Written by Laura Hamlett Tuesday, 25 April 2006 08:05

All the recording equipment had to be borrowed and set up. “Every evening after work we’d be over there, working on stuff,” he says. And when they were finished, the final result—“seven tracks [that] cost us about 300 quid”—was impressive enough to inspire a U.K. bidding war.

 

Say what you will about the recent influx of overhyped British bands, Hard-Fi isn’t one of them. What they’ve done, rather, is sneak quietly onto our shores: A 2005 EP (Cash Machine; released here simultaneously with their U.K. full-length) to whet our appetites, a summer 2005 opening slot with the Bravery (then-unknowns and the first of two openers, they were missed by many concertgoers), and an unhyped U.S. release of Stars of CCTV in March. They didn’t play South by Southwest (despite some last-minute rumors to the contrary), so were still virtual unknowns in this country when first single “Cash Machine” went into rotation on our airwaves. Following a brief headlining tour and appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the West London quartet return home for a sold-out five-night stand at Carling Brixton Academy.

“We’re sort of trying to build up a fan base, something more organic,” admits guitarist Ross Phillips about the band’s stealth approach. “We’ve come up on the outside and sort of sneaked in there. I quite like it like that.”

The band used the same approach when conquering its home territory. “A lot of bands in the U.K. have a lot of [buzz],” Phillips says. “London bands all kind of know each other. And then there we were.” Not a part of any scene; not even a part of a town that made room for rock ’n’ roll. Based in Staines, a bleak, working class town west of London, Hard-Fi—frontman Richard Archer, bassist Kai Stephens, drummer Steve Kemp, and Phillips—were united by Archer’s vision of frustration and escape. He wrote the songs, hammered them out as demos in his bedroom, then shared them with Phillips, who worked in a hi-fi shop. Phillips found himself hired by insulting Archer’s guitar playing skills.

“He knew my sister beforehand,” Phillips protests with a laugh. “He came into my shop with his demo.”

Band assembled, Archer and Co. set about creating their sales sheet: A Cash Machine mini-album, self-recorded and financed. “In Staines, there’s no rehearsal rooms,” says Phillips. “There’s no recording studios, there’s no venues or nothing like that, no music scene. The closest rehearsal room was a 40-minute drive. We’d have to drive there, set up, have a fag and a cup of tea, and it’s time to pack up. So we rented an actual room.”

And by “room,” he means just that: four walls, a floor, a roof over their heads. “It was basically just a tiny little room that we’d done up.” All the recording equipment had to be borrowed and set up. “Every evening after work we’d be over there, working on stuff,” he says. And when they were finished, the final result—“seven tracks [that] cost us about 300 quid”—was impressive enough to inspire a U.K. bidding war.

“We released [the album] to radio, made a video. Every label in the U.K. wanted to sign us,” Phillips says proudly. The band ultimately went with Atlantic, who seemed to sense its desire both for world domination and a slow, gradual build.

So far, it seems to be paying off. In the United Kingdom, Stars of CCTV has gone double-platinum #1. A fifth single, “Better Do Better,” has been released, debuting at #7 on the charts. “Hard to Beat” (the current U.S. single) was atop countless British music critics’ best-of lists (including this U.S. critic; I listed it as #1 and predicted it would be the song of summer here in the States).

Stars of CCTV succeeds on so many levels. At first listen, it sounds familiar and comfortable; ghosts of such British greats as the Clash, the Specials, and the English Beat have been conjured and reinterpreted. It sounds instantly British, not least because of Archer’s strong accent and massive vocal ability. And it sounds instantly fresh: fast moving, forward looking, instrumentally challenging, and lyrically relatable. It’s an album that stands up to multiple listens; personally, I’ve yet to tire of it.

Following his father’s death, Archer found himself back in his hometown of Staines. If Manchester has been presented as being glum and uninspiring, Staines is the grey day to Manchester’s sunshine. Archer felt trapped…and he began to write about it.

What resulted was 11 songs, a nearly perfect listen from start to finish, and over again. Songs from the working-class perspective: “Living for the Weekend” (“Working all the time/work is such a bind/got some money to spend/living for the weekend”); “Cash Machine” (“I scratch a living, it ain’t easy/you know it’s a drag/I’m always paying, never making”); “Middle Eastern Holiday” (“I’m 21, meanwhile back at home/my friends are out tonight all drinking and dancing/I’ve got a girl, is she missing me?”). Songs about betrayal and loss: the piano ballad “Move On Now” (“Don’t you think we stay for too long/don’t you think the color has gone”); the reggae-inspired “Better Do Better” (“You’re back, sitting on my doorstep/ah yeah, like nothing ever happened”). And, as in the case of current disco-fueled single “Hard to Beat,” songs about what passes for love on the dark and desperate club scene: “This girl I saw ’round town, well now she’s going down.”

These songs of the working class are on par with some of Springsteen’s early work. But, like Springsteen, Hard-Fi is riding an upward wave: of success, money, fame. The irony isn’t lost on Phillips when I ask about the band’s next album, of trying to keep it real. “We’re always working; the second album’s almost done,” he insists. “We wrote and recorded [Stars of CCTV] so long ago.” So the third album will be the test, then? “Yeah, yeah,” he concedes in a tone that tells me he’s not worried at all. By then, they’ll be a household name.

In the meantime, though, Hard-Fi has other priorities. Being top of the pops in England is one thing; taking over the United States quite another. And then there’s that little issue of global success. “We don’t want to be just a big band in the U.K.,” says Phillips. “We want to be a massive band selling billions of records around the world, like U2 or someone like that. We want to be top of what we’re doing.”

Though it’s only one album, Stars of CCTV certainly has the talent, breadth, and accessibility to signal longevity and mass appeal. For Hard-Fi, there’s only one thing left to do: “Keep working, keep working.” Working class, indeed.