When VIVA Met Busted

Eilidh Grant | 14th April 2016

IMG_2941-14-2

Photography: Fraser Cottrell

When VIVA arrived at The Hard Rock Cafe, a reunited Busted were meeting fans after posting clues to their whereabouts on Twitter. Watching from the balcony we noticed how friendly and welcoming the boys were to every person that approached them. Once the fans left the boys came upstairs to sit down with us for a chat.

You haven’t been together for ten years! What has made you reunite?

Charlie: It’s been ten years. I don’t think any of us thought this would happen. We started hanging out again and rekindling our friendship. We started talking of the idea of new music and realised that we actually shared similar creatives interests that none of us realised we had. We got in the studio and started writing new songs and that was the start really.

What has happened in those ten years for you guys?

Matt: I think a lot changes from the age of 20 to30. It’s a bit chunk of your life. We’re still the same people we’re just older.

Charlie: We have more experience! We appreciate everything for what it is now. We were really young the first time round and now we’re older and wiser and know what we’re doing.

What did it feel like playing together after all those years?

James: We haven’t actually played that much. We’ve only recorded one song at Abbey Road for a video on our Facebook page.

Matt: It will all come back to us I’m sure!

IMG_2924-10-2

Photography: Fraser Cottrell

What aged crowd are you expecting to come to these shows?

Charlie: It will be between 20-30 I reckon…

What’s been the reaction so far since reuniting?

Charlie: It’s been crazy! We managed to sell 100,000 tickets in the first hour of the tour going on sale. It blew our minds. We didn’t expect it. We like to think people would care about it but you can never be sure.

Matt: It’s always a daunting experience when you put anything out there that you hope people are into but you know like Charlie said the response was overwhelming. We are so humbled and really stoked about it.

How has the music developed in ten years, is the sound of Busted going to change?

Matt: It will represent where we are now. The lucky thing is is that we are all similar in what we want to do. There’s no one person pushing it in one direction. We’re all on the same page – more so than I ever thought we’d be. It’s been a really easy album making process.

What music can we expect at the concert?

Matt: We’ll play all the classics. But we’ll also play songs we’ve never played before.

James: I like the world classics *laughs*

Matt: We only had two albums so we’re going to play almost every song.

James: I was watching that channel VH1 Classics and when you see your song, you know you’re old!

Where has been your favourite place to play?

Matt: Manchester!

Charlie: Two of my favourite places to play in the UK are Manchester and London they just are great.

Matt: I also like this place in Portsmouth called Pyramids, it’s such a great venue. We also shot our first DVD at the Manchester Arena so that’s special to us.

Charlie: Wayne Rooney came back stage and gave Matt an England shirt.

Matt: It had grass stains on it as well!

What band inspires you most?

Charlie: Oh that’s a good question. There’s a lot of good older bands.

Matt: We’ve all got different favourites as well. I love the BeeJees. I recently bought some of their earlier albums which I love.

Charlie: I love The Eagles and Jackson Brown.

Has their music inspired you?

Charlie: You know what it is that inspires me about those bands like The Beach Boys and The Eagles is the harmonies. The harmonies is my favourite thing in music and some of those bands just smash the harmonies so well!

Matt: It’s on fire! Queen have crazy harmonies.

Charlie: Fleetwood Mac as well!

You collaborated with McFly a while ago, can we expect more of that?

James: I think they’re gonna do some stuff on their own as well. We kind of blurred the lines and we want people to remember that there is two separate bands.

Whats next after this tour?

Charlie: We’re doing some summer shows, I think we’re coming quite near here to do Fusion Festival. Then focusing on the new music.

James: A whole album!

Woo we’re so excited to hear that!

IMG_2958-18-2

Photography: Fraser Cottrell

You can catch Pigs Can Fly tour on May 21st in Manchester, tickets here.

Fraser Cottrell Photography  |  Instagram