Hurts

Hurts are a band who have been getting a great deal of press attention of late, having been featured in NME, Notion Magazine, Q Magazine and many more. They have been on TV and radio shows galore, and seem to have taken over the charts in Europe. They release their second single in the UK this week, entitled ‘Wonderful Life’ and their debut album ‘Happiness’ is due on the 6th of September.

Their music is perfectly crafted old school pop with a modern edge. They meld synths with spot on vocals and a style asthetic to die for. Their videos make me gasp at the beauty of them, and feel I have been trasported to a fashion shoot.

With all this in mind I met up with Theo (vocals) and Adam (Synths) in a beautiful chapel that was tucked away in the courtyard of a private members club in Soho. I cannot imagine a more beautiful setting for an interview, and the boys themselves were a delight.

Hey guys, I would normally ask about musical influences here, but a friend of mine jokingly described your music as like you had stolen the Delorian, gone back to 1984 and recorded your album there. What do you think about that as a description of your music?

Adam: I think that’s a bit lazy.

Yeah, I feel that while you have 80′s influences in your sound, you have a more modern sound than that.

Theo: How many songs have you heard?

Only the 3 on youtube right now, I am waiting for the advance.

Theo: Well that’s good. The 80′s are a very funny thing for us, as obviously we were just tiny children so we have no real emotional influence from it. The sound was very important for us at the begining, we listened to a lot of music from then. When you are a bit more distanced from it like we are you can pick and choose what you take from it. We listened to Tears for Fears a lot, and Depeche Mode a lot when we started the band. But we moved away from that so quickly, as it was so important to us to take an idea and put it in a modern environment. We have worked endlessly to put it in that context. A lot of the music that has had an effect on us really is from the 90′s and the last 10 years.

So that’s one thing, but I think there is an idea in the 80′s which is appealing, not necessesarily a particular sound or anything.

I feel your asthetic is quite 80′s, or can be, your look and your videos and suchlike. The whole package of it, to me, was more of an 80′s thing, where you had a brand to sell around the band that was all part of it, rather than nowadays where that can be a bit more rough.

Theo: I think that’s it exactly. We want to make pop music with individuality. A lot of bands in the 80′s came out of that Stock, Aitken and Waterman mold, which is very similar in many ways to the R&B factories in America at the moment. But there were so many bands that offered an alternative and a way out. Not wierd music that people can’t relate to, but pop music done with integrity. Thats something we think is very important and something we wanted to put in a modern context.

Adam: Nobody has ever mentioned certain influences we have had like Coldplay, Take That, Rhianna, those kind of influences. No-one ever looks at that in our music. It’s always like “Oh you’re from 1981″.

Theo: I guess also ‘Wondeful Life’, the single, is the closest song we have to the 80′s sound. It has certain things in it that would trigger that response. Hopefully when the album comes out that will change. I mean the producer we used is a guy who has no connection to 80′s music at all, no interest in it. He’s a Scandanavian guy and he doesn’t have the connection we have to that sound. I think the production on the rest of the record is very modern.

I guess it’s that old adage of critics being lazy and going “Oh that sounds a bit like x so let’s put it in that box and be done with it”.

Theo: Also, the thing I’ve always thought is that electronic music is one of the most progressive forms of music I know. It’s constantly progressive. It’s very difficult actually to make electronic music sound old because there are so many opportunities. Whereas guitar music it is so easy to make your music sound old. To me that’s the one thing that people never pick up on with bands with guitars, they always sound retrospective because you can’t change a guitar. You get these blues/rock bands and no one goes “Yeah but we heard it in the 70′s” it’s always “Wow this is so fresh!”

Perhaps it’s that guitar music has been around for longer, and because electronic music only started in the 80′s and was a new thing it became so synonymous with the era, so will always be associated with that.

Adam: Yeah definitely, that’s what it is. But also we are not ashamed that some of our influences are from the 80′s. We don’t want to completely get away from it. There was some great music, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, two of my favourite ever bands, great musically and very progressive with their electronics.

How did you both get into music?

Theo: Very late. It was only when we met did we decide to write music for the first time. It kind of feels it was the best decision but it meant we had to do so much work. We spent four years everyday learning. Instead of learning instruments and learning to be efficient at playing music, we learnt about pop music and how to write songs and how to do this. It was good to spend your life absorbing everything and listening to music and then decide, now I am going to make it. It’s been a healthy way to get into it, rather than maybe say writing songs when I was 6 or something.

How did you guys meet?

Theo: We met outside a nightclub in Manchester, a really bad one, which at the time was great but in retrospect was very bad. Our friends were having a fight and we weren’t fighting and so we just ended up chatting about Prince, and then started on a mission for world peace. Our friends always say “We’re pretty much responsible for your band” and I’m like “What, your pent up male aggression is responsible for our band?”.

Can you tell me about a day in the life of Hurts?

Adam: It will almost certainly involve an airport.

Theo: Yeah at the moment it will. It involves an iron a lot of the time. It involves a comb, and it involves a lot of over thinking and a lot of losing perspective over things (laughs). But yeah, we are away a lot at the moment. ‘Wonderful Life’ has taken us around the world because it seems to have gone off by itself to Germany and Russia and places.

You released the Arthur Baker remix of Wonderful Life a while ago didn’t you?

Adam: Yeah, and now we are releasing it in it’s own right. It’s interesting to come back to the Uk with it, having already released the song, because it’s got it’s own story now and has taken on a life of it’s own. It’s kind of an odd feeling to come back and release it as one of our first singles because it has that life of it’s own in Europe.

Theo: We are grateful though as we wrote that song about a year ago, it was one of the first songs we wrote, on the dole in the rain in Manchester. Sat there thinking we had to escape this world we lived in. So we wrote this song with a message that’s very important for us in it, hoping it would help us get out, and amazingly a year later that song really has become our way out. It’s an amazing thing.

Manchester has such a famous music scene, do you feel that influenced you in any way?

Adam: I think we’ve got a lot of respect for a lot of the traditional Manchester guitar bands, but I don’t really hear it in our music. Perhaps as a place it has because there is always music around.

Theo: But what’s interesting is at the moment there is us, Delphic and Everything Everything coming out of Manchester, and I listened to both those other bands albums and felt such a sense of pride that we were all making a new sound for Manchester, not retrospective.

And that’s what Manchester has done in the past, and is something that people don’t see about it, is all the big bands that have come out of there are all different. They all made music that wasn’t retrospective. Joy Division don’t sound like The Smiths, The Smiths don’t sound like Oasis, Oasis don’t sound like New Order. That’s the amazing thing about Manchester, it inspires people. And none of them sound like The Stone Roses.

And none sound like Take That!

Theo: But that’s true, and what it has done is inspired bands to stand alone, which is such an amazing thing for a place. It has a heritage as a place but when you look deeper it’s all so different. And then us, Everything everything and Delphic are a prime example. And the Ting Tings, and the Courteeners, there’s another two. You can’t say we sound the same but we are all producing great music.

Adam: It’s funny because most cities with a heritage like that, like Liverpool for example, all the bands that come from there have a certain sound. You can tell if a band is from liverpool. And I think even London has that, as a Northerner I hear it in a lot of London bands.

Theo: I mean Manchester might have a common thread of melancholy or a mood, that’s what keeps it together, but thats it. It’s almost amazing that so many bands have made it from there, because it’s away from london and the industry, but you sit there knowing bands have made it before. It was such a great moment for us to play our first gig in Manchester and it was amazing to get the reception from people when we went back. It felt they were welcoming in something new and different.

Are there any bands or musicians that you think are really underrated? New or old.

Adam: I think Delphic are really underrated actually. We saw them live in Japan and they were really really good, and the album is really intereting.

Theo: This might take some finding for your readers but there is someone I was absolutely obsessive over when we wrote the record, a guy called Francis and the Lights.

Oh I love Francis and the Lights (we actually gave away a free song by them here).

Theo: They are so good! I went to see him about two years ago in new York, by accident, and it was the most amazing theng ever. He is so brilliant and it’s just fascinating that he has never broken through. I’m so happy you know him.

Ok, silly question time now, what is the last thing you ate?

Adam: Chicken Fajita wrap from Marks and Spencers, always reliable.

Theo: An apple

Marks is always reliable, you can’t go too far wrong there.

Adam: Even with clothes, most of our clothes are from Marks and Spencers.

Really? You would never be able to tell, you always look so smart and so tailored.

Theo: Ah you buy them from Marks and then you take them to a tailor. Simple.

What’s your favourite alcoholic drink?

Theo: Gin. Gin with Gin.

Adam: My favourite drink is whisky with dry ginger, and fresh lime.

What is your favourite cheese?

Adam: I’ve got one, Wensleydale with cranberry.

Theo: That’s a good one. Cheddar, really strong blow your head off cheddar.

Adam: Babybell!

Theo: Dairylea! (both laugh)

Do you like Marmite?

Theo: Love it, in fact so much that I eat so much of it I’m probably going to have a heart attack.

Adam: Here’s something controversial, I just like it. I don’t love it or hate it. (for non Brits, the Marmite advertising campaign is that you either love it or hate it.)

Theo: I have a death row meal planned and it’s marmite and poached eggs on toast.

What would your death row meal be Adam?

Adam: A carvery or a buffet. All you can eat.

Earl Grey or ordinary tea… or something else?

Theo: Peppermint.

Adam: I like these questions.

We tend to ask silly things that will help our readers get to know bands more.

Adam: Ask some more, make some up!

Ok, you told us that Marks is your favourite brand of clothing, but if you were given £10,000 to spend on clothes, where would you dream shop?

Adam: The cheapest charity shop in Manchester, and then head for the tailors.

Is that your fashion tip?

Theo: Do that! Because the thing is you don’t have to make decisions then, all your clothes will always fit you perfectly, and it’s not even expensive. A lot of the suits I buy have massive waists, like 46 inches waist square trousers and the jackets are like flags, but I get them because of the material and the colour. They cost about a fiver because they are of square size made for a mister man, but take them to the tailors and they are perfect.

I’m trying to think of more questions for you, making things up is hard.

Theo: We got asked a really good one before, in fact I’m going to ask you. If you could be the love child of two musicians who would it be?

Well I have to go with one of The Ramones being called Sheena

Theo: Which one?

Not sure…

Theo: You should go for Dee Dee. You don’t want to go for the dispencable ones. Johnny is cool.

Ok then. And Debbie Harry as she is my musical hero.

Theo: See that could have happened!

Actually that’s another question, We had a fancy dress music legends party once and I went as Debbie Harry. Who would you go as? And it can’t be yourselves!

Theo: Who would be interesting to go as?

Adam: Phil Spector

Theo: That would be very funny to go as wouldn’t it. Ok so if he went as Phil Spector, who would I go as, because we would turn up together you see. Ronnie Ronette?

Adam: Tina Turner

Theo: Yeah Tina Turner!

What’s the question you would like to be asked in an interview?

Theo: Thats a good one!

Adam: I like it when questions turn to football.

Who do you support?

Adam: Manchester United

Theo: Middlesbourgh. Oh! My favourite question would be ‘What’s your favourite Eminem song’ or any question about Eminem.

What is it?

Theo: “Role Model,” No! “Rock Bottom”.

What do you think of ‘Love the way you lie’?

Theo: Love it, Brilliant, back on form. Perfect. Rhianna’s vocals are just gorgeous. Recovery is a masterpiece of an album, the production is astounding, so epic. The lyrics are amazing.

So if you could duet with one person would it be Eminem?

Theo: Maybe. I might be too frightened. I might go for Tracy Thorn.

Adam: I might go for Kate Bush.

Theo: You know what’s interesting about Kate Bush? I watched an interview with Big Boi from Outkast and he said one of his favourite ever artists is Kate Bush, and he is desperate to work with her. All his life he has spent trying to work with her, but she doesn’t return his calls.

And on that sad note (poor Big Boi) my time with the boys came to an end. They are an astoundingly good band, who have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of pop music. On their debut album they have managed to persuade the queen of pop Kylie Minogue herself to duet with them, which to me really says something about how talented they are.

‘Wonderful Life’ is out today for download and in shops. You really should buy it, and then check out my favourite song of theirs, ‘Blood Tears and Gold’ in the video below: