It took just one song, “Wonderful Life” – which obviously grew from the fertile ground between Depeche Mode and The Lexicon of Love – and it’s accompanying video to land Manchester duo Hurts on everyone’s radars, while benefitting the pop world with a cool, sartorial touch and tenor. But more than just a picture of black & white elegance, Theo and Adam have since delivered on yet more synth-pop gems, “Blood, Tears & Gold” and “Better Than Love”. Now, let’s hope they’ve also got their suits pressed, because the big time waits for no one. Here’s Theo with an internal report.

What was the intention behind forming Hurts?
We had been a lot of bands before, but with Hurts, the main intention was to be honest and be who we wanted to be. We like emotional music and we thought that’d be something that’s quite brave to do… And yeah, it was a lot of different things, but Hurts is mostly just a way for us to be us.

Were you surprised at the attention you got on the back of that one song (“Wonderful Life”)?
Yeah, because the whole plan was really to say as much as possible with as little as possible. We didn’t want to give too much information away so we just put out that one song and video. And somehow, people got interested in the mystery of it. But since Hurts is just the two of us, we spend enough time together to not want to do it for other people.

So are you as serious and mysterious as your image would have us think?
No, that’s not us. Oh, maybe slightly, though we’re less exaggerated versions. But at the same time, when you write pop music, you write yourself as a certain kind of person – you’re different. And we’re brave to say that this is who we are. It’s also important that the music is visually represented properly.

The rest of the interview can be found in the August issue of JUICE, available for free at these spots (and for $4 at all major book stores and news stands).

www.informationhurts.com

Text: Min Chen
Image & interview courtesy of: Sony Music