Music, Style & Culture

Glastonbury 2011: Hard-Fi

Hard Fi spend a few minutes chatting to our girl-on-the-ground Harriet Jennings ahead of their Leftfield Stage headline slot.

Hard Fi spent a few minutes this afternoon chatting to our girl-on-the-ground Harriet Jennings about their forthcoming appearance at Glastonbury, where they'll be headlining the Leftfield stage later this evening. As per Grouplove earlier, this is another one of the DIY home team's transcribing jobs, from a rather noisy festival dictaphone...

You're headlining the Leftfield stage, which you also did in 2007, are you looking forward to it?
Steve: Definitely.
Kai: It was a really good night last time, wasn't it?
Steve: We only announced it like on the day, or something like that, so we didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be a lot of fun, a really good gig. The tent was packed.
Ross: It's situated in one of those places where you get a lot of passers by, who'll get drawn in, gonna hear the sounds. It's bound to be really busy.
Rich: And then it'll rain, but we'll be in a tent…

So it's Billy Bragg's stage, did he get in touch with you personally, or…?
Rich: We go back a little bit with Billy Bragg, because we asked him to be our special guest on a tour we did in May 2006. We did five Brixton Academies, which was a lot, a real highlight. He basically played all those shows with us, so we got to know him then. We've just stayed in touch really, it came together quite organically.

Are you sticking around for the rest of the festival, or heading off right after you've played?
Steve: I'm not sure, we might have stuff to do, so we might have to go actually.
Kai: I've bought supplies just incase. You never know how you're going to feel at 2am on Saturday.
Steve: Kai might abandon ship, and just stay.
Kai: Just abscond, then go…
Steve: It's a bit of a smash and grab job. You know, come down, do this, get the fuck outta there.
Kai: Come down, get stuck in the mud for three hours…
Steve: Then leave slowly. There's like a curfew for the vehicle, so we're not actually allowed to leave until three at the earliest.
Kai: You'll be forced to enjoy Glastonbury.
Steve: We'll be alright, there's some good music on tonight.

Is there anyone you're looking forward to seeing?
Steve: Lee Scratch Perry's on later, I was going to go have a look at that.
Ross: You never know what you're going to get do you really.
Kai: I reckon if you go for a wander as well, especially over towards the Green Area, you don't know what you're going to bump into. You get sucked in, and find yourself having a good time.
Steve: You're a bit of a Glastonbury vet, aren't you Kai?
Kai: Been to a few. I've jumped the fence, I've bought tickets, and now I've come as a performer. I've done the lot.

Do you have any Glastonbury tips for us?
Kai: Just endure it, man. Keep smiling. Don't let it get you down.

And your new album, that's out at the end of August?
Kai: It's all done, we're just finishing off the bonus tracks. We're going to master it on Monday, put it to CD or whatever it is they do. Then that's it, finally! Fucking hell, after… how long? Too long.
Ross: Then a whole other wave of hard work starts.
Rich: But it's all good fun, we're looking forward to it. We're going to have another single out two or three weeks before the album, then the album's out, then we're doing a tour in September. We played here in 2007 in June, our second album came out in September, we finished touring that towards the end of 2008, and we haven't really done that much since then. We've just taken time to get our heads together, then make the album, so it's really nice to just be doing stuff, whatever it is.
Ross: We're looking forward to touring again, we haven't toured for years.
Kai: 2009 wasn't it, our last big gig? We went out to Japan sneakily to do a couple of shows, didn't tell anyone about it.

Is this the first time you've played a festival appearance since you last played Glastonbury?
Kai: Yeah, apart from Love Music Hates Racism carnival in 2008.

Are you doing any more festivals over the summer?
Steve: We might announce something, maybe, but because the album's not out until the end of the summer really, we're concentrating on our own tour in September.
Kai: We're kind of at that stage now where if someone says "Oh guys, are you around to do this?" and we are, then we'll think about it. Those things often come up, but we'll see. It's not a biggie. We're really happy to be doing this, we're really honoured that Billy asked us.

Last night Radiohead played the Park Stage, and they played mostly new stuff from the album they've just released. Are you going to be playing from the first two albums, or…?
Steve: I think it's going to be a mix of all three. We'll play some new stuff because we're excited about it, we want top play it, we want to let people hear it.
Kai: We need to practice it, you know. Got to play it at some point!
Steve: Because it's like a smaller stage as well, hopefully the people who'll come will be Hard Fi fans who'll want to hear some new stuff, but we'll certainly play some older tunes, some bangers. It'll be a mixed bag, but we'll definitely play some new stuff.