Hard-Fi
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Hard-Fi |
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Hard-Fi are an award winning indie rock band from Staines, Surrey, UK, a suburban location and dormitory town 16 miles (25 km) southwest of London that has significantly influenced their musical style and lyrics, where they also came together in 2003. The band is made up of Richard Archer on vocals, Kai Stephens on bass guitar, Ross Phillips playing the guitar and Steve Kemp on drums. The band played their first show in 2003 in Manchester, which Archer describes as "A great, great honour for us", perhaps the most prominent show was that of the five sold out nights in Brixton.
Their debut album, Stars of CCTV saw success with the release of top ten hit single Hard to Beat followed by the success of a re-release of Cash Machine which reached #14 in the UK and #15 in the US Modern Rock Charts and other top 15 hit singles including Living for the Weekend and Tied Up Too Tight. The album itself was released July 4, 2005 and received critical acclaim, the NME called it album of the year, was nominated for the Mercury Prize [1], and reached #1 in the UK albums chart in January 22 2006, taking six months to make it to #1, its original peak position was #6.
Hard-Fi are usually considered part of the indie rock scene, alongside other bands such as Franz Ferdinand, Maxïmo Park, Arctic Monkeys and The Futureheads, however, their roots extend to 80s Punk Rock and 70s Ska.
Musical style
Hard-Fi's musical style is a mix of post-punk, indie and a Clash style of punk rock. They also take inspiration from other genres such us ska, most apparent in the song "We Need Love", and R&B, most notably in the song "Can't Get Along (Without You)". On Stars of CCTV, they had a very raw sound, loud guitars, and frequent use of guitar, in contrast to Once Upon A Time In The West, on which there is a lot more orchestration, the use of strings is very apparent, most notably in the song "Watch Me Fall Apart".
Lyrics
Hard-Fi's lyrics are based mostly on suburban life [2], living with little money and little hope. Most notable in tracks such as "Suburban Knights" and "Living for the Weekend". Other songs, such as "Better do Better", are centred around the premise of how hard romantic relationships can be. 'Help Me Please' is a track written about the death of Archer's mother. Archer describes "Little Angel" as Christina Aguilera having a fight with The Clash in a northern Soul club. [3]
History
Richard Archer (born January 18, 1973) was dragged back to his hometown of Staines, crushed by the lack of success his former band Contempo had seen and the death of his father after his struggle against cancer. "I moved back to Staines because I ran out of money and it was quite a shock," he says. "There's no record shops, there's no decent pubs, there's no venues, there's no decent clothes shops. Look around, it's quite pleasant but if you're a young person living here then you're into a certain type of music - chart house - and a certain fashion, and if you're not into that there is nothing here for you. Here, you can't get home if you're out in central London after eleven. There's no night bus, there's no late train, you have to get a cab if you can find one and that'll charge you eighty quid to get home from central London. A lot of people live like that."
While Archer was making demos to produce an album, he went inside the Staines hi-fi shop where Ross Phillips worked, wanting to buy equipment, simply so he could listen to his latest demos on the shop's best stereo gear. Philips apparently told Archer his demos were 'rubbish', and was therefore recruited to play guitar for the new group. Steve Kemp was already an old friend of Richard and Kai took little persuasion to leave his job as a "pest killer".
In the wake of Richard Archer's previous band, Contempo, splitting up, Archer claims that music business insiders tried to dissuade the band's manager Warren Clarke (not the actor of the same name) from managing him. "People told him, don't bother with Archer, he's damaged goods, you're wasting your time'."
The majority of Stars of CCTV was recorded in a disused mini cab office for about £300. Archer desperately tried to generate publicity for the band through the Staines Observer to no avail. "We sent them a press release and a photo," said Archer. "The press release was all like, the hard-hitting sound of the streets and stuff. And the article came out going, 'Richard Archer, former pupil of Thamesmead School ...' Whatever you say, they seem to be most interested in what school you went to."
The band were signed to newly formed independent label, Necessary Records, owned by Clarke. Stars of CCTV was then mixed in a variety of unusual acoustic environments - in bedrooms, in pubs, and played back in their producer, Wolsey White's, BMW. 1000 copies of this record were pressed with only 500 going on public sale, and the initial plan was to sell 1000 each time. However, it quickly sold out, receiving critical acclaim and radio play, proving a lot more succesful than the band had imagined. The band used the TL Audio Fatman compressor for the album, Archer said "It's alright, it's cheap, you don't have to know what you're doing...".
The band were then licensed to the Atlantic Records label (a major) in December 2004, where they were given the chance to re-record the album. The band were offered the chance to record in the renowned Abbey Road Studios among other well known studios however, the band went back to the cab office to maintain their sound. "Don't fix something that's not broken" says Archer.
Success and Stars of CCTV
Their debut album's launch party was scheduled to be July 7 2005 at Cheekees night club in Staines (where their top ten single "Hard to Beat" was filmed), however this was cancelled due to the ill health of Archer's mother. Her death resulted in the band pulling out of the Glastonbury festival. The launch party was rescheduled for July 13 2005 and the venue changed to Ladbroke Grove, London.
Hard-Fi gained increased prominence in the UK when Stars of CCTV was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize.[4] It split the vote with Antony and the Johnsons who received the final casting vote. With the album, Hard-Fi picked up BRIT nominations in the "British Rock Act" and "Best British Group" categories, alongside international superstars such as Gorillaz, Franz Ferdinand and Oasis
Hard-Fi supported Green Day at their two massive gigs at Milton Keynes Bowl, England performing in front of a crowd of approximately 65000 people.
After a successful marketing campaign by Atlantic, the Stars of CCTV album re-entered the official UK album chart at #4 on January 1 2006. Two places higher than it originally went in on the week of its release, the album climbed from #33. Stars of CCTV finally climbed to #1 on January 22 2006. The band's re-release of Cash Machine entered the official Top 40 singles chart at #14 on January 1. A week later the band toasted national recognition as they received two Brit award nominations.
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Hard-Fi's first full-length tour of 2006 sold out in just 15 minutes, calling for more dates to be added. They played London's Brixton Academy from May 14 to May 18, making them one of the few bands to play five consecutive nights there. After such rough times, success of the Stars of CCTV album and of hit single Hard to Beat allowed them to end up in an unlikely mini-reunion of the Specials, performing Ghost Town with Jerry Dammers and Neville Staples at the Love Music Hate Racism gig. Mick Jones of the Clash is a renowned fan of the band, while Paul Weller has actually turned up to their rehearsal rooms and jammed a version of A Town Called Malice, something of which Kai Stephens says "gives us bragging rights over all of Staines" All of these artists were actually quite inspirational towards Hard-Fi while they were recording Stars of CCTV, perhaps the Specials and the Clash being the larger influences. Big Audio Dynamite also appeared with them doing E=MC². He had previously helped produce tracks by Richard Archer's prior band, Contempo.
A song Hard-Fi seem to enjoy covering is Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, Archer explains that, "it's a modern classic" it features as a B-Side to the original CD release of Hard to Beat and is available for download on the iTunes Music Store with the rest of the Stars of CCTV album among other B-Sides such as 'Stronger' and 'Sick of it All'.
The other artists to have had 5 sold out consecutive nights in Brixton Academy were The Clash, Bob Dylan, Massive Attack, and The Prodigy. However, Hard-Fi were the only band to do it off the back of their debut album.
Media
For Cash Machine the band released an X-rated version of the video for people to donwload on to their mobiles, featuring scenes that include nudity. It is still available via download on the iTunes Music Store.
They also have their own video podcast, which is known as 'Hard-Fi: Rockin' the City', that can be downloaded from their official website. In the first episode the bandmates discuss how they formed, and the rise of their successful album Stars of CCTV. They also discuss becoming increasingly more recognised, playing huge gigs with Green Day at the Milton Keynes Bowl, their home-town of Staines, and how it has influenced their music style. This talk is coupled with clips of some of Hard-Fi's music videos such as "Hard to Beat", "Cash Machine", "Tied Up Too Tight" and "Living for the Weekend". Thirteen episodes have been released, so far, on iTunes. They are also available to view on their MySpace and their channel on Youtube.
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In 2007, the band's podcast, was nominated for 'Best Podcast' at the Digital Music Awards.
Living for the Weekend heavily featured in a sports clothing commercial in Ireland and a Carling beer commercial in the United Kingdom. It has also been featured on the Winter Olympics Special of BBC's Top Gear.
Hard to Beat was used by Sky Sports as the theme music for its pay-per-view channel, PremPlus.
Cash Machine is featured as part of the FIFA Manager 06 soundtrack.
Gotta Reason is featured on the soundtrack for FIFA 06.
Better do Better features in the Torchwood episode Small Worlds.
In the movie Ensemble, c'est tout, songs Cash Machine and Hard to Beat are featured.
Television appearances
Hard-Fi have appeared twice on Popworld interviewed by Simon Amstell, in one of these interviews it is found out that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays the role of Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series, is a fan of Hard-Fi's music.
Archer has also appeared as a guest on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
The band have also done an episode of 'Take Over' for MTV2 where an artist is allowed to take over the channel for 1 hour and play some of their favourite tracks.
Archer and drummer Steve Kemp also appeared on stv's Entertainment Now programme discussing Once Upon A Time In The West, its origins and the process of its creation.[5]
Once Upon a Time in the West
Hard-Fi built their own studio for the follow up to 2005's massive-selling debut album 'Stars of CCTV'. Having searched fruitlessly for a space, the Staines four-piece have retreated to their hometown for the record, which frontman Richard Archer describes as "darker" and "more expansive".
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The first single from the album was Suburban Knights, released on 20 August. The second single had its first play on 18 June 2007 at 19:20 (BST) on Radio 1. The album Once Upon A Time In The West was released on 3 September 2007. the band launched the album on the midnight of release at Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, London with a performance of a selected number of songs followed by a CD signing. The following day, to launch the album the band performed at Maida Vale Studios to a small audience who earned their tickets through promotion. [3]
Other tracks that appeared on the album included R&B swagger Can't Get Along, the 70’s ska-inspired We Need Love, ''Help Me Please'', a track written about the death of Richard's mother aoriginally released on the Help- A Day in the Life charity album, and a big piano-driven number Tonight.
Hard-Fi played a packed out 'secret' headlining slot on the Leftfield Stage on 23 June 2007 at Glastonbury. Although the band were still mixing the record at the time the crowd got to hear We Need Love, Can't Get Along and forthcoming single Suburban Knights before anyone else. The band also included a host of favourites from their debut album Stars Of CCTV. The band played a series of sold-out, intimate dates later in July 2007 previewing the record.
The album cover of Once Upon A Time In The West has a plain yellow background with the album title at the top, and NO COVER ART written in large, white letters below.
The artwork for their single, Suburban Knights, similarly features a plain black background, with, EXPENSIVE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO OF BAND NOT AVAILABLE written on the front in yellow writing. "We wanted to break the rules", Richard Archer said to NME. "We don't need some airbrushed band shot just because it might be expected. Fuck that. This is about the music." The artwork itself has received mixed critisism, mostly bad and has been slated as one of the worst of all time[6][7] however, top cover art designer Peter Saville has described it as "a 'White Album' for the digital culture."
On Sunday, 9th September, 'Once Upon A Time In The West' went straight in at #1 in the Album Charts giving the band a second #1 album following Stars of CCTV.
Members
Discography
List of studio albums:
-
Stars of CCTV July 4 2005
#1 (UK) -
In Operation May 8 2006
#62 (UK) -
Once Upon a Time in the West September 3 2007
#1 (UK), #5 (European Top Albums)
References
- ^ "Hard-Fi battle to beat Mercury odds". BBC.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Hard-Fi flash" (Flash). Hard-Fi.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ a b "NME TV - Hard-Fi track by track album interview" (HTML). NME.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) Cite error: The named reference "Video of Archer explaining each track on Once Upon a Time in the West" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). - ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4207346.stm
- ^ Hard-Fi: Still working Hard video interview with stv.tv/music
- ^ http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/08/always_judge_an_album_by_its_c.html
- ^ http://www.nme.com/news/hard-fi/30190
External links
Official sites:
- Official website
- Template:MySpace-music
- Hard-Fi fansite and Message Board
- Wrongtom's home page
- Wrongtom's Myspace
- Official Youtube channel
- Stars of CCTV e-card
Other links: