Christ!
Yes, its almost easter but whatever, I will blasfeme, i'm blabbing on again, gah! straight to the point!
This new entry will happen at random, when I feel a particular song I like can do particularly good in the charts. So here goes the first 'Storming The Charts' blog entry!
Several weeks ago, I expressed my personal views for the second track of Hard-Fi's second successive No.1 Album, 'I Shall Overcome'. For any of you that didn't read that part of the blog entry; then basically when I listen to it, its like receiving the same amount of pleasure as when the accumulated boner's initiated on train station platforms throughout Britain when millions of men open to Page 3 of The Sun during the morning rush hour are added together in tandem and multiplied by quite a few trillion.
The unmistakable sound of Hard-Fi is 'Hard to Beat' and 'Living for the Weekend', and even 'Suburban Knights' can be argued to be the link between the first and second albums. However, I feel Hard-Fi's second album really starts upon the opening of this track.
The sweet sound of a modern American west with a catchy riff, leads into Richard Archer's words "New day dawning/Wonder what it holds for me".
It might just be a coincidence that the song I feel is the beginning of the album has "New day" as the first two words, but that's just me.
When I interviewed Hard-Fi on the release day of 'I Shall Become' recently at their Staines HMV signing and free private gig in the Hob Goblin pub in Staines afterwards, another reason for this post.
One of the first things I directly said to Archer was, "Have you bought any new houses yet?"; to which he replied: "No, I still live round the corner, so do Kai and Ross".
I'm not a fan of thinking more of lyrics than they really are. Many people got to complete wrong end of the stick when The Enemy released 'Away From Here' and believed they wished nothing more than to be rid of Coventry. Quite the contrary, they wrote the song just after Tom had had a 14 day successive slog at his 9-5 job. Then on the first day off he got, he bought a car and drove it to Glasgow and back for the fun of it, because he was bored.
So, anyway, back to Hard-Fi. The song pretty much is about overcoming difficulties and problems in anyone's life really, which means you could relate it to any problem and anyone can relate to it. However, the lyrics are also strikingly powerful, but words like "I hear your name in my heart" sort of narrow it down to problems relating to love, so be careful in how you think your problems relate to it.
Anyway, regardless of how Archer meant the lyrics to mean, or the limits of how these lyrics can be interpreted and related to by anyone and everyone, its still quite an upbeat and laid back track you can listen to again and again.
I caught up with Ross Phillips (lead guitarist for Hard-Fi) after the signing for the new single took place and he spoke about the songs chances in the charts and Hard-Fi's plans for the near future.
Lee: "Firstly, congratulations on your second successive No.1 Album."
Ross: "Cheers mate."
Lee: "How successful do you think 'I Shall Overcome' could prove to be as a single, and do you see is becoming your second top 10 single to date?"
Ross: "Well it's been getting good radio play and it's always been one of my favorite tunes off the album, so I was hoping it was gonna be a single. It just felt like the right one. Hopefully it'll be a top 10, but ya' never know. Fingers crossed."
Lee: "Did you enjoy the 'Once Upon a Time in December Tour' and we're there any particular highlights for you?"
Ross: "Yeah it was amazing, playing Wembley Arena was an amazing experience! Right up in Scotland it's always a good laugh, they're bit mental int' they up there! But yeah, every night, just had a good time. I really enjoyed it."
Lee: "Are you looking to play any festivals this year?"
Ross: "We're actually more looking to get some new stuff together now, but we're going over to America in a couple of weeks for this Jack Daniels thing, and possibly this festival being held at Victoria Park. We really just want to get cracking on some new stuff."
Lee: "How did the Africa Express you got involved with go for you, especially with having the opportunity to play with a wide variety of Africa artists?
Ross: "It was mental it was. Went up on the bus, us and loads of other bands and Africa musicians. We played with this world class African percussionist, and this bloke with this funny Arabic loop kind of thing. They played some stuff with us, but I can't for the life of me remember any of their names!"
Much laughter ensued with me suggesting he was quite merry for most of the time.
After which I asked the last, but possibly for the future the most important question.
Lee: "Looking towards the future do you anticipate to be getting back in the studio any time soon, or will you be taking a well earned break?"
Ross: "Well we've got quite a few numbers knocking about and we've already wrote some new stuff, but Rich wants to go to El Salvador and visit his new girlfriend's country. So yeah, we'll be taking a very short break, but we're all very eager to just get back in the studio and crack on with the third one. I've got a really good feeling about this next one!"
I'll leave you with a short clip of Hard-Fi playing out some of 'Suburban Knights' at the secret gig, back on Monday 10th March. Hopefully come 6pm on sunday, Hard-Fi will be in the top 10; it'll be tough, but not totally out of the question.
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