you’re a surfer, you’ve gotta pick your moment. But… if you’re not out there on your surfboard, you’re not gonna… christ, I sound like Alan Partridge here…”
Hard-Fi play Glasgow’s Garage on Monday 25th November, get your tickets here https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/hard-fi-glasgow-25-11-2024/event/3600608AD71036DE.
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