Staunch supporters of a hot record (4,4)
I believe the answer is:
hard core
'staunch supporters of' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'a hot record' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' is found in the answer.
'hot' could be 'h' (abbreviation eg on taps) and 'h' is located in the answer.
an anagram of 'record' is 'rdcore' which is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hard core that I've seen before include "filthy" , "most dedicated bunch" , "Like loyal supporter" , "Filling rubble" , "Pornography" .)