Mcbusted : The Story of the World's Biggest Super Band (9781471140679) Read online

  There was more success to come. A week after ‘Crashed the Wedding’ hit record stores, Busted performed the classic one-two knockout punch by following up with their second album, A Present for Everyone, which went on sale on 17 November. In the first three weeks, it sold as many copies as the eponymous Busted had in its entire run, and would go on to be certified three-times platinum with sales of over a million in the UK alone. It attracted plenty of positive reviews, too, with the BBC complimenting its ‘irresistible pop songs with air-guitar riffs’ and ‘the sheer energy and enthusiasm that comes through in the music’. Meanwhile, AbsolutePunk.net said, ‘Rarely has music ever been or sounded so fun,’ and the Guardian described it as ‘fizzily effective’. In October, the Observer Music Monthly had proclaimed Busted as the heirs apparent of Britpop. This was their coronation.

  Despite the jaw-dropping sales, it reached only number two in the charts – but James had no complaints about who had bested them. Their names were next to none other than Michael Jackson, whose Number Ones album was released that same week and took the top spot. In James’s wildest dreams, he’d never have thought that his band would be up there with Jackson.

  In the sleeve notes of the album, as well as thanking his childhood sweetheart Kara (‘the cabbage patch kid’) and Michael Jackson himself, James had a message for someone particularly important to the success of this record.

  ‘Tom Fletcher,’ he wrote, ‘sometimes I wonder how many fish there really are swimming around in that pond we both know about. All I can say is that if we keep on fishing there together, we’re gonna catch ’em all! You are a great fisherman and I can’t wait for the world to hear the McFly album.’

  The world couldn’t wait either. But it had a good few months yet before the album would be available to buy. In the meantime, the McFly boys were teasing their public with some tantalising performances – including their first, in December 2003, on CD:UK, the popular Saturday-morning music show that regularly attracted more than 2 million viewers. Two million viewers? It was quite a big deal for the boys’ first ever TV appearance.

  At least they had some friends on hand to help them through it. James, Matt and Charlie appeared on the show on the same day, and they went first, performing ‘Who’s David?’, which was due to be released in February 2004 as the second single from A Present for Everyone. It was another Bourne–Fletcher collaboration and was a ballad with balls, as was always Busted’s way.

  As James started singing, the fans around him cheered deliriously, and he somewhat self-consciously acknowledged them. It still didn’t feel real to him that this was his life: performing to adoring fans, being loved in return. Matt, meanwhile – for once with rather plain dark hair – gave a typically spirited performance. His voice, which had just got better and better, beat the hell out of the middle-eight section. It had a gorgeous rasp to it, and the more heartfelt lyric of this song, with its pleading narrative to an unfaithful girlfriend, suited his tone perfectly.

  At the end of their performance, James took the mic. He waited for the screaming to die down and then said, ‘OK, I’m extremely excited right now, ’cause right now it’s time to introduce a few buddies of mine.’ The girls, already wound up by Busted’s performance, just screamed harder. Matt came up behind James, having crossed from the other side of the stage, to be present at this momentous occasion. He patted James on the back a couple of times and delivered a classic gurn to the camera. James leaned into the lens, too.

  ‘In the words of Marty McFly: you guys might not be ready for this yet, but your kids are going to love it.’

  He looked excited just to be saying those words. As Harry’s drumsticks started pounding the skins, James yelled, ‘Put your hands together for McFly!’ And the soon-to-be iconic bass line rang out around the studio, as ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’ made its debut to the nation.

  The boys must have been nervous, but they didn’t look it. Not one bit. Danny had the tough job of taking the first line, yet he delivered it with all the swagger of a Gallagher brother, his arm held confidently high when he wasn’t playing his guitar. All of them were dressed in vibrant colours – Tom in acid yellow and Dougie in neon orange – and it looked like a bright new dawn of pop music.

  They were an instant hit. They were so confident – having spent months rehearsing together, as tight-knit onstage as they were chilling in their shared house – that that first performance had all the hallmarks of what would become classic McFly, Danny and Dougie sharing a mic as they crooned the catchy song together; Danny leaping up to play in front of Harry’s drum kit as Tom took over lead vocals. This was so clearly not a manufactured band: these were four true friends, having the time of their lives.

  And they had two other friends who wanted to congratulate them too. James and Matt, along with Charlie, stormed the stage at the close of the performance. James and Tom high-fived each other instantly, their delight writ clear across their faces, before Charlie – Tom’s collaborator on ‘That Thing You Do’, the song that had started this whole sound – pulled him into a bear hug. Matt punched the air with sheer joy. And James just managed to high-five Danny before the Northern lad spotted pretty presenter Cat Deeley, and swooped in, in a very Danny way, to steal a kiss from her. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Absolute quality!’

  He was talking about the performance, and James had a few words to say, too. When Cat asked him how proud he was of his friends right now, on a scale of one to ten, his answer was swift and sure. ‘Oh, ten. Ten out of ten.’

  Yet it was two out of three who appeared on Frank Skinner’s ITV show later that month when Busted, who were now at the fame and popularity level of top chat-show guests, were invited on just before Christmas. Charlie was unwell, so only James and Matt sat on the sofa. It looked odd, the duo together. There was something about the triumvirate that worked, and they looked somehow lopsided without their taller bandmate. Imbalanced.

  Matt was certainly knocked sideways when Skinner introduced his former teacher Ms Blair – the inspiration for Miss Mackenzie in ‘What I Go to School For’ – who was in the audience. He blushed as red as Skinner’s sofas, though Frank perhaps summed up best what everyone was thinking when he said of the attractive teacher, ‘I see what you mean, though.’

  Skinner held up the band’s CD onscreen, hoping to sell a few more albums for the lads as festive gifts before the year was out. Busted were almost the bestselling British group of 2003, second only to Coldplay; a couple more sales would boost them even higher.

  If Frank had opened the plastic case, he would have seen a very exciting announcement. In spring 2004, from 26 February, Busted were headlining their first ever arena tour. There was a leaflet inside the CD promoting the tour – and the support act.

  McFly and Busted were hitting the road together for the very first time.

  And it wouldn’t be the last.

  SIX

  Up All Night

  It was 14 February 2004 – twelve days before the massive arena tour kicked off. Twenty-four mammoth gigs nationwide awaited the seven hungry-for-it lads. One whole month of performing, touring, and of course, partying.

  But before all that there was the little matter of Valentine’s Day. For Tom, recently reunited with Giovanna, what better gift for the maker of a number-one hit to give his girlfriend than a song written all about her?

  ‘All About You’ was written by Tom in about five minutes flat, recorded as a favour by Danny in his home recording studio and then delivered, by hand, by Tom himself later that same night. It was the first time, other than his early attempts when he was learning how to structure songs, that Tom had written a song without James, Dougie or Danny. This one was just for Gi.

  Before the tour kicked off, Fletch had a serious chat with his new young stars. Well, by ‘serious chat’ read ‘complete and utter bollocking to end all bollockings’. He’d found out about the dope smoking, and he wasn’t impressed. The guys were read the riot act – Tom never touched drugs again – an
d it wasn’t something Harry was going to forget in a hurry. He said in Unsaid Things,

  From day one our managers were a hell of a sight tougher with McFly than they ever were with Busted . . . For Fletch and Richard, Busted were a bit like guinea pigs for how they would manage McFly. Busted had their problems. They didn’t always see eye to eye . . . Whether or not Fletch and Richard thought this was anything to do with their rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, I don’t know. But once Matt and Charlie started going down that road, it was already out of their management’s control.

  And, for the arena tour, Matt Willis in particular planned to party as uncontrollably as possible. His affinity with alcohol hadn’t gone unnoticed by the fans. Themed gifts would arrive for him, such as key rings with the slogan ‘Pissed and Happy’ and badges with the monikers ‘Beer Monster’ and ‘Mine’s a Pint’. One fan created a home-made ‘Busted Fan Annual 2003–2004’, which included pictures of the band at their BRIT Awards triumph on 17 February. The two images were captioned, respectively: ‘1 p.m. – Sober’ and ‘1 a.m. – Drunk’.

  In the boys’ defence, the BRITs marked a pretty momentous day. They’d been nominated for three awards; they won two. Busted were officially the Best British Breakthrough and the Best Pop act in the country, and they only narrowly missed out on Best British Group when the Darkness pipped them to the post. The prestigious awards demonstrated genuine respect and recognition for their talents, and they meant a lot to the band. For, despite the fact that they’d desecrated the former model of pop, which had featured squeaky-clean boy bands such as Westlife and a rabid invasion of reality-TV stars, there were some who tried to dismiss Busted as gimmicky pop – even labelling them as ‘just another boy band’.

  James was quick to challenge such claims in no uncertain terms. ‘We write the songs, we sing the songs, we play the instruments, and, if that’s not credible enough, then f**k off!’ And Matt would say jokingly on their documentary series America or Busted, ‘Do I dance? Do I wear sequins? No.’

  Charlie, however, found it harder to get over the unfair labelling, saying frankly on America or Busted, ‘The whole boy-band thing, it really f**ked me off.’ Asked by journalist Peter Robinson about Busted breaking America – they would have a TV crew following them later in the year, making the fly-on-the-wall programme America or Busted, as they took their songs Stateside – Charlie responded passionately. ‘For me,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to have to fight the same old battles that we fought in the UK. I don’t want the same old bullshit trying to convince people that we’re not idiots.’

  Idiots or not, hundreds of thousands of people wanted to see them play live. Demand was such that a second tour was already set up for the autumn. Busted would eventually sell out an unprecedented eleven Wembley dates in 2004, and gain a new record as the band to play the most consecutive dates at the iconic venue, which held 12,500 screaming fans. At Wembley alone, they’d be playing to almost 140,000 people.

  But before Wembley came Dublin, and the first night of the joint Busted–McFly tour, on Thursday, 26 February. The venue was the Point, Ireland’s premier arena. McFly’s debut gig was going to be in front of thousands of people – yet that wasn’t what Tom was really stoked about. As he recalled in Unsaid Things, ‘Matt Willis’s seal of approval on our McFly material meant everything to me. A complimentary word from him meant more to me than from anyone else.’ And, with Matt backing McFly as his support act, it was about the biggest vote of confidence he could give.

  As for Matt himself, he couldn’t wait to get started. He told Peter Robinson, ‘This is what it’s all been about. This is what being in Busted is all about. Playing live is everything.’

  As the lights dipped, at 7.30 p.m. on the dot, screams erupted in the arena. Onstage, Danny psyched himself up. Dougie pulled on his bass-guitar strap. Tom swallowed hard. And Harry tried to get over his disappointment that the screams weren’t quite as ear-blasting as he’d been anticipating. He lifted his drumsticks to count in the band. A-one, two, a-one-two . . .

  And McFly launched into their opening number, ‘Saturday Night’, with its explosive guitar intro to rival Marty McFly ripping off Chuck Berry. It was the kind of moment Danny Jones had been dreaming of in Bolton ever since he’d first picked up an instrument aged six. The Busted fans went wild.

  Backstage, Matt pricked up his ears. ‘Listen to that,’ he commented to James. ‘They’re going to be screaming for us later.’

  McFly’s set was only five songs long. ‘Down by the Lake’ followed ‘Saturday Night’, and then they launched into ‘Obviously’, written by James, Danny and Tom only eight months before. They paid homage to the Beatles with a cover of ‘She Loves You’, and then finished with what was fast becoming their signature tune, ‘5 Colours in Her Hair’. A local reporter from the BBC commented, ‘I’ve never seen a crowd get into support acts so much – they loved them. Everyone was on their feet singing away to the infectious “5 Colours in Her Hair”.’

  Even Matt Willis couldn’t help but notice the incredible reaction. Speaking in a McFly VT years later, he said, ‘McFly had something immediately. As soon as you saw them play live, they had something that [even] Busted didn’t have, actually, which was genuine, between all four of them: they were just like brothers. They had this bond.’ And the close friendships between Tom, Danny, Dougie and Harry were only cemented further as they shared the surreal experience of that debut show. Dripping with sweat, the McFly boys came excitedly off the stage, grins pasted widely on each of their happy faces, just as Busted were warming up for the main event.

  If possible, the screams got even louder when the lights dipped for the third time that night (Prestige had also booked V, the band Danny didn’t join, as a support act for the tour). And the lights stayed off. The Busted boys got into place in the darkness. And then, through the massive speakers, throughout the pitch-black hall, the unmistakeable bass of ‘Air Hostess’ began. Do do do do do do do do . . . In a sudden blaze of light, the band appeared mysteriously from below the stage straight onto it – and then they were off. Matt said in Busted on Tour, ‘We totally knew from the word go that “Air Hostess” had to be the opening track, if only for the amazing intro.’

  It was an amazing introduction to the whole show, let alone the song. The Busted boys were at their best throughout, dashing off guitar riffs and spunky banter as though they were born to do it. They threw themselves about with an incredible energy that unwittingly revealed the enormous amounts of Haribo sweets they’d consumed before the gig. The signature Busted move – knee-high jumps avec guitars – was rocked again and again, as the boys bounced about the stage like space hoppers.

  After the show, the whole tour crew headed to Lillie’s Bordello, Dublin’s leading nightclub, situated at the bottom of Grafton Street. Amid scenes of much celebration, a toast was raised to the first night of a very, very special tour. To V. To McFly. To Busted. To the band. As the seven friends buzzed on the adrenaline of the arena show and the best booze Lillie’s Bordello could offer, they excitedly shared memories of their time onstage and began a bond that would last much, much longer than that first round of drinks.

  From then on, the booze – and the friendship – didn’t stop flowing. The Belfast gigs saw all three bands sitting in a huge circle necking drinks until 3 a.m. Matt would later say to Fearne Cotton on Fearne and McBusted, ‘The second Busted tour? I can’t even really remember being on it.’

  Luckily for him, Busted had a book deal, and journalist Peter Robinson had the enviable job of following the boys around on each and every gig – an ‘access all areas’ pass that produced the book Busted on Tour. Night after night, Matt’s drunken exploits are recorded: mixing his usual ‘cocktail’ of every drink under the sun at Tiger Tiger in Manchester; having more wild nights out with Lee Ryan; filling hotel corridors with smoke as he and his musician mates stayed up jamming till 4 a.m., the vapours seeping out from under his room door until the whole passageway was fully fumigated.


  But, even by Matt’s impressive standards, on Monday, 7 March, he really outdid himself. Matt later told the story to Fearne Cotton in her TV documentary, surrounded by sniggering Tom, Dougie, Harry and Danny:

  I threw a television out a window. I was kind of provoked though. I was in a hotel room with an NME journalist. They were like, ‘This is pretty lame,’ and I was like, ‘Well, I’ll throw a telly out the window then’ . . . and I did. I threw it out the window, and outside the window was our tour bus. It went just the other side of the tour bus . . . and exploded on the street. It made such a big noise. It sounded like a bomb had gone off. Me and the journalist ran away.

  When we went back in, the police were there. They were going to take me to the police station, but then our tour manager sweet-talked the policewoman with some tickets and a meet-and-greet for the next night.

  So the next day suddenly I was standing there and there was the policewoman with her kids: ‘Hi, Matt! Can we have a picture?’

  And I was like, ‘Yep!’

  The Sun reported that, he followed up the telly with a toaster, something they were very disparaging about – apparently, domestic appliances are not rock ’n’ roll. According to the Sun, they’re ‘well, domestic’.

  As usual, Tom and James were marking the tour in a very different way. Their late-night writing sessions were just as regular as they had been the year before on Busted’s theatre tour, and just as much fun for the two mates – though the hits may have been fewer, with one creation called ‘The Girl from the Fit Girls’ Table’. It wasn’t quite as catchy as ‘Crashed the Wedding’.