JOHN HARDMAN - BIOG PAGE - genres rock/rock-pop/alt rock/blues/indie/psychedelic. John Hardman - guitarist, keyboard player, songwriter, producer, member of rock band 'Beats Working' 'Class Of 2''John Hardman Band' (JHB), 'Intrinsik' with Denny Lloyd, and solo artist. This led him to start working at Sun Studios in Reading with fellow writer Rob Boughton , and formed the beginnings of a band later to be called Sunfighter (talent spotted and produced by Roy Thomas Baker - Queen, Foreigner, Alice Cooper, Ozzie Osbourne, Cars etc) and later on by Chris Rainbow (Alan Parsons Project, Jon Anderson, Camel, Runrig, River Detectives). Sunfighter were signed to EMI Records and released a number of singles backed with appearances on Top Of The Pops, 'Supersonic' and other shows. Through this period John did a fair amount of session work and touring on guitar, sessioning, producing and recording in most major London studios of the day, as well as collaborating & recording with UK female duo 'Blonde On Blonde', and recording, touring and TV appearances (Royal Variety/Pebble Mill & others) on bass guitar for a couple of years with Welsh musician/comedian Max Boyce.
Behind the scenes John always worked at his songwriting and production work, linking up with his brother Bob for a while during the late seventies and early eighties with several acts signed to their newly formed indie label Swamp Records. Around 1980 John released his first solo single on Gallery Records through WEA - a double A sided song titled 'Little Comfort In The Night' & 'She's Leaving You'. For a while John was also signed to Kennedy Street Artistes (and Stuart Littlewood), a well known Manchester based artist agency and management company who numbered amongst its roster 10cc, Sad Cafe and many other artistes. A number of solo songs were demoed at this time. As Swamp Records UK, John & Bob signed and produced a number of artistes including Small Change, Ian Lang, Susie Hep, Telephone Bill & The Smooth Operators (album 'Pretty Slick Huh?'), Neil Lewis (album 'Profile'), Dave Cartwright and others (including a one-off single of his own called 'Don't Touch The Receiver' under the name 'The Chief'!!) gaining releases on other major labels for them in the UK, USA and most of Europe, at that time. John worked with many acts and different producers over the next few years, as well as his own solo projects, most notably with producers John Acock (Steve Hackett/Marillion/Dik Cadbury) and Gus Dudgeon (Elton John/Elkie Brooks/David Bowie/Chris Rea).
In November 1981 John's daughter was born, later on to follow in his musical footsteps, now better known as Sarah Harding (RIP) of the hit girl band 'Girls Aloud'.
In 1986, John put a rock band on the road and formed Beats Working. See Beats Working on Spotify, Reverbnation, Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, You Tube and many other sites. Currently their penultimate album is 'No more Unfinished Tomorrows', a compilation of the EPs 'No More Tomorrows' & 'Unfinished Business'. The latest Beats Working album is called 'Perspection', first single release which is the song 'Burning Heart'. Currently John is working on several new music projects.
Also, John owned Rockbarn studios on the Welsh/Shropshire border in the UK for some years, and he has also been working with the Denny Lloyd Band and has recently played a festival in Shropshire as guitarist in the band, and several live recordings from this gig are now available. Over the last few years John has also collaborated with songwriter Jeff Ross, working with various acts including the UK rock band 'The Rushing' (previously Asono). John has also produced and co-written songs for dance/electronica/pop-rock artiste K8.
In September 2011 John started rehearsing his then new 'John Hardman Band' who are now gigging, releasing their first EP of original songs. In 2012 John released a collection of songs called 'Look Ups' by Beats Working, and a new solo album called 'Cooked Oxide'. 'Cooked Oxide 2' was released in June 2015, Cooked Oxide 3 in 2018, all available now through major online outlets. Here is the official blurb on the continuing 'Cooked Oxide' series of albums!
Cooked Oxide first album - 'A release by JH of re-finished, remixed and later re-mastered songs he wrote for his solo career. Beats Working started in 1986 with first and vinyl album 'Life On A Wire' to good critical acclaim at that time, after a career with the band Sunfighter on EMI 1975-78, Max Boyce band 1978-80 and solo single 'Little Comfort In The Night' b/w 'She's Leaving You' on Gallery/WEA records(1980-1).On this album the track 'Kiss & Don't Tell Affair' was produced by Elton John's producer Gus Dudgeon, and the song 'Black & White' was a collaboration production wise with John & Gus. Most of the songs were written by John except 'Black & White', 'Kiss And Don't Tell Affair', 'Where's The Music Playing Now', and 'Samantha' which were penned by his brother Bob Hardman & himself, with 'Where's The Music' later being recorded by John's band Beats Working'. A splinter duo comprising John and Lynn Sheppard (bass & vocals in Beats Working) called 'Class Of 2'' An album called 'Good Love' was later released of the original songs recorded by the duo.
In 2015 he formed an acoustic gigging & recording duo with Denny Lloyd called ‘Intrinsik’, who have released their debut album on iTunes/Amazon/Spotify etc called ‘In Short Trousers (Protest Songs Of Generations Past)'. Check It Out! Thanks for reading & any listening to the sounds! Thank you also to all my fans everywhere. For more information check out linktr.ee/john.hardman and his website https://johnhardmanmusic.com. Thanks for reading .... John H.
