The Futureheads look back on 20 years since debut

Twenty years ago, Sunderland band The Futureheads released their debut album. It included a cover of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love – widely accepted as one of the best ever versions. Barry Hyde from the band talks about how it came about and how it stills forms part of their set.

During one of their earliest tours, The Futureheads were crammed into the back of a van with another group travelling round Europe.

It was down to bassist David "Jaff" Craig to provide entertainment in the form of a single compilation cassette, which contained Kate Bush's '80s classic Hounds of Love.

"Whenever it came on we'd tell the driver to turn it up, so it sort of became this accidental anthem of this little DIY indie tour that we were doing,” says lead singer Barry.

It was when the bassist of the other band suggested they cover it that Barry admits The Futureheads ended up recording their own version first "out of jovial spitefulness".

"I didn't say anything about it, I waited until we got home and sat with a guitar and we put the arrangement together, including the a cappella intro. It didn't take long at all."

The band performed the cover at a gig in the basement of the Head of Steam in Newcastle that week and have performed it at pretty much every one of their gigs since - which Barry estimates to be just more than 1,500.

The single received praise from the likes of the NME, who named it as their song of the year in 2005. It also peaked at number eight on the UK charts in its first week.

"It was our greatest success," Barry says. "Commercially we had more success later on, but in terms of impact never had a fireball as powerful as that. People say it's better than the original but I say that's daft".

• Listen to the interview on BBC Sounds

Hounds of Love was one of 15 tracks in the band's eponymous debut album.

The four members - David Craig, Ross Millard and brothers Barry and Dave Hyde - met in 2000 in a rehearsal and studio space in Sunderland called The Bunker.

"We'd write songs and were able to plug into the big amps and make some serious racket in the soundproof rooms, and it was 50p each," Barry says, speaking to the BBC from one of the rehearsal rooms at Sunderland's Northern Academy of Music Education, which he co-founded in 2021.

"I went down with my brother, who was only 11 at the time, and we met these two lads called Jaff and Ross.

"We started hanging out and tried to be bohemian by going out nightclubbing, but drinking red wine before we went out.

"We were full of dreams and passionate about music. That's ultimately how we formed the band."

The band sing proudly in their strong Mackem accents, but Barry says when he first started singing he tried to tone it down.

"I was singing in an almost American accent, and I didn't feel genuine," he says. "So it had to be an almost over-exaggerated Wearside accent, there's no half measures about it.

"It's actually singing more colloquially than I would probably talk."

And it was that style of singing which caused confusion for one American fan, who went to see the band at the Texas festival South by Southwest in the early 2000s.

"This guy came up and asked me if I was from the Czech Republic," he chuckles.

"He could not understand a word we were singing about and he thought I was speaking in an Eastern European language."

When asked if the band would consider covering any of Bush's other tracks to try and replicate the success of Hounds of Love, Barry smiles and admits it had already been suggested by Dave.

"He said we should do Running up that Hill, a cappella. And I said 'Nah'. And then Stranger Things happened...

"I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing but, yeah, we almost did another Kate Bush cover.

"But we can't go near Kate Bush again."

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