Hard-Fi - first new material in a decade, plus Hastings and Portsmouth dates

Richard Archer (vocals, guitars, keyboards) is delighted to be back with the band for a different kind of enjoyment to the enjoyment they had first time round: “We took a break ten years ago. It got to the point where we had been doing it for a fairly long time and it just felt really hard to make anything happen. We were just wanting something different. I still enjoyed the music and so I wrote for a few other artists and produced some acts but it was very strange writing for other people. You do something and you give it away and sometimes you know they could be terrific artists but sometimes they just don't have the single-mindedness that they need to get on with it. I remember a guy releasing a single and then just going off on holiday but I did still enjoy that side of things, and I also had a new project called OffWorld.”

But then during the lockdowns Richard rediscovered that the love for Hard-Fi was still out there amongst the fans: “Sometimes you get the feeling that you're just reading the negative stuff but it was great to realise the love that was there so I said to the guys let's do a gig. It was all back of a fag packet stuff but we started to get back and to do a few of the old tunes but we knew that we wanted some new stuff to play if we were going to play live and I think the new EP is a really good way of doing that. It is a good way of getting back in.

“I shouldn’t have been surprised that there was still the love for the band out there but I think sometimes back then we did feel that we were a little bit up against it. We were never the critics’ choice of music and maybe I was just being a bit too emotional about the whole thing.

“But the first show back (in 2022) sold out within ten minutes and even though there was a rail strike the whole thing was just a huge release for people who had been locked up for two years. Ironically I got Covid afterwards. I was OK for the gig but then everybody wanted to chat and fans wanted a photo and I got Covid afterwards and was as sick as a dog for about a month. But after that we just wanted to get back to it and felt that we should make some new music.”

And it does feel different now. Richard had been with a different band before Hard-Fi, and it had all gone wrong for the band. So it felt like Hard-Fi was a second chance: “And so we put a little pressure on ourselves. It was like we were saying ‘Don't screw this up! We've got to do this!’ And I lost my mother just as we had done our first Top Of The Pops and were about to play Glastonbury. It was a very emotionally charged time and I look back and I think I didn't enjoy it all as much as I should have done. There were moments I remember, going out on stage in Milton Keynes in front of 60,000 people the first time that we supported Green Day and that was fantastic but I don't think we stepped back enough and thought ‘This is great.’ We were just too busy. We never stepped back and sat down and had a pint and said to each other how good it all was.

“But now it is different. It is not that it feels that it doesn't matter because it does matter but the point is that no one needs it. We're all 20 years older. We've all got children and we've all got other priorities that come first so it does feel different, and I think one of the things I want to do is just really enjoy the whole process, to go to some different places around the UK and also maybe do some festivals in Europe and I would love to go back to Japan. If these things happen, then great and we will work towards that but we are also taking the approach that we just want to enjoy the process.”