Interview: Hard Fi

You never really want to talk to the drummer, now do you? Let’s face it, there were never enough Keith Moon’s to go around. Ten long minutes in the company of Athletes’s drummer is enough evidence any man wants. Although with Hard-Fi it’s a little different. Two minutes into interviewing sticks man Steve Kemp and it’s clear why the band split press time as much as they do. Touted as the voice of suburban Britain, boy do Hard-Fi talk a good game.

We begin with this commonly felt idea that with 'Stars of CCTV', Hard-Fi have struck a chord with a rather large, forgotten about part of society. ”I don’t know if we’re the voice of suburban England or not” admits Kemp. “But the main thing people say to us at gigs or on the streets is that they’ve been waiting for a band like us to come along since Oasis and even before that, maybe as far back as The Specials, who are talking about stuff that they know about.” Comparisons with the above are well founded with the band counting Liam Gallagher, Jeffrey Damners and Neville Staples as admirers. In fact, as I discover, at a Rock against Racism show in September, “Terry Hall told us he understood what we were talking about. Staines was similar to Coventry in the sense that you dream of escaping it.”

Stars of CCTV was born out of the pram pushing, opportunity draining suburbia of Staines. Front man Richard Archer was broke, bored and frustrated. With Cash Machine, Living For The Weekend and Leave Here Now he let us know all about it. In many ways these songs are to Blair’s Britain what Ghost Town was to Thatcher’s version twenty years before. However the mass appeal has been far greater. “It’s not some horrible autobiographical album. It’s amazing how many people have related to what we were talking about and it’s not just satellite towns of England. Of course there’s places like Staines all over England where it’s boring, there’s nothing to do, where everything gets sucked into the big city and you dream of escape. But we’ve spoken to people in Finland, Japan and mid west America who relate to it so it’s really transcended and I’m very proud of that fact.

On first listen these themes are deceptively hidden beneath an immediately exciting- if difficultly pinned down- sound. It’s part Strummer, part Albarn, part Stardust! Steve Kemp acknowledges that this is an enviable position but one reached organically. “We were never anyone’s band to pigeon hole. I think there’s always been a great history in Britain of bands taking a kind of music and turning it their own way. As far back as Rolling Stones, they took what was R n’ B music at the time and turned it into their own sound. The same with The Clash and dub, and later bands like Massive Attack fusing hip-hop, soul and reggae. That’s just always been interesting for us. We didn’t set out to be anything; we just started to make music in our own particular way.

What is most striking about Hard-Fi is the sort of ambition bereft of most indie bands. Richard Archer has spoken (fervourently) about not being in competition with Razorlight or The Killers but challenging the Eminem’s of this world instead. Steve continues in a similar vein. “We never wanted to be a big fish in a small pond or just be cool in Camden. We’ve always wanted to be a big band; it’s just natural for us. I think bands are scared of failing and are just comfortable selling a few thousand records. We’ve never been about it. We’re not saying we are going to be one of the biggest bands in the world but we’re going to give it a go. We’ve failed before and we can deal with it again.

America is the next stop and interest is picking up. The summer will be spent on the festival circuit and then it’s back home for album number two with admission that “most of it is written already and there’s some pretty good tunes on there.” Now that Hard-Fi have swapped life in Staines for a life on the road with a few extra quid in their back pockets, it’ll certainly be a touch act to follow.