‘You need a guitar band to come out and change the world’
Busted are back with a new album and making the case for ‘real’ music to Lucy Mapstone
Busted’s Matt Willis is not impressed with the current state of the music charts.
He’s particularly agitated by the potential threat one piece of work poses to the band’s new album Half Way There.
“That f***ing Greatest Showman album, oh my God,” he says, lightly seething over a conference call.
“Can you put a message out? On 1 February, stop buying The Greatest Showman, for one week, so ours can get to number one, please?”
In a room at their record label’s London office with his bandmates Charlie Simpson and James Bourne, he adds over the phoneline: “Busted have never had a number one album. It’s f***ing crazy.”
Back in the early Noughties, the pop-rock group did manage to notch up a handful of number one singles, including Crashed The Wedding and You Said No.
But not one of their three albums has managed to strike number one gold, although the first two, Busted and A Present For Everyone, both peaked at a very respectable number two in 2002 and 2003.
Not that the lack of number ones really had any impact on their success or level of fame – the group were, and are still, very well-known – thanks to their pumping out of infectious, catchy, punkpop singles about fancying teachers (What I Go To School For) and travelling to a bizarre future filled with triple-breasted women (Year 3000), and their feisty yet fun, accessible persona.
Not to mention their split more than ten years ago, the catalyst of which was Simpson’s swift exit to pastures new with heavier post-hardcore band Fightstar, leaving Willis and Bourne no choice but to call it a day.
So this, their fourth album and their second since reforming in 2016, is Busted’s chance to finally hit the chart summit.
It could prove quite the task to knock the film soundtrack from the number one spot
– it has clung on for 28 nonconsecutive weeks since its release in December 2017 at time of writing.
Its ongoing success is largely down to streams and downloads, but there’s something about it that is clearly gripping the nation, above and beyond what the rest of the modern charts have to offer.
“We need Nirvana now more than ever,” Willis insists. “You need a guitar band to come out and change the world.
“I listen to the radio, I don’t connect with anything. I don’t wanna be an old moaning dickhead, but I really don’t.”
In agreement, Bourne pitches in: “When you have music with instruments that are played by people, there’s a feeling you can’t really get from when you process stuff on computers.
“The further back in time you go, the more music sounds like music.”
Simpson adds: “But this record, although it’s kind of going back to the original sound, it’s a much more grown-up rock sound.
“If we could have made this record 10 years ago, I probably wouldn’t have left the band. Maybe we’d have gone on hiatus to do other projects, but this was the vision that aligns all three of us.”
It’s no secret that Simpson grew tired of the way the band was viewed in their hey-day.
To the real rock music folk, they were kind of a joke. Many thought they belonged in the pop arena, despite
their undeniable talents as songwriters and musicians.
They weren’t the same as the slew of manufactured pop bands of the time, but unfortunately they were put into that category. And that’s why Simpson left.
“Splitting up when we did was the absolute most important thing we ever could have done,” he insists.
“Had we not split up, we probably would have risked our friendships, because I was pretty miserable.
“Not because of Matt and James, but because I didn’t like where the band was or how it was perceived – and I think it would have harmed our friendship, we would have dragged it into the ground. It would have been a horrible ending.
“So putting the friendship on ice, preserving the friendship, but going to do our own things creatively and then coming back, allowed us to do this now.”
The trio bunkered down at Bourne’s London flat, where they spent time together in their earlier days, to create the new record. It was produced by Gil Norton, who has worked with the likes of the Foo Fighters and the Pixies.
The album is typically Busted, with songs including nostalgic ode to the Nineties, a track about Elon Musk called Race To Mars, and the autobiographical It Happens.
“We wrote everything on acoustic guitars, which is how we used to write songs,” reveals Simpson.
“This is an album for the fans.”
“Had we not split up, we probably would have risked our friendships, because I was pretty miserable”
● Half Way There by Busted is out now.