Yorkshire-based alt.rockers Hellbound Hearts are premiering the video for their new song Broken Hearted exclusively on TeamRock. The track, taken from their new album Film Noir, blends gloomy riffs and dark grooves with a chorus that’ll stick in your head for days.
The album would’ve been with us sooner had it not been for a complete change of heart on the band’s account. “It wasn’t working,” explains vocalist Danny Lambert now. “We’d had some changes and time to reflect, and whilst the songs were good, we wanted to be our own band and not be like 1000 others flooding the market. So we canned the album, went back to the drawing board and wrote a bunch of new songs.”
We chat with Danny to find out more about the track, its video, and what the band have lined up for next.
What’s the story behind the song Broken Hearted?
The song is about when you realise the world is not a beautiful place. You waste your youth waiting for things to get better, then waste your later years regretting wasting your youth on nothing. False hope of a Hollywood ending breeds complacency and contempt.
Can you explain a little bit about the concept of the video?
The video theme is one of self-preservation, and doing what you need to do to survive, or get away with the things you have done. Even though all three of the band enter the woods to hide the evidence of the crime, knowing that the best way to keep a secret is by fewer people knowing it, Craig and Lee decide between them that the best way to preserve the secret is to get rid of the only witness.
What sort of themes do you cover on your album Film Noir?
The theme of the album was not intentional, it just worked out that way. Ideas of regretting the past, fearing the future and questioning whether everything you were ever told was true. Lamenting a past that may not have been great at the time, but seems better than what we have now.
What drew you to those topics?
Reaching a certain age and suddenly not trying to write songs like other people, and just being honest with the thought process.
What’s your favourite story or anecdote from recording the album?
As the album was self-funded, it was recorded in stages as-and-when we could afford to pay for it, rather than one long block, so it was a little fragmented. I do however remember several conversations about tea, my brief obsession with granola, and producer Matt Ellis looking at me over his glasses with disappointment when I messed up recording clean guitar parts.
What’s the story behind the artwork?
We wanted something dark and relatively simple, without the standard film noir associations of private detectives in the 50s under street lamps, and dames in evening gowns with guns in their garter. We threw some ideas at Debora, who designed it for us, and she really nailed it.
What or who are your greatest song-writing inspirations?
Noel Gallagher, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Holmes/Greg Mackintosh, Matt Skiba, Brian Fallon, Kes Loy.
What’s next for Hellbound Hearts?
I hope we can get this album to the attention of a lot more people across the world and build an even bigger following and fanbase, particularly in the UK and Europe, so we can get a good start for album two which is, for all intents and purposes, written and waiting to be made. Then I hope we can start to look into introducing ourselves in the USA.
Film Noir is out now. Catch Hellbound Hearts at the following dates:
03 Jun: The Exchange, Keighley, UK
23 Jun: Firefly, Dundee, UK
24 Jun: Bannermans, Edinburgh, UK
08 Jul: The Venue, Westcliffe on Sea, UK
27 Jul: Trillians, Newcastle, UK
29 Jul: Westgarth Social Club, Middlesborough, UK
11 Aug: Yorkshire Rock & Bike Show, Leeds, UK
