Hard-Fi: The Story So Far; A Chat With Singer Richard Archer
By: Andy Willson
Once upon a time, a long, long while ago... Staines (or Pontes as it was known back then) actually bared some importance in life. It was one of the main crossings over the Thames outside London, but unless you were around in Roman times the only place you'll have heard it mentioned last is via one of Ali G's faux-'big-ups' of its Westside 'massive'. Says a lot in itself. That was until four local lads clubbed their giros together and decided to do something with their lives, attempting to break free from their bleak, grey surroundings and put the town back on the proverbial map.
Instigator and singer Richard Archer took time out of a busy week to tell us more of the band that airplay and column-inches have made critical, prized space for since the opening embers of '005. After one failed attempt with Contempo, Richard was determined to persevere and twelve months ago drafted in Steve Kemp (drums), Kai Stephens (bassist) - who was working for Rentakill, no less - and Ross Phillips (guitarist), from the local hi-fi shop, to form Hard-Fi.
An unusual moniker to say the least, but Rich found the name in a Lee Scratch Perry biography, the very term Perry utilised to describe his studio. But when he looked for the slogan again, Rich couldn't quite source it, so it may well've been a dream. But he liked it. That was that. It's occasionally questioned, but, as Archer so saliently points out, one of Britain's biggest bands is named after a soft drink and a female clothes chain, so, truly, what's the issue?
Certainly more pivotal is the collective sound that's produced.
'I love the way 'Middle Eastern Holiday' turned out, and also 'Hard to Beat',' Archer enthuses of their impending, set-to-be-classic Jan release. 'But 'Cash Machine' has been sounding great on the radio and really stands up against tracks which must have cost 100,000 times that to make.'
And when money is tight, you can only work with what's available to you, so why not make use of the local minicab office, which has been converted into a studio, and get Wolsey White ('The Phil Spector of lo-fi', so-deemed by a revered UK rock publication) to produce your debut EP. Total cost? Less than £300. Listen carefully, and you can even hear the boiler in the background and occasional footsteps which can only add to the raw grittiness of the release. ('When you haven't got a lot of money, you have to be smart and creative.').
Step two, then: make a video. Budget: £200. So why not show U2 what it's really like to have planes flying overhead and film it on a runway at Heathrow airport while dressed as politicians and members of the Royal Family. Setting standards such as this, the next video, we learn, will see the foursome doused in petrol and torching themselves rather than having digitally added smoke coming from them like that tawdry 'Vertigo' video.
All this and a dashing more can be made possible as Atlantic Records - through their prior Necessary Records indie - have snapped the boys up, allowing them to focus on what they do best, and tell it how it is. From teenage pregnancies, to dodging bus-fares, to generally being skint, this is the true sound of the suburbs. Razorlight talk of not going back to Dalston; well, that would seem like paradise to anyone who'd spent a portion of their life in Staines. Yet you don't envisage much will change in the processes which will lead to their ascent.
'Most albums now are so slick, so really perfect, they all end up sounding the same. We thought, 'Let's just give it a go and not spend hours getting the perfect take.' You want to capture the feel and sound of the record. It's exciting to listen to old Stones records as there's so many mistakes on there, but that's part of the record and part of their sound... It's quite surreal, but I really don't know if I could hand the reins to anyone else to produce.'
Next up, naturally, is spreading this, 'the sound' of Hard-Fi, and what better way than getting a website up and running. Richard borrowed a book from the local library on building your own site, and for a beginner, it ain't bad at all. Plans are to get it updated, but on it there's tracks to download and links to musical influences and local football clubs (and, when the standard is that bad locally, Brentford is the place to go, which is where you'll occasionally find the lads on weekends).
Plans for 2005 are to maintain the momentum and tour places that they've never been to before. The States would be Utopia for them, but if festivals are on the agenda, Hard-Fi would be sincerely adore the chance to play Glasto, while it'd also seem pretty significant playing Reading; just up the road for these boys, and perfect to be playing rather than watching for a change.
With debut single 'Cash Machine' hitting the High Street and back-alley stores imminently and the LP due in July, that deprived lucre they presently sing of is finally set to roll in for Hard-Fi; get star-spotting on the streets of Staines for Richard and his merry men outside your local bank soon, because it won't be long for them to finally break free from this concrete jungle. And you never know: the next album might well proffer tracks boasting of their favourite cocktail binges, or regale tales of getting thrown out of the Met Bar after taking the piss out of P Diddy. Stranger things have happened. Like that time I landed at Heathrow and swore I saw Prince Charles playing the drums.