Hurts surprised by Kylie consent

Hurts say collaborating with Kylie Minogue was the "icing on the cake".

The synth pop duo asked the 'All the Lovers' hitmaker to lend her vocal talents to 'Devotion' - which features on their debut LP 'Happiness' - but admit they never expected her to grant their request.

Theo Hutchraft explained: "We decided to ask her because the worst that could happen was that she would say no. We wrote her a little letter and didn't hear anything back for a while. Then she got back and said she would do it. We were in the taxi on the way to the studio, stuck in traffic thinking she wouldn't be there and that we would miss her because we were late.

"But she was there waiting for us and the recording was the icing on the cake. She loved the track. She said it allowed her out of the box a little bit."

The pair - Theo and bandmate Adam Anderson - also explained they wrote second single 'Wonderful Life' as a "means of escape" from a life they weren't happy with.

Theo added to the Daily Record newspaper: "We were massively insecure and being unemployed was demoralising. We'd wear a suit so that we could have a sense of dignity left.

"That song was one of the first wrote. All we wanted was to write a track that would help us escape. Adam was homeless. He moved into my horrible flat. We wrote the song to help us get out of this life. It's amazing that a song that we wrote as a means of escape has become our golden ticket out of a life that we hated."