Hard-Fi makes music fueled by the frustrations of small-town life
When life gave Hard-Fi lemons, it made lemonade, spiking it with a tasty melange of dance-floor dub, beery pub-pop, and skittering, ska-dosed anthems about escapism and being flat broke. In the UK, ''Stars of CCTV," the full-length debut by the foursome from the London suburb of Staines, has already spawned four hit singles.
The terrific ''Stars of CCTV" (think the Specials, Happy Mondays, Gorillaz) won't be released in the States until March, but you can grab the group's ''Cash Machine" teaser EP now. Hard-Fi kicks off a two-week US tour at the Middle East Downstairs in Cambridge tomorrow night.
We spoke with Hard-Fi singer-songwriter Richard Archer by phone as he made his way home on foot, only to discover that he'd locked himself out 30 minutes before he was to be whisked to an awards ceremony.
Q: So what does the ''CCTV" refer to?
A: Closed circuit television or security cameras. In the UK, they're everywhere -- on every street corner, in every bar -- and it's a part of life you get used to. Maybe you're not in a magazine or on TV, but everyone's a star on CCTV, and that's what we're about -- not some mythical clique of the elite, but everyday people in the street.
Q: Last year was a breakout year for the band in the UK. What has that experience felt like from the inside?
A: It's strange because this time last year we were having trouble finding the money to get petrol to drive back from gigs. And now here we are, and we've had sold-out tours -- ''surreal" is the word. I'm walking [through] Staines now, like I've done a million times before, and nothing's different, nothing's changed. And yet out there, this music I wrote in my head is connecting with people.
Q: You moved back home after your former band, Contempo, split up and your father died. How tough was it to create music from those circumstances?
A: It was a dark time. When Contempo fell apart, there was a massive hole, and then I lost my dad and another massive part of my life disappeared. And you think, ''What on earth do I do now?" You have a real crisis of confidence. The one thing my dad would've loved was to have seen me get somewhere. And now he's never going to see that. That made me angry and spurred me on and gave me that determination to prove everybody [who doubted me] wrong.
Q: What did you want the album to say to an American audience?
A: When we [made] this record, nobody seemed to be writing songs for people like me, about my life or my friends. There are towns like Staines all over the world. They may not necessarily look the same, but they have people that feel the same things. They're bored of being bored and having no money. They get their heart broken. People know what it's like to feel trapped in a small town that they don't see any way out of. That's how we felt, and we wanted to do something about it.
