Hard-Fi: Difference between revisions

Hard-Fi are an English indie rock band formed in Staines, Surrey in 2003. Staines is a suburban location 16 miles (26 km) southwest of Central London that has significantly influenced their musical style and lyrics. The band's continual members have been Richard Archer (vocals), Kai Stephens (bass guitar), Ross Phillips (guitar) and Steve Kemp (drums).

They achieved chart success with their third single, "Hard to Beat"^[1] and then followed by other successful singles such as "Cash Machine"^[2] and "Living for the Weekend",^[3] which all reached top 15 in the UK Singles Chart.^[4] Their debut album Stars of CCTV was released on 4 July 2005,^[5] and although receiving critical acclaim (NME called it album of the year and was nominated for the Mercury Prize and two BRIT Awards, Best British Group and Best British Rock Act^[6]), it didn't reach #1 in the UK albums chart until six months later on 22 January 2006.^[7] It originally peaked at number 6.^[8] The band's second album, Once Upon a Time in the West, was released on 3 September 2007^[9] and reached number 1 in its first week.^[10]

They are generally considered part of the indie rock scene,^[11] although Richard Archer has mentioned numerous times that they are heavily influenced by Soul and Dance music.^[12]

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 as ska. 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".

Upon starting out, Hard-Fi often listened to music through the medium of radio and the internet, read magazines and watched music videos. As a band, they felt no up-and-coming bands really connected their lyrics to their own lives. Hard-Fi wanted to change this with their own style.

When making a song, Archer said:

I write the songs on an acoustic guitar or piano; you'll get different natural chord shapes on a guitar, so sometimes it can be interesting to go and do it on a piano, where you might play a different progression. So I'll do a demo of it and take it to the guys who will turn it into a Hard-Fi tune really; they'll put their spin on it. We'll edit it live together, mix and cut it up a lot as we go, and record it. We owe as much to hip hop and dance techniques as rock as we've grown up as part of the dance generation.^[13]

Hard-Fi's lyrics are based mostly on working class life, the band themselves coming from a self sufficent suburban lifestyle. ^[14] Most notable in tracks such as "Suburban Knights" ("Those bills keep dropping through my door") and "Living for the Weekend" ("I've been working all week I'm tired"), while other songs such as "Tonight", despite still being about suburban life, focus more on ambitions. Some songs are also based on social realism, "Feltham is Singing Out" is inspired by Zahid Mubarek^[15] someone who is sent to the Feltham Young Offenders' Institution and is murdered by his racist cellmate.

Other songs, such as "Better Do Better" and "Move on Now", are centred around the premise of how hard romantic relationships can be. Once Hard-Fi were becoming successful Archer's mother had passed away, the song "Help Me Please" is about how difficult it was for him having his dreams come true after many unsuccessful bands but realises he has no parents to share the joy with. Similarly, "The King" is about Archer returning to Staines and finding everything completely different, and realising everything of which he knew and loved had disappeared. Archer describes "Little Angel" as Christina Aguilera having a fight with The Clash in a northern Soul club. ^[16]

Following the release of Once Upon a Time in the West, the band received criticism for still singing about "bills dropping through their doors" despite not being poor anymore. Other publications label the lyrics as bland, such as the NME review of the album.^[17]

Lee Scratch, a grammy award-winning reggae and dub artist, had a recording studio called "Black Ark"^[18], which the sound produced in there, was described as "Hard-Fi". The band being admirers of Lee Scratch's work decided to name the band after that. Archer said "Since then I've been desperately trying to find the biography where I read it; but I may have dreamt it."^[19]

Richard Archer decided to return to his hometown of Staines, crushed by the lack of success his former band Contempo and by 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.

In the wake Contempo splitting up Archer claims that music business insiders tried to dissuade the band's manager Warren Clarke from managing him. When Archer asked his publishers for some money to record the new songs that he had written, they terminated his contract instead. "People told him, don't bother with Archer, he's damaged goods, you're wasting your time'."^[14][20]

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 asked Archer who played guitar on his his demos, AArcher said that it was himself which is when Phillips said it was 'shit',^[21] 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".^[22]}}

The band were signed to newly formed independent label, Necessary Records, owned by Clarke. The majority of Stars of CCTV was recorded 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 successful than the band had imagined. In a disused mini cab office, which cost them about £300, is where most the album was recorded and is known to this day as the "Cherry Lips" Studio. The band used to try and make their music sound more environmental by putting a microphone in the corridor, this added echoe, however, people would walk passed whistling or humming as well as the fact that planes would fly by and could be heard while the band recorded the album, and, if listened to carefully, can still be heard on the record as the band could not get rid of it. 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...".

Archer desperately tried to generate publicity for the band through the Staines Observer, however, 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 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.

Their debut album's launch party was scheduled to be 7 July 2005 at Cheekees night club in Staines, however this was cancelled due to the ill health of Richard's mother. Her death resulted in the band pulling out of the Glastonbury festival. The launch party was rescheduled for 13 July 2005 and the venue changed to Ladbroke Grove, London.

After a successful marketing campaign by Atlantic, the Stars of CCTV album re-entered the official UK album chart at #4 on 1 January 2006. Two places higher than it originally went in on the week of its release, the album climbed from #33 which was actually the best sales week for the album of 55,000 due to the busy Christmas period. Stars of CCTV finally climbed to #1 on 22 January 2006. The band's re-release of Cash Machine entered the official Top 40 singles chart at #14 on 1 January.

The album has reached sales of 1.2 million copies worldwide^[23] and sales of 300,000 in the UK alone.

Hard-Fi gained increased prominence in the UK when Stars of CCTV was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize alongside other albums such as A Certain Trigger by Maxïmo Park and Silent Alarm by Bloc Party.^[24] Hard-Fi reached the last two where they just lost out to Antony and the Johnsons.^[25]

In February 2006, the band were nominated for two BRIT Awards, Best British Group and Best British Rock Act, alongside international superstars such as Gorillaz, Franz Ferdinand and Oasis. Richard spoke about the nominations, "I don't think we'll win it, especially best group when you've got Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand and Gorillaz in there, they're kind of big hitters, but you never know, Burton drew with Man United". "Last week I would have probably said "nah it's all rubbish", but now I'm nominated "it's great" but what is good is that there's a real wide spread of stuff there, but there's no Best Dance award and the urban category is more pop than what's quality."^[26]

Hard-Fi expanded their taxi cab office which they used to record, or as they call it, the Cherry Lips making more room for equipment after having searched fruitlessly for a space. Frontman Richard Archer describes the record as "darker" and "more expansive".

The first single from the album was "Suburban Knights", released on 20 August. The 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 when the band launched it at the midnight in Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street, London with a live performance from a selected set list followed by a CD signing.^[27] The following day, to promote the album, the band performed at Maida Vale Studios to a small audience who earned their tickets through promotion. ^[28][29]

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 has received mixed criticism, mostly bad and has been slated as one of the worst of all time,^[30][31] however, top cover art designer Peter Saville has described it as "a 'White Album' for the digital culture."^[32][33]

On 9 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. However, the album was met with a mixed response from fans, those who loved the punk-ish "in your face rock" of the first album were left slightly disappointed, however some were pleased with the more dark tone of the album as it was a bit of a change.^[34] It also received mixed reviews from as high as a five star review (Observer Music Monthly)^[35] to as low as a two star review from The Times Online who also named it the second worst album of 2007.^[36]

This album has gone even further in the world than their debut album "Stars of CCTV" as it has reached Japan's Top 10 chart. Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Central America have began to show interest in the band as the first single from the album "Suburban Knights" charted in all of their respective charts, reachin #5 in Peru, alongside their second single "Can't Get Along (Without You)" which spen two weeks on #1 in Peru. On the 10th March 2008 the third single from 'Once Upon A Time In The West', 'I Shall Overcome' was released, more succesful than "Can't Get Along (Without You)" in the UK reaching #35, while it reached top five in Peru just like the previous two singles enering in at #4.^[37]

Hard-Fi's first live performance was in Manchester in 2003 before the band were signed.^[38]

Hard-Fi usually begin their concerts with all lights turning off and "The Man With a Harmonica" by Ennio Morricone playing in the background. Once the track picks up pace the band come on and usually play "Middle Eastern Holiday", this is then usually followed by "Gotta Reason". For encore the band usually play "Living for the Weekend" and more recently acoustic renditions of "The King" and "Stars of CCTV".^[39]

They played London's Brixton Academy from 14 May-18 May, making them one of the few bands to play five consecutive sold-out nights there and the first to do so off the back of their debut album.^[40] After the success of the Stars of CCTV album and of hit single Hard to Beat allowed them to end up in a mini-reunion of the Specials, performing Ghost Town with Jerry Dammers and Neville Staples at the Love Music Hate Racism gig.^[41] Mick Jones of the Clash is a renowned fan of the band, while Paul Weller^[42] came 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 quite inspirational towards Hard-Fi while they were recording Stars of CCTV, perhaps the Specials and the Clash being the larger influences.^[43]

Mick Jones also appeared with them performing E=MC² by his former band Big Audio Dynamite. Jones had previously helped produce tracks by Richard Archer's prior band, Contempo who had recorded a cover of London's Burning by The Clash.^[44]

Hard-Fi supported Green Day at their two gigs at Milton Keynes Bowl, England performing in front of a crowd of approximately 65,000 people. ^[45]

During December 2005, the band played at London's historic Astoria. This whole performance was filmed and the band released it on DVD called In Operation, the performance is in front of a hometown crowd, features all the tracks on Hard-Fi's 750,000 selling, #1 debut album Stars of CCTV, at the time brand new track "You And Me", which was later a B-Side to "Suburban Knights", and the band's version of "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes. It also comes backed with CCTVersions – an exclusive CD which features dubbed versions of album tracks, produced by guests including Roots Manuva and DJ Wrongtom.^[46]

In December 2005, the group released an iTunes exclusive EP featuring five of their songs played during their sessions at AOL studios. The EP was called Sessions@AOL and featured the songs Gotta Reason, Cash Machine, Hard to Beat, Unnecessary Trouble and Better Do Better.

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 (Without You)" 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.^[47] This event was found so exciting by the UK Festival Awards they actually nominated the event in the category for Most Memorable Moment.^[48]

Each concert from the band's December Uk Tour was recorded in its entirety on audio CD which could be ordered online through Concert Live or bought at the venue for £20.^[49] The CD was titled Once Upon a Time in December. The first 1500 people to pay received signed copies, while available to all payers came a bundle of the next single "I Shall Overcome" which included an exclusive download of the song as well as versions on vinyl, Maxi CD and a collectors' CD. All were delivered free of charge on day of release which was intended to be February 25, 2008 but ended up being 10 March, 2008.^{[50][51] [52]}

During Glastonbury, 2007, The band played at Damon Albarn's African Exprez stage. Archer says, "We played on Damon Albarn's Africa Express stage, we weren't the only band there, loads of other artists played. There were western artists and then obviously he'd bought over loads of African artists and I think that was the highlight of the whole of Glastonbury really. The rest you could say was just as commercial as any other festival now whereas that one was really keeping the original spirit of it. That was really just a grand moment, we just showed up and got up there"^[53]

Steve cuts Archer to say "We got showed up by some really class musicians"^[54]

Archer continues "Y'know, we're buskers in comparison, and I mean really bad buskers"^[55]

On 6 March, 2008, Franz Ferdinand, Reverend And The Makers and Hard-Fi teamed-up live onstage with a series of African musicians at Liverpool’s Olympia theatre as part of the Africa Exprez evening.^[56]

Other artists taking part included Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, The Aliens and Turin Brakes.

The show opened with every drummer in the building performing together.

Damon Albarn then made his first appearance of the evening introducing drummer Tony Allen, who joined the African pair.

Hard-Fi followed Damon Albarn's performance with Tony Allen who was the drummer in Albarn's nameless band often referred to by their album title, The Good, the Bad and the Queen. The band came on with Amadou And Mariam again joining in on 'We Need Love'. After that the band played a short set including 'Hard To Beat' and 'Suburban Knights' where they shared vocals with French-Algerian vocalist Rachid Taha. At the end Mehdi Haddab as they covered The Cure’s ’Killing An Arab’ by request.^[57]

• Clive Owen, Brixton Academy, May 15, 2006^[58] and Wembley Arena, December 18, 2007^[59]
• Hugh "Huey" Morgan, Brixton Academy, May 15, 2006^[60]
• Damon Albarn, Brixton Academy, May 15, 2006^[61]

• Richard Archer is the group's frontman as the lead singer and principal songwriter. He also plays guitar live occasionally, but more frequently as of late due to more recent tracks requiring more guitar input. He is a music graduate from Kingston University. The influence of Staines is often evident in his lyrics.

• Ross Phillips contributes guitar and backing vocals. He worked in a local hi-fi shop, in Staines where Archer would come to play his demos on the latest systems. After telling Archer his music was rubbish, Phillips was recruited to play lead guitar for the group.

• Kai Stephens plays bass and also sings backing vocals. He initially could not travel to the USA due to past misdemeanors. He has finally received his US visa.

• Steve Kemp plays drums. Originally from Lancashire but moved down in his late teens due to a course and never left.

• Stars of CCTV (2005) - #1 UK, #5 Ireland, #20 Germany, #29 World, #47 Austria, #68 France, #91 Netherlands
• Once Upon a Time in the West (2007) - #1 UK, #3 Ireland, #21 World, #39 Germany, #49 Switzerland, #51 Austria, #73 Netherlands, #99 France

• Sessions@AOL - EP (2005)
• In Operation / CCTVersions (2006) - #62 UK
• Once Upon a Time in December (2007)

• "Cash Machine" (2005) - #31 UK
• "Tied Up Too Tight" (2005) - #15 UK
• "Hard to Beat" (2005) - #9 UK, #39 US Modern Rock, #80 Germany
• "Living for the Weekend" (2005) - #15 UK
• "Cash Machine (re-release)" (2005) - #14 UK, #15 US Modern Rock, #39 Ireland, #60 Sweden, #75 Germany
• "Better Do Better" (2006) - #14 UK

• "Suburban Knights" (2007) - #5 Peru, #7 UK, #15 Ireland, #79 Germany
• "Can't Get Along (Without You)" (2007) - #1 Peru, #45 UK
• "I Shall Overcome" (2008) - #4 Peru, #35 UK

For Cash Machine the band released an X-rated version of the video for people to download on to their mobiles, featuring scenes that include nudity. 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.

In 2007, the band's podcast, Hard-Fi: Rockin' the City, was nominated for 'Best Podcast' at the Digital Music Awards. The song "Unnecessary Trouble" is featured prominently in the 2008 teen comedy Charlie Bartlett while "Hard to Beat" is featured in the 2006 film Employee of the Month.

• 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 and is also featured in the film Ensemble, c'est tout as well as Cash Machine.

• Cash Machine is also 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.

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.^[62]

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, including material from the likes of The Clash and Eminem.

Richard 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.^[63]

The band appeared as guests on the Friday Night Project on 10 August 2007 to promote their single Suburban Knights. They did not play live in Series 5, due to missing their flight back into the UK from Ibiza, and were therefore the first band to mime on the show. ^[64]

As well as The Automatic, Hard-Fi is the only band to have appeared twice as the Guest Band, excluding Razorlight who have appeared in an aired episode and in the show's pilot episode.

The band describe the day as "a real privilege. We played in front of a lot of people and learned a lot. We have a lot of good memories and new fans from these shows as well".

On November 23, 2007, Hard-Fi appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross where they performed a live rendition of "Tonight".^[65][66]

On December 1, 2007, the band performed the song "Television" on Saturday Night Live.^[67]

On February 15, 2008, Hard-Fi appeared on Al Murray's Happy Hour, performing their single 'I Shall Overcome' and a cover of Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust'.^[68]

The band have a very easy approach to downloading music. They have commented that,

It works both ways really, it's a really great way to discover a band - When we toured America our audience had only heard our material through internet, but this also means music is losing value now.^[69]

Official sites

• Official website
• Template:MySpace-music