UNITED KINGDOM: Hard-Fi's new album "Once upon a time in the West" goes straight to number one in the UK

"Once upon a time in the West"- British band Hard-Fi's second album takes the top spot upon its release. They are one of few bands who played their debut album at London's Brixton Academy, and it looks like success is continuing for Hard-Fi with their second album "Once upon a time in the West". Straight to number one in the UK album charts, Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer modestly said he was pleased with how well the album and the first single to be released from it "Suburban Knights" are doing: "It's going really well. The single did really well, the album is doing well. It's great , we spent so long getting this record together and when you sit in the studio all that time and everything builds up to that moment when it finally comes out and the people who's opinion really counts is that of the fans and the public." The boys from Staines, a suburban town just outside of London spent the past few months in the studio recording their album. Speaking to Reuters Television during a soundcheck just before performing at London's Hippodrome on Thursday (September 6) , Archer went on to explain how his suburban background infiltrates his music. A sense of being cut off from the big city and being stuck in the suburbs where nothing much happens were central to the band's debut album 'Stars on CCTV', and there's still some of that coming through on their new single 'Suburban Knights': "At the time, when we were sitting at home listening to music, reading the music press, everyone was talking about a little clique somewhere where it was about oh we're hanging out with actresses and models, and it's just us, really exclusive, you're not invited, but you're allowed to buy the album, and the T-shirts, and the tickets to keep us in the style we are accustomed to but this is not for you this is just us here. And I was like well, none of my favourite bands are like that , they're always inclusive so we wanted to do something different to that . We say we're from Staines, but Staines is any town, any town in the UK and we've been round the world now and it may as well be any town around the globe , you might as well be in America or Japan or whatever, they might look different but they have the same kind of mentality there and you meet people like that and they know what you're talking about." The show at the Hippodrome was a roaring success, with fans knowing literally every single word from every single and a superb delivery by Archer himself. Talking about the new album, which is very personal to Archer he said it reflects the tough time he's been through and how he deals wit it. Having lost his father to cancer some years ago, two years ago he lost his mother and found himself having to deal with finally making it in his career but being unable to share that with the two people he wanted to share it with : "I think it's kind of me dealing with a lot of stuff because if everything you've ever dreamed of comes true, I've always wanted to do music, travel the world, be in bands, see places, play in front of lots of people, suddenly after lots of trying, lots of struggle and failure basically, you finally get there and at the same time you have lots of terrible things happen in your life you have to deal with it somehow, you have to work it out because you donut have time when you're on the road you just work work work because you've got to because you've been given your chance and you've got to seize it so a lot of it was me trying to come to terms with all that." Two years ago Hard-Fi were scheduled to play at Glastonbury but had to pull out due to the illness of Archer's mother. They returned last year to play there and then continued to work on their new album. They are currently touring the UK, and there's lots more to come. Archer is happy with things at the moment , but there's more the band wants to achieve: "When I look at bands like U2 and artists like Eminem I think wow, they're making great music and they're up there and that's where I want to get to and that's how the rest of the band feel and it's not just like I say ...I suppose it's about success, more than money, it's about getting those platinum disks , getting those trophies of war and saying we did it and proving everyone wrong." Judging by how well they continue to do, there's no reason why those platinum disks shouldn't be within reaching distance.

ITN Source | September 12, 2007

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