And Matt, despite his light-hearted grumbles about James, was loving the old days being back in his life. Emma said on Fearne and McBusted, ‘He’s like a kid at Christmas. It’s like we’ve had another baby; he’s that excited.’
It was an excitement that – just like the Heineken he used to drink – hit spots his other accomplishments somehow couldn’t reach. Matt was full of extraordinary news that autumn. First it was revealed that he would appear in the new series of the classic TV sitcom Birds of a Feather, playing Garth, the son of leading lady Tracy. The relaunch of the nostalgic favourite attracted close to an astonishing 8 million viewers and was one of the TV hits of the year.
As if that weren’t enough, Matt realised a dream most actors never see come true. In his solo interview with The Vault in June 2012, he’d mentioned that he’d quite like to move on from musical theatre and appear in a soap. Eighteen months later, he landed a part on the BBC’s top soap, EastEnders, playing the boyfriend of Stacey Branning. As James put it in an interview with Enas Refaei, Matt had been busy ‘basically making his CV look enormous’.
For some people, those two acting parts alone would, on their own, each be a career highlight. But not for Matt Willis. Music, and being in a band in particular (‘I didn’t like being solo. I like having people around me,’ he once said to the Daily Record), had always been his thing. He confided to Enas Refaei, ‘Whatever I’ve done in life, I’ve always had at the back of my mind: I really want to do Busted music. It was really unsettled, unfinished business for me.’ He said frankly in a fan’s YouTube video that he ‘regretted that decision’ to end Busted when they did. He added to The Vault, ‘What was so weird about the timing [of McBusted] is that I’d started to think to myself, If we’re ever going to do this, we need to do it soon. Then – all of a sudden – bang!’
He was aware of the irony of suddenly having to juggle a successful acting career with his passion though. He joked to Enas Refaei, ‘And now I’ve got to ruin everything by being in a pop band again.’
It was weird for James, too. He was having to manage McBusted commitments along with his new musical, Murder at the Gates, and his other projects. Though, echoing Matt, he said firmly to Daybreak, ‘It’s been fun [writing musicals] – but it’s good to be back in a band.’
With James having lived in America for the past six years or so, however, there were some adjustments to be made. He said to The Vault, ‘People in my life [knew me only] when I wasn’t in a band, and people are like, “What’s happened? Where are you? Where did you go?” Because they’re all in another country and they don’t understand what it was like the first time here. They’re like, “Where have you gone, James?”’
Where he’d gone was to follow his heart. And he was about to follow it all the way to Cornwall, where the band had plans. Great plans.
To make new music.
SIXTEEN
That Thing You Do
In early 2014, there was a knock on the door of James’s house in Cornwall. James, hearing it, made his way over to answer it.
He was thirty years old, and currently in a band called McBusted. He wrote songs – and dreamed of the day when he could perform them to millions. Maybe, just maybe, the people who had knocked on his door would be the answer to his prayers.
He pulled open the door.
‘Come in,’ said James, and he opened the door wide – to welcome his five bandmates home.
He led them through to the living room with its stunning sea view, all of them lugging various bits of equipment and a selection of instruments. Just as in James’s parents’ house in Southend back in the day, they were going to set up a home recording studio in the living room . . .
. . . to see what musical magic they might be able to conjure up. Matt for one was delighted to be back in Cornwall. He said to the West Briton, ‘During the madness of Busted I escaped to Cornwall with James. We basically lived on the beach and “met” lots of girls. So I have very fond memories of Cornwall.’
There were no girls allowed on this writing trip, though. It was strictly business, and boys only. And, amid the windswept winter beaches, they found inspiration to write. Teasingly, they revealed the title of only one track when they appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show a few weeks after their trip. Its name? ‘OMFG’.
Matt said of his Busted days to The Vault, ‘We were never one of those bands that was like, “Oh my God, look how huge we are.” We were constantly like, “You’re only as good as your next song.” We were constantly trying to get better and better.’
And McBusted took that same sentiment – and modesty – into their songwriting sessions. They were coy about what might happen to the music they were making. At the original press conference, Tom had said, ‘For now [McBusted is] just the tour.’ But he added, ‘I think if we come up with something awesome and we write some songs we think are incredible, then we’d love to release it.’ He added to The Vault, ‘The tour took us by surprise. If people want us to make music together . . . We’ve been writing songs together for ten years so we never stopped doing that – so I think we could definitely see ourselves doing that.’
The idea of a McBusted commercial release wasn’t what drove them, though. As Harry said to a fan in a YouTube video, ‘Even if we weren’t planning on doing an album, writing would happen anyway.’ And James agreed: ‘We’re writing partners, with or without the band.’ He went further on McBusted: The Birth: ‘We make music together; we’ve always written together. It’s real. There’s a real relationship there. And so, when the idea of forming this supergroup came about, that was when I knew: this is the right way to do this.’
And the supergroup were looking as if they were definitely going to have a life beyond the massive thirty-five arenas they’d sold out for the spring – and not simply because that accomplishment alone was one of the most successful music events in recent history. Tom said with confidence to 5 NewsTalk Live, ‘I think we could definitely get excited about writing some new McBusted songs.’
And it seemed that excitement was one of the things they unpacked with their kit in James’s front room in Cornwall. Matt revealed to Jonathan Ross, ‘We always said that we weren’t going to say we were going to bring out music, because we didn’t want to go away and make music and it be terrible.
‘But we went away, we did some writing – and it wasn’t terrible.’
That would literally be music to their fans’ ears. As to what the McBusted sound would be like, fans could make an educated guess. James confided on Fearne and McBusted, ‘We’re experimenting. We don’t know exactly how it’s going to be, but we thought, No harm in seeing what happens.’ As writing partners over a decade in the making, it was likely to be pretty special. Guitars would definitely feature. McFly’s output of late had been very happy, summery pop – perhaps a sign of the loved-up status of the group, with Harry, Danny and Tom all married, or about to be. With Matt happily married and James still with Gabriela (he said to The Vault, ‘We’ve been together for a while. And we’re having a really good time’), perhaps happiness would be the order of the day.
And Dougie could contribute on that front, too. Before Christmas, pictures had started circulating of him hanging out with fellow pop star Ellie Goulding. Every interview McBusted gave included an awkward moment when the presenter would knowingly ask Dougie if he had anything to share. The rest of the band would fall silent – the quiet bond of brothers in arms – but with mischievous smirks written plainly across their faces, as Dougie innocently denied he had anything to talk about on the romance front.
Yet, as the winter blossomed into spring, their relationship blossomed, too, and he and Ellie finally confessed publicly that they were dating. Dougie said to Fearne Cotton, ‘All is good in that area. All is very, very good.’ Meanwhile, Ellie said sweetly on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, ‘He is lovely,’ and raved to Self magazine, ‘Love is beyond everything, beyond the universe . . . I’ve definitely met someone.’
It seemed Mc
Busted would retain their sense of fun and humour in the new material, though, despite their grown-up married status. Matt later said to the Daily Record, ‘I was with Dougie last night and we were writing an appreciation song about boobs.’ He added, with all the experience borne of ten years in the music business, ‘But we can’t just write an album of songs about boobs.’
For now, though, the album had to take a backseat to the tour. The first sell-out arena was booked for 17 April at Glasgow’s SSE Arena. And there was a lot of work to be done before they were ready to wow their fans – not least, deciding on the set list.
Danny said confidently on The Vault, ‘There’s fourteen number ones between us – so that’s the set list, done.’ Dougie came up with a typically crazy plan to Chronicle Live, ‘The only word to describe this set list is going to be “gigantor”. Maybe we should just blur all the tunes together into one two-hour song . . .’ And it was clear everyone had their favourites. Danny and Matt both loved ‘Air Hostess’, while Dougie went for ‘Who’s David?’ – to James’s approval (‘I’m most excited about that one, that’s my favourite song,’ he enthused at a McBusted press conference). That press conference itself was the scene of a veritable on-location brainstorm.
Harry kicked things off by saying, ‘I was a massive fan of Busted. So the first thing I thought [about the tour] was, Awesome – we get to play Busted songs.
‘I’m sick of McFly songs. I love “Over Now” and “Better Than This”, so we’ll play those two, please, if that’s cool with you guys. We get to choose one each for sure that we get to play, so I’ll take . . . “Over Now”.’
Tom was too excited to choose. ‘I’m looking forward to playing all of them.’ Though he then added, ‘I like playing “Year 3000”. When we did that at the Albert Hall, that was amazing. When that intro starts . . . That was really cool.’
Danny, swept away in the moment, then named a little-known special-edition Busted track, ‘When Day Turns Into Night’. Responding to the blank faces of the press arrayed before them, the rest of the band all spoke up: ‘All the hits!’, ‘Erase that . . .’
To Magic FM, Danny explained that, in actual fact, the selection process would be ‘exactly what we would do if we were just doing a tour [as McFly]. Which songs have the fans not heard for a while? Let’s play that one, that one, that one.’ And Tom chipped in, ‘We didn’t want it to be like, “OK, we’re McFly and Busted so we have to play half and half.” We just want it to feel like, “We are a band now, the six of us, these are all of our songs together . . . How do we make the most awesome set list? Regardless of what song is whose: what makes the best set list?”’
While the press were keen to pin them down on which tracks fans were going to hear at the gigs, the band were keeping shtum, waiting for the big reveal in Glasgow. At yet another press conference, Dougie, displaying his unique talent for similes, said firmly, ‘We don’t want to commit. It’s like New Year. You don’t want to say what you’re doing until the last minute.’ And James simply commented, ‘We want to make sure we love what we do.’
There was little chance they’d do anything but love it. Harry confided to the press, ‘I personally can’t wait to play the Busted tunes. I was in the rehearsal room the other day on my own, cheekily listening to “Sleeping with the Light On”, playing along, going, “I can’t wait for this!”’
That was one track that might need a bit more work, though. ‘We had a singalong of “Sleeping with the Light On” at my house the other night,’ Tom revealed at a press conference. ‘James was trying to get us to do all the harmonies – and failing miserably.’
Harry summed it all up to The Vault: ‘I’m sure we’ll all go to rehearsals with different ideas and kind of bring it together and we’ll see.’
And scheduled in among those rehearsals were more media appearances. There were Danny and Matt on Sunday Side Up, gamely attempting the iconic Busted jump in a navy twinsie. There was the inevitable chat-show appearance on The Jonathan Ross Show – the sofa only just big enough to hold the sextet (James perched nimbly on the arm). And then Matt and Dougie were reunited with I’m a Celebrity hosts Ant and Dec on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, where the band staged a sing-off with newly formed rock group ‘McDonnelly’: Ant and Dec sporting comedy rock-star wigs. Matt was clearly getting back into the swing of his role in McBusted: for the TV appearance, his head was shaved and the remainder of his dark hair fashioned back into the beginnings of a Mohawk.
It was an interesting look for the school run for the father-of-two. But, as his wife revealed to Fearne Cotton, Matt was taking his new pop-star responsibilities very seriously. ‘Listen,’ he’d said to Emma. ‘You’ve got to stop thinking of me as Matt. I am Matt at home, but in the band I am Matt from Busted.’ And that definitely required a new haircut.
The rest of Matt’s look was defined by his array of brightly coloured tattoos, including a tribute to his daughter, whom he nicknamed ‘Wizz’, which he had across his ribs, and two full sleeves of artwork down his arms. He told Steve Wright on his radio show, ‘I started [my tattoos] when I was twenty-one and I thought I was going to be in a pop band for the rest of my life – so I smothered myself in very uncastable tattoos.’ He gave the back story to FleckingRecords.co.uk: ‘I was in New Zealand and I got a really crappy tattoo on my wrist, so I went to get it covered . . . and I got a bit carried away. I’m totally addicted to tattoos, man, I want as many as I can get.’
And he’d found kindred spirits in his new bandmates. McFly were already tattoo enthusiasts: they’d got into ‘band’ tattoos in a big way, in the form of each of them taking a letter to spell out ‘YMCA’, so the word was whole when they were together; and they’d also got their famous ‘foot’ tattoos back when they were promoting Just My Luck in America. Dougie had ‘Athlete’s’, Tom ‘Big’, Harry ‘Bare’, and Danny ‘Good Ef’. With Matt now in the gang, and the fun-spirited musicians always game for a laugh, a new version of roulette was born.
Tattoo roulette.
Six pieces of paper in a hat. Four labelled ‘No’. Two labelled ‘Oh Shit’. The climax to the game: the ‘Oh Shit’ recipients stage a best-of-three bout of rock, paper, scissors in the tattoo parlour, with the loser having to get a design of the others’ choosing.
With drugs and drink now off the menu for the supergroup, it was adrenaline-pumping stuff. Tom lost the first round, and ended up with – what else could it be? – the logo of the new group painted indelibly on his foot. He tweeted, ‘I lost tattoo roulette . . . I’ve got the world’s worst band name on my foot . . . forever.’ Matt did confide that they were coming round to the name now, though, saying to the Mirror, ‘We’ve gone through regretting it, and now we embrace it. We think actually, it’s so shit, we quite like it!’
And Matt would soon have to get used to liking shit things – for he lost round two of the tattoo game, and his leg became the blank canvas for a little green frog tattoo, in honour of James, whose nickname from the group was ‘Frogs’. ‘I’m flattered,’ laughed his bandmate, clearly tickled at Matt’s fate.
Tattoo roulette was only the beginning for the band when it came to high jinks. All of them were looking forward to the craziness of being on tour. Matt said to 5 NewsTalk Live, ‘I think at the core of us we’re still reckless and as rock-and-roll as we always were.’ Danny cheekily said to heatworld.com, ‘We always cause mischief everywhere we go.’ And the band were quoted in the Bolton News as describing themselves as ‘not a band but a gang’.
Matt and Dougie took things even further with their, ahem, special description of the supergroup, with Matt saying to the Yahoo! Celebrity website, ‘It’s like sex with one person – great – sex with two people – now you’re talking! Sex with SIX people? That’s what this is!’
Dougie coined a new phrase in response: ‘McBusted is a sixsome – sex with six people!’
But, all joking aside, things on the road would be a little different from the old days. It was three years since
Dougie had gone to rehab; six years since Matt had been clean. Matt said honestly to the Daily Record, ‘I have flashbacks to drugs every single day – but I know it’s some sort of romanticism about the past. You know that it’s the past for a very good reason, and I’m constantly reminded of that every time I wake up.’
And for three members of the band, their new sobriety would lead to a very different experience of being onstage while on tour. Matt was open about the fact that he had spent most of Busted’s heyday in a booze-fuelled fog; he always used to get wasted before going onstage. No wonder James said to heatworld.com, ‘I think it would be fun to actually sound good this time.’
It was an ambition Matt was aware – and supportive – of. He agreed with his bandmate: ‘I just want to put on a really good show. And unfortunately being rock-and-roll doesn’t really help you put on a good show.’ Danny added, tongue only slightly in cheek, ‘We look at ourselves like athletes now.’
For Harry, too, things were different. Since he’d had his epiphany about alcohol and quit drinking completely, his pre-gig warm-ups no longer included a cheeky shot of Dutch courage to send him on his way. He confessed to Fearne Cotton, ‘In the past my preparation for going onstage was to drink. Sometimes I’d be like, “Whoa” – and here he mimed waving his drumsticks wildly in the air – “bit too drunk.” But now there’s me and Dougie ordering herbal teas. Me and Matt comparing workouts. It’s good. I’m happy.’
The bromance between Matt and Harry bonding over their workouts was crystal clear. Harry raved chummily to Matt in a McBusted vodcast, ‘That’s the best thing about you joining: I’ve got someone to work out with.’
And the workouts weren’t the only change. On this tour, the band joked that their rider included camomile and green tea. As Matt put it to Good Morning Britain, ‘Hard-core.’ And, thankful as they were when a fan sent them a flux capacitor cake, Matt and Tom kindly requested in an interview with London Live that, next time, a wheat-and gluten-free version would be appreciated. This was rock and roll – the McBusted way.
Mcbusted : The Story of the World's Biggest Super Band (9781471140679) Page 19