FI-NALLY
I was in a huge noughties pop act but swapped rockstar life to be a fly fishing instructor – now the band is reuniting
HARD-FI swept the charts in the early 2000s with tunes like Cash Machine and Living for the Weekend.
After a solid start, the band enjoyed a successful career until they took an unofficial hiatus in 2014.
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Drummer Steve Kemp went off to enjoy a very different life after the band split.
Steve, 44, who suffers from Crohn's disease, studied for a degree in nutrition at the Open University.
As well as turning his attention to health and wellbeing, he also enjoyed another niche hobby - fly fishing.
Taking his aquatic love to the next level, he trained to be a fly fishing instructor.
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But now the band has reformed and kicked off with a comeback gig at London's O2 Forum earlier this month - which sold out in just three minutes.
Frontman Richard Archer told NME: “After the reaction this show has had, we’d like to do more.”
“What that might be, right now I’ve no idea. We need to sit down with our promoter and work it all out,” he added.
During their career, Hard-Fi had six Top 20 singles including Cash Machine, Hard To Beat and Suburban Knights.
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Their albums Star of CCTV and Once Upon A Time In The West both reached Number One in the album charts.
Speaking about their break from performing shortly after releasing a greatest hits album in 2014, Steve told : "We never actually really split up, everyone had kids.”
"We decided it was the right time to bring it back up. It made sense for us kind of artistically and friendshipwise to bring it back.”
Speaking about whether he gets nervous before a gig he said: "If you're not nervous you don't care.
"We’re always a little bit nervous even if it’s a crowd of 50 people or 5,000 people or 50,000 people, it really doesn’t matter."
Richard admitted that their hiatus lasted longer than he had planned.
“Everyone experiences it, don’t they, but you don’t quite know where the years went," he told .
"The start of it was Ross, our guitarist, had his first child and said, ‘I want to spend more time at home’, and that was all fair enough.
"Then Steve wanted to go and do a degree."
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He explained that the band members wanted to do things that they hadn't been able to do before.
The band will be taking to the stage at Troxy in London this weekend.
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