Robert Hardy

Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, Robert Byron Hardy moved to Glasgow in his adult years to pursue a study of painting at the Glasgow School of Art (it is also said that his love for Glasgow band Belle and

Born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK, Robert Byron Hardy moved to Glasgow in his adult years to pursue a study of painting at the Glasgow School of Art (it is also said that his love for Glasgow band Belle and Sebastian encouraged this location). While earning his degree, he regularly visited Glasgow's hippest bars and clubs, including the famous 13th Note, where he met a bartender named Alex Kapranos Huntley. Hardy didn't make the best first impression: Kapranos later admitted he thought he seemed to be a "vulgar idiot". Hardy has been known to tell disturbing jokes about dead babies.

They became good friends and Kapranos got him a job as a dishwasher and chef in the kitchen where he worked. Kapranos saw some glimmer of potential in Hardy and, when he received a bass guitar from Mick Cooke of Belle and Sebastian, who requested that he "do something useful with it", it was Hardy, with no musical experience whatsoever, that took the time and effort to learn to play.