You’ll remember HRVY, TV presenter. You’ll definitely know HRVY, Strictly Come Dancing star. Now get ready to meet HRVY: POP STAR.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and that means it’s been a challenge at times,” the 22-year-old musician will admit, frankly acknowledging the highs and lows of signing his first record deal when he was only 14. “Starting so young isn’t necessarily the best for being taken seriously as an artist. But that does come with age and experience. And now, with my new music, new writing partners and new record company relationship, I absolutely think I can be taken seriously.”
You wouldn’t find anyone disagreeing with that sentiment on HRVYs long-delayed autumn 2021 tour – a run of sell-out shows the lad from Kent completed even as he was simultaneously putting the finishing touches to his upcoming, five-track EP, Views From The 23rd Floor. Over ten nights, his band and dancers brought a much-needed party to Britain.
“We just had the best time. Even the little things were well fun, like visiting motorway services!” he enthuses. “The first night was Glasgow O2 Academy and the crowd were so up for it. I was a bit nervous but they were unreal. I thought they were gonna fight me at some point, they were so rowdy! Brilliant.”
If pushed, he thinks Manchester Academy might have been the best night.
“Not only was it Halloween and everyone was dressed up – I was Draco Malfoy – but also the whole venue was standing. There were 2000 people, all stood up, pushing to the front, and the energy was brilliant. Or the first night at London Palladium, which is just a legendary venue. So it was an honour to be playing there.”
But he's not just (already) a time-served performing don. As HRVY’s 4.1 million Instagram followers, or 6.5 million monthly Spotify listeners, will confirm: the kid can sing – and write – a banger. He can also, as that forthcoming EP amply demonstrates, magic up an instant, hit, not to mention deeply crafted songs that reward repeated listening.
And as the 13 million viewers who tuned into the December 2020 final of the last season of Strictly Come Dancing will echo, the kid can dance, too, even if he was pipped at the post by comedian Bill Bailey.
Equally, for all the fresh-faced exuberance that made him a locked-down nation’s favourite during Strictly’s run last year, the kid isn’t a kid any more. HRVY is still only 22, but he has a third of a lifetime’s worth of entertainment experience behind him, stretching back to making his debut as a TV presenter on CBBC’s Friday Download – and signing his first record deal – when he was 14. And he’s bringing all that to bear on the music he’s now making in a brand new phase of his career, with a brand new record label partnership.
“I’m really pleased I signed with BMG,” he says of the deal he signed in March 2021. “What I love about them is that they haven’t got hundreds of artists, and they really focus on the artists they have. They put the time and love in, and I need that. I feel safe there, and inspired.”
That inspiration was front and centre in 1 Day 2 Nights, the summer club anthem released early last summer as the first fruits of his new deal. Buoyed by a riotous video starring actor Jason Flemyng (“I got to flex my acting muscles with Jason Flemyng,” he laughs, “totally cool!”), it’s the maximalist dance pop sound of HRVY and his generation celebrating being finally able to go out out again.
“It definitely needed to be more mature, and it definitely needed to be radio-friendly,” he says of a song that’s cruised past 10 million Spotify streams. “I’ve always done dance-pop, but now we wanted to lean into that UK dance music sound even more.”
1 Day 2 Nights was written by HRVY and collaborators Danny Shah and Dom Little in hugely productive sessions this spring in The Qube studios in Acton, west London.
“I first met those guys at a writing camp last summer,” he explains, “and it just felt so fresh and exciting. We had a great relationship from the start, which is the first time that’s ever happened. We’ve been working together ever since. It’s not about chasing names, or chasing previous hits – it just feels natural.”
As much was equally evident in the irresistible bounce of the autumn’s follow-up single, Run Away With It. Built round a killer sample from Shanice’s deathless 1991 hit I Love Your Smile, it was an instant ear-worm perfect for a time when we were, finally, back going out.
“Danny and I wrote the song in maybe half an hour – it was so quick and easy it felt like we were cheating. But then I played it to my family – my mum’s the most honest person. She’s not biased – if she doesn’t like something I’ve done, she’ll tell me straight! But they all loved that track straight away.”
But HRVY’s not one for sitting on his laurels. Views From The 23rd Floor – is five songs that mark yet another exciting chapter in his musical maturation.
First up is Talking to The Stars, written with Shah and Little, an electronic soul ballad with a heavy beat.
“We were in the studio and I played a few reference tracks. And I said I wanted a beautiful harp sound going through the song – I think having a sweet harp and a heavy beat going through it is quite cool. So we wrote the song, and it was the first time I swore in a lyric! And for a second I was like, am I trying too hard? But the thing is, I swear so much in daily life! And Olivia Rodrigo swears in her songs, and so does Billie Eilish. A lot of that went through my head. I was definitely overthinking it!” he admits with a rueful grin. “But in the end, we went for it – it 100 per cent goes with the passion of the song.”
Next up is Sweet October. Written in HRVY’s first songwriting session after lockdown eased earlier this year, it’s an arena-ready banger he considers “a bit more like The 1975, a bit more like a band song”.
As for Golden Hour, it might be HRVY’s best vocal to date, a stunning showcase for the heights he can reach, literally and figuratively, laid over a minimal beat that bursts into dynamic production courtesy of Billen Ted (chart-topping remixers of Nathan Evans’ Wellerman).
The fourth track is the effortlessly singalong Too Young for This.
“It was inspired by a relationship, but it was also just about life in general. It’s worrying about things in life and thinking you have to have everything together. We all just have to chill out. Me and my friends are only in our early twenties – it’s absolutely fine if we don’t know what we’re doing, or what we want to do in life. We can still mess around and fuck up. It was a reassurance song to myself.”
HRVY knows better than most what he’s talking about. He spent the second half of his teens travelling the world making music and performing. Touring incessantly has helped him amass a staggering billion global streams. In 2019 alone he estimates he visited 26 countries, boosting a profile that’s seen HRVYmania break out in Asia.
When the pandemic hit, he hadn’t had a break in three years. So, he admits, it was something of a relief to be forced to take some time off. But his creative cogs didn’t stop whirring for long. When the offer came to appear on Strictly, he decided to go for it this time after having declined the invitation on previous seasons. If he couldn’t spend time in a recording studio, he could at least spend time in a TV studio, helping bring joy to the nation.
“Strictly was tough as hell, but it was so much fun,” he enthuses. “It was almost a saviour for me. When everyone went into that second lockdown, I was working all the way through it. It was something to keep my mind occupied. I just put the creativity for making music into dance – I put it in my legs!” HRVY laughs.
“But it was tiring, and difficult mentally. I couldn’t see anyone – couldn’t see my family, couldn’t go out for a drink and celebrate after we smashed a dance. It was back to my bubble – my manager’s house, which is near the studios – then get up the next day and learn a samba.
“So it was an amazing experience. I’m glad I got to be on TV every weekend and entertain a nation that was very bored every Saturday and Sunday night. And I got to meet some great people.”
Equally, he’s aware of the boost it’s given to his first love: music.
“I’ll now do my weekly shop and I’ll be in Waitrose and nans will be coming up to me in the cheese aisle: ‘Ooh, are you HRVY?’ Before that it would have been their granddaughters! But now I’ve got two generations, maybe even three!”
Whatever their age, HRVY’s fans will be buzzed by the fifth and final track on Views From The 23rd Floor. Never Be Us is a huge club song, primed and ready for summer 2022 dancefloors. It’s the perfect end-point for a body of work that represents the artist HRVY is now – an EP whose very title reflects the expanded horizons of a musician hitting his stride as he hits the ripe young age of 23.
“This EP tells more of a story about me. I don’t just have dance songs you can jump around to. These are songs you can actually sit and listen to. I want people to hear these and think of a more grown up artist, with interesting lyrics and interesting melodies. That’s why it’s five songs – it’s not the quick hit of one single.”
Here, then, is the return, the rebirth, the refreshing of HRVY: POP PHENOM.
“I’m maturing into my art,” he concludes. “That’s come just with growing up, and having the experience of all those singles and all those shows. Now I know what I want. And 2022 is going to be a big year of touring for me," HRVY adds. "All those international fans I’ve not been able to see for two years. I want to see them again! As much as I love my house, I don’t want to see it for a few months!”
