Last week I attended Pukkelpop. Lots of great gigs, but it came with another surprise for me and the lovely Neon Enlightenment girls: we met Theo Hutchcraft and Adam Anderson, better known as Hurts. After a short introduction they offered us beers (yay!) and sat down with us on the nice white seats that were there.

disco naïveté: So you came 4th in the BBC Sound of 2010 contest! Congratulations!
Hurts: Thank you! Best of the losers, which means no pressure!

Hah, how do you mean?
Well, coming first comes with a lot of responsibilities. Coming second is just sad, third doesn’t even matter anymore. Ending fourth comes with no pressure at all yet still all benefits, so we’re very happy with that spot.

I see. Ellie Goulding came first, Marina came second, you came fourth… Who came third? I forgot.
Delphic. Did you know bloggers decide that list? Bloggers, journalists, and so on.

Seriously? I didn’t know. I figured BBC-people did that, because it’s the BBC Sound of 2010 award.
A lot of people seem to think that, but in fact it’s like 500 people that decide it.

Bloggers are important!
Yes, they really are! I’m serious about this.

Bloggers kind of decide what’s the next big thing, don’t they?
Yes, they do. And we’re very thankful to everyone that writes something about us on their blog.

Okay. Well, glad you’re happy with that spot, and no thanks! It all kind of started for you guys back then, didn’t it? The video for Wonderful Life popped up like everywhere, Sony signed you. How did that happen, a major label signing you? To be honest I kind of expected a smaller label to sign you. But Sony’s fine too of course.
Well, we just went over there. Told them who we are, gave them some demos, showed them some pictures, and they were like ‘okay’. That’s how it happened. Really cool. Everyone thinks they tell you who to be, what kind of music you should make, and so on, but that’s not true at all. They signed us just the way we are and fully support everything we are doing and want to do.

Now that’s nice! I bet you’ve seen quite a lot of Europe already?
Indeed, we have! It’s quite amazing: you travel throughout Europe and in a lot of countries we visit our current single - Better Than Love - is charted pretty high, that’s just so amazing. We were in Germany yesterday, but we have been in Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and so on. Greece is such a beautiful country! And we were in Japan last week. It’s our first time in Belgium actually.

Oh, your first time in Belgium! How are you liking Belgium so far?
We’re loving it. The weather is perfect and people are really nice here to us. We can’t wait to climb on stage! Adam’s grandmother is from Belgium, right Adam?
Yes, she was born in Brussels. She is 85 now but left Belgium during World War II.

Let’s talk about the new video. First of all: why did you make a new video for Wonderful Life? I liked the old one. Lots of people did. The new video is cool though, it’s just so… different.
Well, that video is actually the kind of video we always had in our minds. We just didn’t have the budget. It’s quite a sad/funny story actually. We placed an ad somewhere asking for a female dancer to dance in a music video, must wear black, and a place and time. We waited for five hours and were getting desperate already, but then the woman dancing in the original video showed up. Then we did the video and we never saw her again. We’d love to meet her again.

“Female, must wear black, place and time”. No wonder no one showed up, it sounds quite tricky.
Haha, indeed. Actually it’s quite hard if you want to make a video but don’t have the budget. You can’t just place a camera there and do your thing, there’s got to be more – we wanted it to be more. But now we have our record deal and everything is a lot easier. You just tell them you want to make a video and they get you in touch with directors, dancers, etc. We are very happy with the result, it’s exactly the kind of video we always wanted for Wonderful Life.

And it’s a beautiful video, for a beautiful song! You’re playing in the Chateau here today on Pukkelpop. Beware: it’s bloody hot in there. And when I say ‘bloody hot’ I really do mean people are sweating like a cow.
Perhaps we shouldn’t wear our suits then – too hot.

Oh no, you have to wear your suits! They’re too nice not to wear them.
Haha, alright then. We’ll wear them. I guess we have no other option.

And you’re coming back to Belgium in October! You’re playing at the Botanique. Beautiful venue. Too bad it’s in the Orangerie though, the Rotonde would have been really awesome. Such a cosy venue.
So today we’ll sweat like a pig and in October we won’t play in the most beautiful venue. Yeah, we are really looking forward to performing here in Belgium (very sarcastic).

Haha, sorry. The Orangerie is a nice venue too, just a bit bigger than the Rotonde. I’d also like to warn you for the Belgian crowd: we don’t shout a lot. We just close our eyes and listen, then we cheer and clap a bit when you’re done with a song. Big applause at the end, then we expect you to come on stage again, another big applause, then you play some more songs, another big applause, then you leave and we all come out and tell eachother how beautiful it was and buy your t-shirts. That’s how it works here.
Haha, okay. Works for us!

Thanks a lot for this short interview. We’ll make sure to be in the front row during your concert here on Pukkelpop. Dancing, singing and sweating.
We’ll see you then!

Hurts’ debut Happiness will be available on September 6 on Sony Music.