HURTS ON A SHOESTRING - SUFFERING FOR THEIR ART

STANDING over his friends scrapping outside a Manchester nightclub, Theo Hutchcraft found himself in a dilemma.
Does he dive in and punch someone for no reason or does he just stand and watch? Next to him, Adam Anderson, who was friends with the opposing side, was thinking the same.


Happily for the world of music, they chose the path of peace, got chatting about music, decided they wanted to form a band and duo Hurts was born.
But even though they swapped numbers, they remained wary of each other.

Theo said: “Our friends were not the kind of people that would get on with each other. We thought, ‘we both want to be in a band but all our friends don’t like each other for some reason so we might not like each other’. We lived in Manchester but we didn’t see each other for a very long time, we just used to speak on the internet. We thought let’s try and make music first, found a common ground through music and that made everything clear.

“We’re initially very different people but we’ve spent so much time together that we moulded into a grey kind of area.”

The duo, who are close to finishing their first album, play Koko alongside Darwin Deez and Everything Everything on May 10. They have already made huge waves among critics.
But their heads have not been turned and they prefer to suffer for their art.

Theo said: “Our first ever London show was the Dublin Castle. We drove all the way down in a Fiesta with five people and all of our equipment to play to 10 people. But it kept us going, it spurred us on, we were never dejected because one person’s enough.

“We played the Purple Turtle once. Again a disaster, but a beautiful disaster.
“The great thing about it was it keeps us level. We’ve got so much experience of things like that, playing to one person. We’ve seen it all first hand and that gives us the drive.

“I always worry about getting too comfortable, I always think we have to put ourselves through hardship. We still do it now, we didn’t buy enough equipment, we got less on purpose so we had to make do. Our studio is really grim, it’s underground, it’s got no windows. To write hopeful music you have to come from that point of need.”

And so far it’s all been on a shoestring.
They shot their first two videos themselves. Blood, Tears and Gold cost nothing, while celebrated single Wonderful Life cost £20 – which all went to the dancer.
Both can be seen on YouTube.



Theo said: “With the videos, it’s a lot to do with making do. How do you make the strongest idea possible? How can you say as much as possible with as simple a video as you can. There’s only so many times you can look through the lens, press record then run round the front, which is what we’ve been doing. It means one’s filming the other so you never get a moving camera shot of the two of us together.”

Both Theo, 23, and Adam, 25, have a distinctive smart dress sense and severe hairstyles.
Theo said: “I’ve always dressed smart but it kind of heightened a bit, there was a period about a year ago where we were at the end of our tether. We were on the dole, Adam was homeless, moved in my house, it got really bad. It kind of heightens itself when you’ve got nothing.

“To dress smart makes you feel important, you can look the world in the face and people take note of you.”