Now he had the difficult job of ‘enjoying’ kangaroo anus. He’d already eaten the live mealworms (‘they taste like pus’), the live witchetty grubs (whose innards ran in dark dribbles down his chin) and crocodile eyes. Now he had anus to eat – and crocodile penis to follow. He said with horror to Ant and Dec, ‘Everyone’s going to talk to me about this – “You ate penis, you ate anus.”’ Then, with typical Matt spirit, he declared, ‘OK, f**k it.’ The anus was hard-going – chewier than a car tyre – but the penis, once bitten off at the base, seemed to go down more easily. Ant and Dec, their respect written clearly on their faces, gave him a cold beer to wash down the bushtucker grub. Matt, taking it and heading back to camp, complained, albeit with a wry smile, ‘I’ve got kangaroo anus in my teeth; really good look.’
But what I’m a Celebrity was doing for him was, in fact, to allow the public to get a really good look at the real Matt Willis. His girlfriend Emma said to GMTV, ‘People think he’s this crazy person who was in a boy band and wants to try and be a rock star, and he drinks a lot and this, that and the other, but he’s just the sweetest, most lovely person and so selfless. He’s just brilliant, and I’m so pleased people are starting to see that.’
People were – and they loved what they saw. His humour: dressed in an inflatable sumo suit, he looked down at himself and deadpanned, ‘And people said, “Matt, don’t go on this show, you’ll look silly.”’ His friendly and fun nature: shot after shot showed him laughing and clowning with his campmates, who became true friends (especially David Gest, whose hair Matt would, inexplicably, regularly brush). And, perhaps most of all, his clear love for Emma. The eagle-eye cameras picked up odd hand gestures Matt was doing that became clear were a message to his girlfriend back home; a private joke they had that meant ‘I love you.’ Matt openly talked about how Emma had changed his life, how she’d put things into perspective for him and how much he totally and utterly adored her. In return, she confided to GMTV, ‘It’s really emotional. The worst thing is you want to say it back and have a bit of communication and say, “I’m just the same as you, it’s mutual!” But you just can’t. There’s no way of getting in touch with him.’
There wasn’t – until the show was over. On Friday, 1 December 2006, Day 19 in the celebrity jungle, Ant and Dec prepared to announce the results. Matt was the underdog going into the final, and not backed by the bookies: there were odds of only 8–1 that he would triumph over the nostalgia for Jason and the all-powerful appeal of Myleene’s white bikini. But Matt managed it. He was crowned the King of the Jungle – to his utter amazement.
‘This is just weird,’ he told Ant and Dec. ‘I didn’t come in it to win it. I came in it because I’ve got an album out!’
As he crossed the famous bridge to exit the jungle, fireworks exploding behind him and a wooden sceptre clasped in his hand, Emma rushed through the blinding lights of the photographers’ flashes to leap into Matt’s arms. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, covering his head with kisses as he laughed and squeezed her back. Paparazzi shots had often shown them clowning around together, with Matt giving Emma piggybacks on the red carpet of various events – and here, too, they couldn’t help but show their enormous love and pride in one another. Matt had written in his album sleeve notes, ‘Emma, I love you “ever so” much! I would not be here if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for loving me.’ The fact that she loved him back in equal measure was crystal clear as she welcomed home her boy, who had triumphed to be crowned the nation’s favourite campmate.
And it looked as if Matt’s master plan had worked. His celebrity appearance certainly made more reviewers take note of his album. Critic Jenni Cole on MusicOMH.com had this to say:
Time for a confession here. This has been a slow music week. So in a belligerent, defender-of-the-indie-flame mood, I decide that for a laugh I’ll take the new Matt Willis album and give the abandoned little boy-band munchkin a kicking . . . It’ll stop me having to watch him stuff his face with maggots as he clutches at reality TV to keep his career afloat.
I don’t even plan to give it the full attention I’d usually afford review copies. Instead, I stick it on in the background . . . But then I notice that, actually, I’m tapping my foot. Then I stop emailing and I start to listen. Really listen. And you know what?
Matt Willis’s new album is really good. Really, really good. And not even in a poptastic boy-band way. Good in a quite grown-up, rockier than Radio 2 and Heart FM kind of way. His voice has a gravelly quality that defies his age . . . [The songs] demonstrate that not only does Willis have a pretty interesting voice, he’s actually a decent songwriter as well . . .
All of this is very disturbing, because surely the dog ends of Busted that Charlie has flung aside shouldn’t be turning out really, really good records? . . . It doesn’t make sense but then, back in the day, who ever thought that Robbie Williams would turn out to be the most talented member of Take That? Go Matt – I’m sorry I doubted you.
And Robbie Williams was actually rather an apt association. The BBC, too, commented on it, saying that Matt had ‘started making waves musically, with pop pundits crawling over themselves to call him “the new Robbie Williams” . . . And with his cheeky smile and “I’d like to be his mate” appeal, it’s not a bad comparison.’
Yet Matt himself wasn’t wholly sold on the idea. He said to EDP24.com, ‘I never wanted to be solo. You hear a lot of people saying, “I dreamed about this,” but I always wanted to be in a band. I’m still not sure whether I want to be solo. I might go off and try different things. I haven’t got a plan.’
Perhaps it was just as well that ‘Don’t Let It Go to Waste’, the third single from the album, charted at only number nineteen. For a start, Matt’s ‘different things’ started happening sooner than he thought they might. On Valentine’s Day 2007 he was asked to co-present coverage of the BRIT Awards for ITV2. Three years on from winning two BRITs himself, he was behind the microphone to ask others how it felt to do it. And his relaxed, funny vibe proved so successful with viewers that Matt soon found himself inundated with other presenting offers.
With his album never rising above its desultory chart position of number sixty-six, despite the stellar reviews, Matt the musician started taking a backseat to Matt the TV presenter. And he found it was something he could keep in the family: he and Emma started getting lots of joint presenting gigs together. TV bosses had seen their chemistry and it was just as electric onscreen as off. A host of jobs presenting for MTV, E! and ITV2 followed for the loved-up couple, including presenting the spin-off sister show for I’m a Celebrity, which they hosted for two years running.
McFly, too, were still keeping their hand in on the TV front. In June 2007 Dougie and Tom were in geek heaven when the band appeared as themselves in an episode of Doctor Who: ‘The Sound of the Drums’. And the band also had their own MTV show, Up Close and Personal, which followed them on their tour of the same name throughout 2007, with the band sharing behind-the-scenes stories and memories.
Tom was excited, saying, ‘I’m going to be crowd surfing at some point with Dougie. I’ve done it once before, and I didn’t jump in: I got pulled in. They rolled me over onto my back and I was on top of them, and then Dougie bombed over me, went straight over . . . and knocked out a load of girls. Dangerous. It’s dangerous being in a band. It’s one of the most dangerous professions.’
And ‘dangerous’ professions aren’t for everyone. On 11 July 2007, David Williams, Son of Dork’s rhythm guitarist, posted on the group’s MySpace page that the band had split – something that was quickly denied by James and the other members of the group. David left the band but they were continuing. Lead vocalist Steve Rushton told FleckingRecords.co.uk, ‘We are going to carry on as a four-piece. I know Son of Dork can carry on without him.’
But, as Oscar Wilde might have put it, to lose one band member may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. In October 2007, Chris Leonard also left the group, r
eportedly saying, ‘I’ve left, but to be honest there wasn’t really anything to leave. The band wasn’t doing anything at all . . . So I moved on and I’m making new music.’ He would later go on to write a little tune called ‘Lego House’ with an up-and-coming artist called Ed Sheeran.
For James, it was the second band in less than three years that had fallen apart around him. The band had been performing – they’d headlined the Sic Tour at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire back in March, which gave unsigned bands a chance to perform to the public, all hosted by James’s old friend Matt Willis – but the momentum had gone out of it. Son of Dork lay in tatters. And James was fed up with the UK, too. As he said to Fearne Cotton on Fearne and McBusted, ‘People here, once you’ve been in a band that’s been successful and then it’s finished, they look at you like your career’s over.’
With Chris’s words ringing in his ears, he made a decision. He was moving to America.
New start.
New York.
Manhattan’s Lower East Side has always offered a home to immigrants. At 154 Ludlow Street, between Stanton Street and Rivington, lies a red-brick tenement building, where there used to be a little bar on the ground floor called The Living Room. One cloudy November day in 2007, James Bourne pushed his way through its bright orange door and headed inside. He had his acoustic guitar on his back, and a host of songs in his head.
That night, on the little stage, no more than two metres deep and strung with fairy lights, he played a humble acoustic set to a small crowd – his first ever solo gig. Dressed in a simple grey T-shirt with the slogan TOM PETTY, in tribute to the American rock singer, he ran through such hits as ‘Crash and Burn’ and Son of Dork’s ‘Sick’, as well as trying out ‘28,000 Friends’, a song so new he had to pause before singing it to remember the words. He performed the clearly autobiographical ‘What Happened to Your Band?’ to powerful effect. He did his own ‘echo’ special FX (singing while moving his head slowly away from the mic, something that got an appreciative chuckle from the audience). He checked casually with the organiser how much time he had left for his slot – ah, time for just one more.
He asked the crowd if they were having a good time, and the emphatic response declared they truly were. The UK might have made James feel like a failure, but here, on the stage where acts such as Norah Jones had honed their craft, he was simply a very, very good singer-songwriter plying his trade. The New York Press had described The Living Room as a place where ‘there’s still a reverence for the simple quiet tune. Everyone always puts music first and they care so much about the people that play here.’ America had just found a new talent to take to her heart.
And there was someone special there watching over James, too. Her name was Gabriela Arciero. She was a gorgeous American girl for whom, just like James, music was everything. On the website of her band Avenue B, a group she later formed with her sisters, she is described as ‘the lovable funny one. Her rhythm beats the rest of us so she plays drums and percussion and sings killer harmonies.’ It was the perfect match. She and James had met the year before; the fact that his move to America would put him nearer to this woman he thought was wonderful wasn’t exactly offputting to him. As he settled into his new American life, moving between LA and New York and occasionally visiting people back in the UK, they grew closer and closer together.
As for the boys in McFly, they were the closest they’d ever been. And, as 2007 drew to a close, they made a decision to stick together, come hell or high water – with or without a record deal. The year had been a turbulent one for the boys. Against their wishes, the record label had insisted on releasing a ‘Greatest Hits’ album (with accompanying tour) in November. Tom said to the Guardian, ‘We wanted to make a new album, but there was nothing we could do to stop them.’ The album went platinum, but that wasn’t the point. As Tom put it to the Daily Mail, ‘The label released a greatest hits album. We didn’t want to do that – it’s what you do after ten years.’
McFly had been together for only four. But now, drawing on the close friendships they’d developed in those four years, and their belief in the band, they were flying solo from a big label and setting up on their own. An exclusive Daily Mail interview with the band set the scene: ‘Some months ago in the London offices of Island Records, a group of twenty-something musicians stood in front of a roomful of experienced music executives and insisted on being released from the multi-million-pound deal that had made them famous.’ Danny explained to Sound on Sound, ‘There was just a creative difference thing. We felt like we were more in touch with the fans than this guy just sat in the office. We left on good terms and they understood why we were doing it. We just said, “Yeah, let’s try it on our own.”’
And that was exactly what they did. Tom, Danny, Dougie and Harry set up Super Records to release their next album. Harry said to the Mail, ‘The whole point of setting up our company and doing this new album is that we’re going in a new direction – we’re growing, we’re changing and it’s really exciting.’ They certainly relished the freedom they now had at their fingertips, as they prepared to record their fourth studio LP, which would become known as Radio:ACTIVE. First, they headed to Barbados, although that ended up being more of a party vacation – with some partying harder than others, as Dougie found to his cost when he drank so much that he ended up wetting the bed.
Now twenty, Dougie was starting to become concerned about how often he was getting wasted on drink and drugs. He said in Unsaid Things, ‘I told myself I was loving this way of life, but I wasn’t being honest. I had started to feel – and this is the only way I can describe it – uncomfortable in my own skin . . . It dawned on me that I wasn’t really enjoying what I was doing, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop.’
He didn’t talk to his bandmates about it. It was his little secret, one he kept as close to him as that skin he so hated. And little Dougie Poynter was such a good actor, so good at covering his tracks, that they didn’t have a clue. When they came to promote the new album, Tom would say confidently to the Daily Mail, ‘None of us do drugs,’ and Danny would add strongly, ‘Why would you want to get into drugs and become a hopeless excuse for a human being?’ Dougie had lied about his age to get into the band. Now he found himself lying to stay in it.
From a musical perspective, though, McFly were stronger than ever. In the end, taking producer Jason Perry with them, they decamped to Australia for several months from January 2008 to record Radio:ACTIVE. And, with them footing the bill rather than the record label, things were a bit more low-key, as Jason told Sound on Sound. ‘It was just this grotty little rehearsal place. We had all the gear set up and you could barely get in there. Everyone’s just facing each other and it’s hot and sweaty . . . We were really working on getting the songs amazing.’
Lizard fan Dougie, an aficionado of all creatures great and small, was in his element. He enthused, ‘It was an absolutely tiny room with dodgy Australian spiders in there and stuff.’ And Harry, an Uppingham boy at heart, commented, ‘It wasn’t what we were used to.’ Yet the drummer concluded, ‘But it was all we really needed. Just a room.’
Just a room in which to do what they did best. As Danny put it to Sound on Sound, ‘We literally just made music we wanted to make and produced it how we wanted to produce it. This album’s not had any opinions forced on it apart from ours.’
While McFly were relishing the opportunity to make their own music, James and Matt received some unwelcome news relating to theirs – in the form of a summons to the High Court in London.
In the long-ago spring and summer of 2001, when Matt and James would get together at James’s house in Southend-on-Sea and at the InterContinental, in the very, very early days of the band, they weren’t always alone. Owen Doyle and Ki Fitzgerald had been there, as part of the Termites. Now, their former bandmates took Matt and James to court over ownership of the songs that were written when Busted – in their original line-up – were just starting out.
Rashma
n had negotiated a split of the songs written in that time, in the formal agreement that Ki and Owen had signed on 22 March 2002. Ki and Owen got 100 per cent of two of the songs – one of which was ‘She Knows’, in which Sony had expressed keen interest when the band had gone in for their meeting with the executives there, just after they’d signed their management deal with Rashman – and the other four went wholly to James and Matt. They’d all thought it was a done deal, a fair agreement that was negotiated over the course of several months.
But, in 2005, Ki and Owen had lodged a complaint against them, seeking £10 million in unpaid royalties. They said they’d been coerced into signing the agreement that divided the songs up between the four boys, and that ‘undue pressure’ had been exerted on them to make them sign. On 26 February 2008, the case finally opened at the High Court. The claimants set up a website called whatigotocourtfor.com to champion their cause (the link is no longer active).
James and Matt both appeared to give evidence in their defence, as did Rashman. Fletch gave evidence via video link from Australia, where he was helping McFly to record Radio:ACTIVE. Even James’s ex-girlfriend Kara Tointon came along to support him; things were good between them. She told the Mirror in 2007, ‘I’ve never had a bad break-up . . . I spoke to James Bourne yesterday. He still lives in the same block of flats as me, but he’s always in LA so it’s not like we bump into each other all the time.’ In his hour of need, she was more than willing to show her support.
Mcbusted : The Story of the World's Biggest Super Band (9781471140679) Page 11
