The return of Hard-Fi

If you haven’t heard it yet, you soon will: the jazzy brass opening, the drum roll giving way to the beat from Jay-Z’s 99 Problems and finally the unmistakable flattened vowels of Staines’ finest.

Staines, you say? That can only mean Hard-Fi, the band that put Surrey’s most salubrious spot on the musical map, then disappeared off it themselves. Now, out of nowhere, new single Good For Nothing is not only XFM’s Record of the Week but Zane Lowe’s Hottest Record in the World Right Now on Radio 1. So, is the song doing the hard work or are people just pleased to have Hard-Fi back?

“I think it’s a bit of both,” says frontman Richard Archer, phoning in from a last minute photo-shoot (the single release date has been shifted forward five weeks to meet demand). “You never know with these things – we thought we might put the song out and people would have moved on. But everyone’s been really up for it. There’s been no marketing, no press. The music speaks for itself.”

If Archer sounds surprised, it’s because he is. Hard-Fi first stepped out of the Surrey shadows in 2005, when the brash suburban mini-stories of their singles Hard to Beat, Cash Machine and Something for the Weekend seemed to speak to (and for) young Middle Englanders everywhere. Debut album Stars of CCTV topped NME’s albums of the year and also made the Mercury Music Prize shortlist, alongside first efforts from the likes of Arctic Monkeys, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party.

So far, so good (company). But though second album Once Upon a Time in the West charted at number one in 2008, the critics weren’t so kind and soon, Hard-Fi became persona non grata, the act everyone loved to hate. No wonder they scarpered.  But to where? Abroad mainly, says Archer, touring the second album to places where Staines probably seemed the epitome of glamour (“we sold more records in South Korea that year than Madonna”), then taking some time out.

“Our last show of the tour was in Nashville and afterwards, we went and hung out in Memphis and visited all the studios where they make the music we really love,” says Archer, keen as ever to stress Hard-Fi are more than just an indie-rock outfit.  “It was a bit of a hard slog for us coming out of the first album into doing the second one. We wanted to enjoy the fruits of our labour, get out there and soak up some extra influences.”

The results can be heard on the band’s forthcoming album, Killer Sounds, produced in Acton but recorded between LA and Staines (there’s a phrase you don’t expect to write) at the band’s converted mini-cab office, Cherry Lips. And if the current single is anything to go by, expect a more upbeat feel. On the face of it, Good for Nothing is another roll-call of suburban stereotypes: the grumpy neighbour asking Archer to turn his music down, the bouncers who won’t let him through the door wearing trainers. But it doesn’t take much to read between the lines. “Before you criticise,” he sings pointedly, “take a long hard look at yourself.”

A finger up to the music industry snobs? “Maybe there’s a little bit of that,” he concedes. “Because really what is the big deal? If there’s something I don’t like, I ignore it and focus on something else. I don’t get excited about slagging other people’s tastes off. I’ve never understood that notion. I’m not the sort of person who likes to dictate what everyone else should think.”

Now 33, Archer appears to have shed the trademark swagger of his twenties in favour of a more quiet confidence. “I don’t see the point in letting people push you around,” he says. “Believe in what you do. And if you don’t believe in it, don’t do it.” The only risk, he says, is of becoming a “boring old bastard”, imparting wisdom of the “been there, seen that, made those mistakes” variety.

“You wish you could go back to 18, knowing what you know now,” he says. “But everyone has that – you grow up and just become a rounder person. None of us have moved too far from where we were when we made the first album. Some people think we all bought yachts but we still hang out with the same friends.”

So that’s where he was for three years: cruising the Caribbean in a fifty-footer.  “Yeah,” he laughs, “living the life of riley.” Joking aside though, in the time it has taken Hard-Fi to put out a third record, former Mercury classmates Arctic Monkeys and Kaiser Chiefs are already onto number four. Did they ever feel the pressure to speed up?

“You can only work at your own pace,” says Archer, before pausing to pick his words carefully. “This is by no means to criticise those other bands who’ve done some great stuff. But anyone can put out an album every year. It doesn’t make it good. There’s nothing worse than coming back and be a little half arsed. It’s like they say about darts: you play the board, you don’t play the other players.”

Good for Nothing out now on Atlantic Records. Killer Tunes released in September. Visit www.hard-fi.com for tour dates

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