Hadouken! - Punctuate This!

“It’s been quite a whirlwind ride in terms of the hype and the way it’s snowballed,” recalls an excited James Smith, who’s just about to head to the studio for an Hadouken! writing session. “I think I’d put that down to the whole internet phenomenon and Myspace and the way that everyone can get hold of your tunes and all the information really quickly,” he adds. “The digital revolution of the last couple of years has made it happen so much faster.”
 
Smith’s coherent and thoughtful words could have spilled from the mouths of almost every new band that have found themselves lifted from a position of near isolation to one of fast-tracked notoriety since the internet became everyone’s personal A&R man during that “digital revolution.” Hadouken!, the band that Smith fronts in a fierce, intimidating but ultimately captivating manner, aren’t afraid to admit that either. After all, they’ve (pro)actively embraced I.T. more than most. “Myspace is the most obvious one and I think every band does that now anyway, but the kind of things that we’ve done, like a youtube channel where we’ve tried to make documentaries, although they’re very amateur they can still be quiet amusing and I think people have enjoyed that and we hope to carry that on, on a larger scale now that we’re with a major label.”
 
Ah, a major label. Surely that means increased pressure from the top? An impatient commercial push? Restricted free speech? Not likely. Hadouken! may have signed to Atlantic Records on the back of one single, ‘That Boy, That Girl,’ (more on that later) but it soon becomes clear that like everything with this band – particularly Smith - it certainly wasn’t a decision made without some careful consideration.
 
Formed in May of last year as the university creation of Smith and guitarist Dan ‘Pilau’ Rice – who, like the rest of the band (which includes Smith’s girlfriend, Alice and younger brother, Nick) were part of the ‘arty’ set at Leeds University - Hadouken! never even expected to get to this stage – that is, being on the brink of recording their as-yet-untitled debut album. “We didn’t expect it to be the kind of thing that would go off,” reveals Smith, honestly. But, “go off,” it has. Combining the wild neurosis of The Prodigy with a very colourful 21st Century, fluoro-fluorescent forward thinking outlook, Hadouken! have swiftly established themselves as head turning band. You know the sort, even if you don’t like them, you can’t help put gawp inquisitively.
 
There’s no finer example than the bands debut single, ‘That Boy, That Girl.’ Released last year, its lyrics paint a luminous watercolour image of London’s trendiest east end hangout, Hoxton, through the frank documentation of the areas assortment of “skinny-fit jean” wearers, “indie Cindy’s” and “sluts and whores” who are all just a bit too cool to dance. What makes the single so remarkable though, as Smith points out, is that it was written after the bands first visit to the capital. “We were living up in Leeds and we’d been up there for three years for Uni and we came down one summer and just decided to go out in Hoxton one night and we had a really good time and the night kind of opened our eyes to what had been going on in London for the last few years because we were kind of oblivious to it,” he continues. “It’s kind of a Londoner’s perspective on London but still from being an outsider.”
 
Although many “Hoxton heroes” took the words the wrong way, Smith points out that the song wasn’t designed to offend. “The whole point of the song – which gets misconstrued a lot – is it’s not actually dissing scenesters. It’s saying you can be a scenester but you don’t have to pose, you can have fun as well as looking good, you don’t have to just be moody and miserable.” If anything, the reaction to the song has made Smith more sceptical about the Hoxton ‘clique’ now. “All those indie Cindy’s with polka dot dresses have all ditched the polka dot dresses and are wearing fluoro save the rave t shirts now,” he laughs, “so it’s like I’m more cynical about the whole thing now.”