Hard-Fi’s Richard Archer has spoken to NME about the ‘00s rock band’s first tour in over a decade, new material in the works and getting kicked off David Walliams’ table at the Mercury Prize in 2005.
The band, who reunited last year following a 10 year hiatus, have played sporadic shows including a sold-out gig at the Kentish Town Forum last October. But their first full tour since 2012 kicks off tonight (October 5) at the Cambridge Junction, culminating at London’s Troxy on October 21.
At their peak, the Staines indie rockers sold over a million copies of 2005 debut ‘Stars Of CCTV’ and were nominated for the Mercury Prize, reportedly missing out by just one panel vote to ANOHNI’s ‘I Am a Bird Now’. They also equalled the record held by Bob Dylan, The Prodigy, The Clash and Massive Attack by playing five sold-out nights at Brixton Academy in 2006.
Archer revealed that the band was exploring what Hard-Fi had to say in 2023 on their forthcoming new tracks, spoke about the band’s stratospheric rise and dissected the state of indie rock today.
NME: Hi Rich, how are you enjoying the reunion?
Archer: “It’ll be interesting when we finally get to go out and start playing some shows. It seems like it’s been forever getting to this point and suddenly we’ve got no time. It’s been great to be in a room rehearsing together and generally we’re really excited.”
What have you got planned for the tour?
“We’re working on new material and we’re going to do one or two new tunes in the set. But we are conscious that a lot of the places are going to, Liverpool for instance, we haven’t played there since 2007, maybe even earlier than that. So we’re gonna play the singles, play the hits that people want to hear, a couple of things that we haven’t done before live from the back catalogue, but generally we are aware that we haven’t been out there for a while. So let’s just get out there, play the songs people want to hear, not do loads of new stuff yet. At some point we will.”
What can you tell us about the new material?
“At the moment it’s all over the place in that there’s some ideas I’ve had sat for a while now that I keep thinking I’m gonna do something with, and then other new stuff. It’s still early doors, but we’re just trying to try to work out what it is that Hard-Fi wants to say now. ‘Stars of CCTV’ seems more relevant now than it did back in 2005, almost. A lot of the subjects are more prescient now perhaps, so, it’s just trying to figure out what is it we want to say, and sonically what do we want to be doing? We’re trying lots of different things out to see what resonates.”
Is it going to be something that throws back to the ‘00s or something completely new?
“There’s always going to be certain things that sound like us, so there will always be elements of that. But it’d be interesting to just try different stuff. Often you’ll do something and you’ll go, ‘That doesn’t sound like a Hard-Fi song’ and it become something else, and sometimes you’ll do something that’s like, ‘That’s not what I’d expect a Hard-Fi record to be but it seems to fit somehow’.
“So it’s just a little bit of experimenting, trying different things and seeing what fits. We’ve just been working on this track the last couple of days in between rehearsing the set and stuff and I’ve always loved synths. My first love was The Human League, so there’s a few more synths on it. Has that fit? It seems to work.”
Are there particular current topics that that fit in well with Hard-Fi in 2023?
“Looking at things from the point of view now of being older, having been around, seen a few things, learned a few life lessons. Having kids, you look back at stuff sometimes thinking about things you might have done differently. Those sliding doors moments in your life. There’s so much going on in the world that you could talk about and comment on and critique or whatever. But there’s always that thought at the back of my mind that people know that, do they wanna be reminded of it or do they want to forget about it and think about something else?
“When we wrote ‘Stars Of CCTV’, even though the subjects were talking about what was happening, it wasn’t really as on purpose. It was just talking about our lives and when we were growing up, writing about we knew and trying to make a point about it in some ways. We want to do what feels good and not worry too much, like we did on album one. We just want to enjoy the process and not be pressured into making the new ‘Hard To Beat’.”
How do you look back at your initial rise now?
“We were lucky in some ways because there were a lot of new British bands coming along and there was an ear for it. People wanted to hear about it, they wanted to listen. I always had quite a lot of impostor syndrome but looking back at it now, it was really good and I should have enjoyed the moment a little bit more.
“If you’re into to indie music, it was a great time – there were so many good bands about, you could go and see us, Futureheads, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, all in one week, all touring. Obviously, things are very different now. I know how difficult it is to be a new band or a new act. It should be really great with all the things open to you, but it’s just made it so much harder to be heard.”
How did you feel being the spokesman of the forgotten satellite town generation?
“We never felt that that was what we were trying to say. And then people go, ‘You remind us of The Clash, you remind us of The Specials’. And you go, ‘Oh, right, is that what we are?’ We were just some friends making music. I love The Specials, I love The Clash, they are a big influence, but it was as much Northern Soul and French house music of the 1990s. Daft Punk and Stardust, I loved all that, I loved music that makes you want to get up and throw yourself about a bit.
“We ended up having this laddy, geezery thing that people decided we were, and that wasn’t anything like us. The reason we made music was that our town was all chart house clubs and stuff like that. We’ve always felt like we were the outsiders.”
Was it eye-opening to live it up with A-list?
“I’m not sure I ever did. I remember when we were at the Mercury Awards, we got turfed out because we were sat at David Walliams’ table. So they kicked us out. ‘Sorry, David Walliams needs your table, you’ve got to go now’. We were always slightly one step away from the A-list. But my A-list, to go on stage with Paul Weller and Mick Jones and Billy Bragg. They were moments I’ll never forget.
“We did ‘E=MC2’ with Mick and he hadn’t played it since [Big Audio Dynamite] were around back in ‘80s and he was just finding the riff again, suddenly he played it and he started doing the BVs and it sent shivers down your spine. And Paul playing some amazing guitar solo over ‘Stars Of CCTV’, those were really, really cool moments.”
Why do you think the success didn’t sustain?
“Because the first album had done so well and we were this international priority, which meant you had to go everywhere, it was like two years before we came back with a second album, which then felt like we had to make it in about five minutes. When we came back out again, it felt like the whole world had changed. Everyone’s got a broadband connection so suddenly the whole market changed. People were downloading stuff and the music scene changed so quickly. Suddenly we felt like we didn’t quite fit into this anymore.
“Because the first [album] had done so well there was always this pressure that every song has to be a potential single. Every one has to be a banger, has to be as good as that first album and do the things it did. Everything just fucking takes ages and everyone second guesses everything. You go back to the demo and go, ‘This is great…how can we add on an orchestra?’”
How do you see the state of indie rock today?
“There’s lots of great indie and alternative music out there. But there’s not a real champion for it anymore. If you look at the radio stations that play it, they don’t tend to play a lot of new stuff, they play a lot of old stuff. Even the NME has a much broader remit. It’ll equally talk about Taylor Swift as it will about the latest three-piece post-punk band. It’s a much wider thing, which is great.
“Even something like 6 Music is a much broader church musically than that. So for it to thrive, whatever comes out has to be brilliant. I still believe that if someone comes out with a brilliant tune, it will cut through, but it’s quite hard to do. A lot of the bands we love grew and developed over albums. It’s getting to the point now where you can’t even get a gig at a pub without having a booking agent. How on earth do you learn your trade? I think there’s lots of different aspects as to why it’s gone underground. It’s a shame, but something will pop up and suddenly everyone will be into it again.”
Hard-Fi’s upcoming UK tour dates are below. Visit here for tickets and more information.
OCTOBER
5 – Cambridge, Junction
6 – Sheffield, The Leadmill
7 – Leeds, Beckett University
9 – Glasgow, SWG3 Galvanizers
11 – Newcastle, NX
12 – Liverpool, O2 Academy
13 – Birmingham, O2 Institute
15 – Bristol, O2 Academy
16 – Oxford, O2 Academy
17 – Brighton, Chalk
19 – Norwich, UEA
20 – Nottingham, Rock City
21- London, Troxy