We get you all next month in Norwich and we’re actually the first date on your tour – does that mean we get the very best of you, sir? Well I think it means you get the freshest! Tat first show though, there’s always a few little niggles to be ironed out, but you still get the top match fitness and that nervous energy will all come in the first show, so it should be a special one, I reckon.
I guess you haven’t been for a long stretch on the road for a while – how do you get prepped for a long stint? It must be harrowing… It’s been so long since we toured that just adrenaline will carry us through. When it starts turning into a yearlong tour, that’s when you really need to get yourself in shape. It’s that fifth show in a row where the lights are really up close and you can’t breathe that’s the really interesting one, when you’re absolutely knackered. But we’ve learnt over the years that if you go out on the piss after every show, you’re gonna stumble at some point.
Monday is a big day for you – it’s the album’s release date; how do you feel, nervous? Do you get nervous on your third album? Obviously there’s quite a lot of anticipation about it coming out, but I’m fairly relaxed about it. For me there’s no need to freak out about anything, just say it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’ll be nice just to have it out there, get the reactions from the fans, just see what they think.
I was thinking about the songs and their context; the songs from the first two albums are working class anthems for our generation, but as you live slightly different lives now, what’s your inspiration? I still live in Staines and although my circumstances are a lot different now than they were six years ago, that’s still in you, that still formed a greater part of my life and the band as well, you know. Tat formed how we think about things and how we
view the world, you know, and that’s never gonna go away. You look at someone like Bruce Springsteen – and I’m not comparing us to him in any way – but he’s always going to have a bit of New Jersey and car racing about him no matter what he does.
so much of it yourself – is it hard to hand it on to them? Yes and no, because I made a really conscious effort to stop being a producer when I was with those guys, but it’s hard sometimes, because it’s almost a collaborative effort. If they made a call though, I’d defer to it, and then if I thought I
IT WAS BRILLIANT, THE PLACE WAS PACKED OUT; IT WAS A REALLY NICE FEELING TO KNOW THAT PEOPLE STILL GAVE A SHIT.
You really experimented with your producers, having four, but I guess the one that everyone’s interested in is Stuart Price. Te subtle dancey element that he brought sort of reminded me of how Primal Scream knew how to introduce dance rhythms without ever being a dance band. Did Stuart approach you with this idea, or is that why you brought him in? I think that it was always an unconscious decision that we would push it that way, even before we started looking for producers we knew that we didn’t want to get a producer that worked with ‘regular’ Indie bands – I mean I’m sure there isn’t one of those out there – even though those guys are all really talented, we knew we wanted something different to come in. We often thought when we had a remix done that some of the remixes had moments in them where we wish we’d have done that in the original tracks, and Stuart Price has done a lot of those remixes under his Tin White Duke moniker and it was kinda like ‘if we can get him…’ I’ve always loved what he did as Les Rhythmes Digitales back in the early noughties, doing his ‘I’m French, but I’m actually from Yorkshire’ thing!
Tat’s quite strong of you actually, handing your work over to someone else, when you’re capable of doing
know this feels really bad, I’d go, ‘OK, it’s a 50/50 situation, so let’s go with what you say, ‘cause that’s why we got you in.’
I really enjoyed watching the acoustic sessions you did for Te Sun, and what I thought was important there was that behind all the clever production, you still have a very strong musical basis when you look at the stripped back songs… I think generally the songs are written on an acoustic guitar, or piano, so they have to work in that way. Te next thing I write is the bass line and I think bass drives a lot of our music, but that’s a hard thing to get across on an acoustic session. Essentially though, if you’ve got a good song there you can almost take it in any direction.
Rich, you’ve played Norwich before, but do you have any memories of playing here? I do have really good memories actually; we played the gig and then came back and partied afterwards with some very drunk people I seem to remember. I won’t go into details ‘cause it’s a little on the risqué side, but we had a really good time actually, just a really friendly atmosphere.
Emma Garwood
Hard Fi come to the Waterfront on September 21st For tickets, go to
www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk.
Read the uncut version of this interview at
Outlineonline.co.uk
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