You’ve been in other very different bands that didn’t work out so why did you bother carrying on making music?
TH: It was more that those were a learning curve like we were checking things out. When you start making music you’ve got to try different things out. Those didn’t quite work and Hurts was the natural end to it. It was all important though, it teaches you loads of little things, what to do and what not to do.

What did you learn?
TH: Well it was mainly all the bad things. Like don’t do loads of gigs in shit venues to ten people. Just try and do a couple of good ones. Don’t compromise what you do for other people, all those things. And also that democracy is overrated (laughs). It’s better to just be two people.

So are you and Adam friends or are you just co-workers?
TH: No totally. I mean we spent the last four years constantly together, working. It’s really important. It didn’t start that way. We started just making music and working together. Then obviously it’s important for the band and how the band grows that you end up that way because you see each other every waking hour of the day.

Do you ever argue over anything?
TH: It’s always give and take because we both offer something different to the band but it’s all good. We put the differences of our personality in to the music which is an important thing.

What would you say is Adam’s role in the band?
TH: It’s the same as mine really but he’s a lot more the fingers and the hands and I’m the mouth. We do a lot of it together now. It used to be more black and white and now I do a lot more music, Adam does more vocal stuff it all makes sense together.

Do you both write the lyrics?
TH: Yeah we kinda both do. It started off just me but it’s got to be teamwork or it doesn’t work properly.

You’ve got a strong image. Did you spend a lot of time working on that?
TH: Not really. It comes from a funny time when we were on the dole and we’d have to go to the job centre and say “Hello. I’m a loser. Please give me some money.” which is horrible when you do it for three and a half years which we did. It’s so terrible. If you dress smart, you present yourself well and you kind of feel good about the world and you get some sort of pride back so it kind of just comes from there and then it carries on through because we don’t buy any new clothes.

A lot of it is understated and I think that’s part of the appeal.
TH: It’s important in a world where everything’s cluttered it’s nice to be a bit more reserved about things because it gives more power to the music. It should be the songs that shine. You shouldn’t have to paint over the cracks.

What do you think about people questioning if you’re ‘real’?
TH: It’s kind of interesting. It’s a talking point innit. You just got to do what you do. We’ve made our vision for things, it’s different to normal people’s. We’re not just two lads down the pub. You’ve just got to keep going. Because we are who we are, we do it and it comes from us it’s going to be real isn’t it? The fact that we do all the videos and all photos and stuff like that, it all comes from us. It’s all real anyway so there’s nothing you can do. At least people are talking about it.

Yes exactly. And I guess ‘being real’ means something different to everyone.
TH: And also is too real interesting? If a band’s like someone you’d find down the pub, is that exciting? It never has been for me. Pop music’s about something more than that. Pop music is about escape, I think.

Yes. Pop music comes with its connotations though, does that bother you?
TH: No. We pride ourselves on the fact that it’s pop music. That’s the music that’s had the biggest effect on our lives and everybody’s life really. The soundtrack of my life is pop music not obscure, weird music and I think it’s important to embrace it because it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a genre of music, it’s an idea. Every band writes pop songs. Marilyn Manson writes pop songs as much as the Spice Girls writes pop songs. They’ve all got a common thread that a lot of people can relate to them. It’s a great thing, it’s a really great thing. For me it’s been my whole life.

You did the NME tour. That must’ve been a different crowd to those who openly admit to listening to ballads.
TH: Kind of but because there’s an alternative idea to what we do that translated really well to people. Also people like something different and we were shocked that there was a great response to it because like you say we’re not the obvious choice but I think people were excited by the fact that we offered them something that wasn’t just four lads and a guitar.

What do you think is alternative about you?
TH: I guess it’s that we make pop music in our own little way and often we try and make it not to fit in. We’ve made pop music but we’ve tried to make the visuals not to fit in with anyone else which has been a challenge.

It’s odd how it is pop music but it’s been presented, not as something else but in a way that more people feel they’re allowed to listen to it, if you know what I mean?
TH: Yeah but I think the best pop music is always like that. I think pop music needs to be. You look at David Bowie they did something that was their own little thing and that’s what people liked about it. Pop music doesn’t really succeed if it’s trying to copy anybody else because it doesn’t become exciting enough.

Your songs are very dramatic. Who are your songs about and what influences that drama?
TH: It’s about escape again. A lot of the songs are written on the dole and we had no money and we were in Manchester and you get the drama to get a bit of excitement in your own life because we didn’t used to do anything. I think that’s where it comes from. It’s being brave and trying to make bold, exciting music for people and also I guess the emotion in them requires a bit of drama every now and again.

What’s the most surprising thing people will find about this album?
TH: Hopefully they’ll be surprised that it’s a grand album and if you’ve just heard Wonderful Life there’s a whole other side that I think people haven’t seen which is a ballad side of it. There’s a song called Stay and a song called Blood Tears and Gold. They’re the other different side of the album. Better Than Love, Wonderful Life and Blood Tears and Gold encompass everything that’s on there.

There’s a song called Evelyn on your album. Who’s Evelyn?
TH: She’s a nurse that looked after me once. She was very kind and looked after me in hospital. I wrote the song while I was in hospital.
What was wrong with you?
TH: I got in to a bit of a scuffle and was glassed in the face which was a bit of a horrible moment and I was in hospital for a very long time.

There’s a duet with Kylie on the album. If she’d said no would you’ve asked someone else?
TH: We did think of getting someone like Kylie. “Should we get someone like Kylie?” And then we thought well maybe we should just get her. So I don’t know what we would’ve done really. I mean it was right at the end of making the record. I wouldn’t like to think about it. All we did, we wrote her an e-mail asking “Do you want to do it?” and it was amazing that she got back to us which we’d never expect. It was a great little thing. It was right at the end of making the record.

You covered Confide in Me. Will it be a future B-side?
TH: We only did it last week so I’ve not really thought that far. We never thought about doing covers but it’s a nice little thank you. And also it’s a great song. That’s the Kylie we love. The soft voice singing a dark song is quite an exciting thing. She does it very well.

When people call you The Hurts is it the worst thing in the world?
TH: It’s not the worst thing in the world but it’s a common mistake. But it just says Hurts everywhere. There’s not one The. The only The is the The at the start of the word Theo.
Yeah I see it on Twitter sometimes and it sort of looks like The O Hurts.
TH: That would be the Irish tribute band. The O’Hurts.
Yes! ‘Cause Hurts is such a good name but The Hurts is a really terrible name. I think if you were called The Hurts everything would be different.
TH: Yeah I think that too.
How did you come up with the name anyway?
TH: Just kind of looks cool, sounds good and because it’s emotional. I wish there was a great story like we found it in a bin or summat like that but there’s not, it just looks cool.

Do you think about things one album at the time or is there a grand plan?
TH: You can’t plan it, that’s the problem. So much has changed in the past year that we could never have planned it so you’ve just got to think about it one step at a time then it’s easier to deal with it. The important thing about music and continuing to do music is that adapting and moving things forward. That’s the best way to do things.

Since you’ve made it to the end here are some lines we just didn’t have time for:

(yesterday)

Download: Pockets (via Pitchfork)

“Every day just keeps on getting better”

We’ve been listening to Sunshine by electro three-piece Picture Book a lot. It’s downbeat, clubby and glorious. It makes us think of when people film the sea while the sun goes down and comes back up again then speeds it up. Probably because it mentions the sea and the sun. We’re so clever. They have a lot of other great songs as well and we recommend you listen to them.

We’ve never been big fans of Katy Perry’s music except we accidentally liked Waking Up In Vegas after hearing it when we were out, not realising it was her and singing completely the wrong words over it (our lyrics were better for the record). Then, California Gurls came along and we really liked it!

Teenage Dream is a total Dr Luke/Max Martin affair and even though she sings as though there’s a BIG. FULL. STOP. AFTER. EVERY. SYLL.A.BLE. like Ca.li.for.nia Girls before it this is a sweet song. The bridge and the middle eight/outro are especially pretty.

It’s her first song that feels like it’s about a real person instead of a massive face pulling caricature. On the other hand it feels too sweet and innocent to be about Katy herself but she does seem to have moments where she sees herself as righteous and innocent, like that tweet attacking Lady GaGa about how using blasphemy as entertainment is cheap, as if she’s forgotten that everyone has seen her naked on a candy floss cloud and singing about kissing girls to be ‘controversial’. She’s never going to be our favourite pop star but if she’s going to be huge then it’s good that she’s having hits with good songs.

When we first started getting in to Lily ‘Not Convincingly Retired’ Allen we would listen to the songs on her MySpace and downloaded her two mixtapes. One of the songs on her first mixtape was Dub Be Good To Me by Beats International, a song that samples The SOS Band’s Just Be Good To Me as this song does, and the “Tank fly boss walk jam nitty gritty you’re listening to the boys from the big bad city, this is jam hot, this is jam hot” bit would be mixed over the intro to Smile which meant that we’d sing that every time we heard it on the radio so for us there’s that connection there despite Lily having nothing to do with coming up with this song, and in fact it originally featured the also good Neon Hitch thank you Wikipedia. This song sounds like something Lily would’ve done herself around Alright, Still so straight away we’re fans and are feeling nostalgic even though the second album has the best songs she’s ever written on them etc. We like Professor Green and our favourite parts from him are “look people are always gonna talk babes”, “Not me not eva ain’t no other man gonna treachoo betta” and “I’ll traaah”. The song sampled is brilliant so it sets it all off well. It’s very good and much better than that Dizzee collaboration.

If we could update our Facebook status to in a relationship with anything it would be with this song. At first we thought it might be a bit ‘for the bloggers’ because of MNDR’s voice having similarities to Santigold and the Hype Machine goes mad for electro with a rapper on it. It didn’t hit us straight away as being completely brilliant. Fast forward to a week later and it’s endless love.  Firstly we love MNDR in the chorus singing in French. Secondly the first verse by both MNDR and Q-Tip are very good. Thirdly we love when MNDR and Q-Tip are singing with the other doing bits in between like “stories” “so many tall tales” “how many stories” “so many tall tales” “we climb the structure” “we scale the ladder” “you build it higher” “you make us madder”. Fourth we love Mark Ronson.

We’re addicted to this song. It sounds like it should be the music to advertise everything: that new American TV show on Channel 4, some ‘amazing’ spray, a cool phone etc. If that sounds bad then ignore that sentence. It’s 3 minutes short (Clever – Our Dad) , completely addictive and they’re just brilliant. We’re huge fans of the New Zealand music scene (we have Ladyhawke’s album dontchaknow) and this electro pop duo stand out from all the other pop male duos that are popping up at the moment because they have obviously brilliant songs and they show their faces and aren’t pretending to be something else to make an uninteresting point.

So the first proper single by Sky is finally here, it feels like it’s been a long time coming. Buzzzz song 17 was quite good with its 3OH!3/Katy Perry feel and Skins/Gossip Girl dramz video but this feels better. One is not an ‘in your face’ launch single, it reminds us of The Real Thing by Gwen Stefani in some parts and it channels Fembot with that computerised deep voice. The robot theme in songs has been done to death now but even though it’s quite obvious in the lyrics it’s not painful like some of the I’M ACTUALLY A ROBOT stuff that’s been going on lately because it’s about being human, something oddly enough, we’re more interested in, so stick that in your 8 bit pipe and smoke it. It’s a sweet and summery song produced by Bloodshy & Avant with a bit of bounce and it’s memorable. We’re glad she’s not trying to be the new Ke$ha.

Download:

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