Hard-Fi return with new song ‘Don’t Go Making Plans’ and announce new EP

Hard-Fi have returned with ‘Don’t Go Making Plans’, marking the first track from the noughties legends in over a decade. You can listen to it in full below.

The new track from the Staines group marks the first time of their forthcoming EP of the same name and sees the group heading in a groovy, soul-flecked direction that calls to mind Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’.

“All my money keeps walking out the door/ No, I don’t know, what do they want it all for?” sings frontman Richard Archer, showing that the band’s famously socially charged lyrics are still intact.

“There’s a heavy feeling hanging about the place/ feels like I’m down down down, on my face, and a boot in my back,” he goes on.

Appropriately then, the band say that the track was inspired by the UK Government’s attempts to outlaw many means of popular protest through the 2022 Public Order Act.

“Don’t Go Making Plans is sort of a protest song about protest, but I wanted to encapsulate that message into something that was still a pop song,” Archer explained.

“A track that you can still dance to in a club or play on the radio, because a song like that you can make a real connection to and circumnavigates the pointless restrictions being put in our way. Governments passing laws to stop protests that ’cause more than minor disruption feels like something out of a dystopian film,” he added.

“The whole point of protest is disruption. You’re trying to interrupt the inevitable flow of things, to encourage the people running the country to think again, especially when you have a government that doesn’t seem to be bothered by what people actually need.”

Hard Fi’s EP of the same name will arrive on November 1, with the group heading out on an extensive UK tour to mark the occasion. Full dates are below.

NOVEMBER:
16 –Hastings, White Rock
19 – Portsmouth, Guildhall
21 –Cardiff, Tramshed
22 – Wolverhampton, Wulfrun
23 –Nottingham, Rock City
25 – Glasgow, Garage
26 – Sheffield, The Leadmill
27 – Manchester, Ritz
29 – Leeds, Stylus
30 – London, Roundhouse

The group first reunited in 2022 to announced a 15th anniversary tour of their seminal debut album Stars of CCTV, which led Archer to tease the prospect of new music.

“We’re sort of taking baby steps a little bit because, you know, I’m sitting here thinking that in a dream world, we’ll do some dates and we’ll release new music,” he told Rolling Stone UK at the time.

We just don’t want to be going out and playing the old songs over and over again.”