Hardy grew up in Bradford, attending Bradford Grammar School and gained a place in Bradford College's BTec foundation course of art and design in 1998. He earned a place in the Glasgow School of Art in order to study painting, he completed his first year in 2000. Keen to sample all that Glasgow had to offer he visited the 13th Note where he met Alex Kapranos, the now frontman of Franz Ferdinand. The band have previously also claimed that they met while working as dessert chefs at a restaurant.

Hardy was an artist interested in music whilst Kapranos was a musician interested in art, this helped the two become firm friends. Through Hardy's friends from the Art School, Kapranos developed an interest in the work of the Dadaists and the Russian Constructivists. After Hardy had met Nick McCarthy, whose girlfriend was also at the art school, the two began to date members of Hardy's year. Many of the earlier shows of the band would come about thanks to the band's art world contacts.

Kapranos had been given a bass guitar by his friend Mick Cooke, a member of the cult Glaswegian popsters, Belle & Sebastian on the condition that he "did something useful with it". Some time around the end of 2001, Hardy was sitting in Kapranos' kitchen in Glasgow. Kapranos had just been given the bass. So he asked "Do you want to learn to play the bass then, Bob?", to which he replied, "No, I'm an artist, not a musician." Alex responded, saying, "It's the same thing", which eventually led to Hardy giving in.