The Wanted

January 2013

AWARE that he was going to be spending months away from home, not just across the UK but over in the States, Jay McGuiness had a way of taking his closest friends with him wherever he went.

Loading photos on to his phone just wouldn’t do.

“I got it because I’ve not seen any of my buds that I went to college with in Nottingham,” he says, outstretching his arm to reveal a tattoo. It’s a compass design with an initial at each point: PD, TW, JM and CG.

“It’s Paul McDowell, Trey Wright, me, and Chris Geffers,” says the 22-year-old, who grew in Farndon near Newark and attended a Catholic school in Mansfield.

“I moved out of home when I was 16,” says Jay. “When I was at school I was so shy.

“They were all a little bit older than me and I feel like I grew up with them.”

All four lived together in Carlton where they were attending MADD, the Midlands Academy of Drama and Dance.

“We only get to see each other like once a year now. They’re all over the place travelling as well, on cruise ships and the like.”

He adds: “Everyone was kind of after the same thing, but I got there first.”

At 18, while in his second year at MADD, Jay was travelling to London attending auditions for various dance and singing jobs in music and theatre.

“The one for The Wanted I actually found by searching on Google,” he says.

He moved in with the rest of the group – Max George, Nathan Sykes, Tom Parker and Siva Kaneswaran – in a house in North London in 2009 and set about writing and recording their debut album, The Wanted, for Island Records.

It went into the Top 5 two years ago and announced the arrival of one of the biggest boy bands in Britain.

Since then there have been two No. 1 singles – All Time Low and Glad You Came – plus the top 20 hits Heart Vacancy, Lose My Mind, Gold Forever (for Comic Relief) and Lightning with another Top 5 album, Battleground, following in 2011.

Last year, aside from a sold-out UK arena tour that came to the Capital FM Arena in February, the band focused on the US, where Glad You Came reached No. 3 and sold three million copies.

The trip was gruelling – but Jay said he had a really good time: “It was hard work. It was very scheduled. We were getting up early and sticking to a tight schedule. And we went all over. There is no national radio in the US so you have to visit all the key stations in each state.

“And it paid off. We thought it would take six months to get into the top 100 but we got to No. 3 pretty quickly.”

The Wanted became part of a new wave of UK artists cracking the US last year, including Adele and One Direction.

But the quintet have yet to tour the country playing live. Last year’s repeated visits were more promotional.

“The first TV we did was The Ellen DeGeneres Show and that really set us up over there. She wanted to be the first chat show to have us on. We had no idea why. We were thinking ‘she’s out of her brain!’.

“ But the crowd reaction was amazing and we got a load of confidence from that. Everyone realised that ‘OK, these guys are the real deal’.

“Then we were invited on Chelsea Lately and American Idol with Jennifer Lopez.

“She asked us to go to her album launch. We expected it to be a massive party but there were only 100 or so people there, all LA types.

“But she came and sat with us on our table for about 30 minutes. It wasn’t just a two-minute ‘hello’.

“And Tommy Hilfiger was there. We’d had a bit to drink and every time he passed us we’d start chanting ‘Tommy, Tommy...’. He probably thought we were idiots but since then he’s let us pick up whatever clothes we want from his stores.”

They managed to enjoy the little time off they had while in the US as well.

‘We went to a lot of bars,” admits Jay.

“We went to this one where they had a cow that you could ride. I’m not very good at riding a cow.”

You had to ride a cow?

“Not a real cow, like a machine cow. When you’ve had five pints, you just think, I am getting on that cow. Although there is video footage of me really failing badly.”

There were a few live performances during their visits to the US but they were more club PAs than actual concerts.

“Every state we went to we did a couple of clubs. The biggest crowd we got was like 1,500, but the average was about 500. That’s how we started over here in the UK. We used to do schools during the day and clubs at night.

“To be honest, those club appearances didn’t go down too well here. I mean, imagine you’re in a club and a boy band comes on that you’ve never heard of. People just wanted us to go away. But in America because of word spreading about us on the internet, people already knew about us, so all of those club dates were just rammed.

“Before we went out there for the first time, I genuinely thought it was going to be a slog and that nothing would happen.”

Another highlight of the year was back in the UK when they got the chance to perform before the First Lady, Michelle Obama, in London, soon after they’d taken part in the Olympic celebrations, running with the Olympic Torch and performing at the Torch Relay finale in Hyde Park.

“She was disarmingly nice,” says Jay. “She wasn’t putting it on. Just dead normal, wearing trackies and trainers.”

It was at an inner city school and The Wanted were the surprise guests.

“Security was really tight, obviously but they had no idea what was going to happen when we appeared. We went on stage and all hell broke loose with kids running up and down.”

Jay was back home in Farndon for Christmas with his mum, sister Eleanor and brothers Sean, Thomas (Jay’s twin) and Luke, who works with their dad, an electrician.

Mum played football for Newark Town Ladies but gave up after a knee injury. She’s a Manchester United fan because of George Best. Jay is both a Celtic (“because of my dad”) and a Forest fan.

It was because of his mum that he first caught the bug for performance, first trying Irish dancing, then joining her at a tap dancing class. Originally he wanted to be a West End star before the opportunity to become a pop star came up while at MADD.

“When I was at college I had a job in Nottingham city centre selling key rings in bars,” he says.

“You’d take a photo of a group of people then put it in a key ring. It was £3 per key ring and I used to get £1 from that.”

Visits home are rare and often brief as the group are still based in London. As well as the US, last year The Wanted travelled to Europe, Australia and Asia.

This year they have to finish their third album, provisionally entitled Third Strike - it’s due out next month - after which there’ll be more trips abroad and, he says, very likely another UK arena tour.

“Don’t get me wrong I love every day of it, but sometimes you just want to be able to wake up and say ‘actually, I don’t want to do anything today’”.

So it was a treat when his mum (who calls him James) flew over to see him in Chicago as a surprise.

“I’d not seen any family for about seven months at that point. Me and Max were just going into the hotel gym and my tour manager said ‘come downstairs, your aunties are here’.

“I have a couple of aunties who live in Chicago but I was just getting into the gym so I said ‘ask them to wait or come back in an hour or so.’ But he kept insisting so I was in a right strop.

“Anyway, I walked into the hotel lobby and there was my mum. She never flies anywhere. She doesn’t do stuff like that. So it absolutely floored me and I broke down like a baby.”

He adds: “My mum is my inspiration. She’s pretty bad ass.”


For more about the band go to www.thewantedmusic.com. You can follow Jay on Twitter: @JayTheWanted.

Music review of 2012

December 2012


WHEN Jake Bugg’s debut album shot straight to the top of the chart in October, denying Leona Lewis, Mumford and Sons and others the coveted spot, it was the crowning glory on a year that has seen unprecedented success for homegrown musicians.
Even without Jake, there were more record deals, TV appearances, radio plays, award wins and national press than in any other year.
Among the names helping throw a spotlight on the city were Dog Is Dead, Natalie Duncan, Sam Beeton, Indiana, Harleighblu, Shide Boss and RAM1.
And then there was Jake, just 18 years old, scoring the first ever No. 1 album by a Nottingham musician or band.
Added to that, the Clifton boy toured the US and Europe with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, made the cover of the NME, had relentless plays on Radio 1 and appeared on Later With Jools Holland. And he’ll be joining Emeli Sandé, Adam Ant and Paloma Faith for his annual New Year’s Eve Hootenanny on BBC 1.
He sold out the Rescue Rooms last month and has already sold out his Rock City show in February.
West Bridgford indie band Dog Is Dead released their major label debut album, All Our Favourite Stories, also in October, after which they embarked on a headline tour of the UK and picked up an Artrocker award. During the year they had numerous plays on Radio 1 and appeared at 25 festivals over the summer including T in the Park and Leeds and Reading.
Next year they’ll be venturing into Europe and the US.
Jake Bugg wasn’t the only Notts musician to appear on Later With Jools Holland this year. Natalie Duncan, who was raised in Lady Bay and The Meadows, made such an impressive debut on the show in November, that fellow guests, Muse, invited the 24-year-old jazz and soul singer to open for them at the iTunes Festival in London.
Her debut album, Devil In Me, received widespread acclaim, with the Sunday Times describing it as “one of the greatest debut albums of the year”.
In recent weeks she’s been hanging out with Dionne Warwick at the MOBOs and appearing on Terry Wogan’s Radio 2 show.
The station also aired self-released songs by folk pop musician Sam Beeton earlier in the year, with Graham Norton playing Under The Fence and The Storyteller, after which the 24-year-old from Carlton appeared on BBC 2’s The Review Show.
Natalie Duncan was just a guest at the MOBOs but reggae musician RAM1 was there to potentially pick up an award. 20-year-old Ramone Williams from Top Valley had been nominated in the Best Gospel Act category, although sadly he missed out this time.
But there was an award-win for Notts in October at the Asian Music Awards, where Shide Boss, 24, from Basford took the Best Newcomer gong.
And let’s not forget those locals hitting the charts as part of pop groups, such as Jay McGuiness corr from The Wanted.
The Farndon singer, 22, a graduate of the MADD school in Carlton, was at the Capital FM Arena with the group as part of a sell-out UK tour in February, after which they cracked the US with their single Glad You Came reaching No. 3 in the chart.
Their EP, The Wanted, hit the top ten in the US and Canada.
Joel Peat, the 20-year-old Ravenshead guitarist with pop/rock quartet Lawson, saw their debut album, Chapman Square, hit the Top 5.
And 2013 is looking promising for two of our ladies. In recent weeks Indiana, a 25-year-old from Long Eaton, who was an unknown name until her first gig in April, has signed to Sony, while 20-year-old city-based soul singer Harleighblu, was snapped up by Brighton-based independent label TruThoughts.

Jake Bugg Vs Leona Lewis

October 20 2012

THE latest figures show that there are just a few thousands copies between Jake Bugg’s self-titled debut album and Glassheart by Leona Lewis.

But Jake is in the lead.

And if the 18-year-old beats the pop superstar to the top of the album chart tomorrow it will be a first for the city.

“It feels great,” says Jake.

“Whether it will still be No. 1 when the chart comes out I don’t know but it would be amazing. Especially with my debut album.

“I didn’t imagine that it would get in the top ten, never mind No. 1.”

The Official UK Charts Company will announce the results for the Top 40 albums on Sunday evening, as Radio 1 runs down the Top 40 singles.

As well as support on Twitter from the likes rapper Example and chart-topper Ed Sheeran, family and friends have been buying the album - even his own mum.

“I am so proud of what Jake has achieved so far,” says Leeysa Kennedy, who Jake lives with in Clifton.

“From an early age, Jake demonstrated an amazing talent where music is concerned.”

Says Jake: “My mates have gone out and bought it as well. It’s great that my hometown is getting behind it.”

His four best friends have had a taste of the limelight, appearing in the video for his latest single Two Fingers.

The song includes the line: ‘I go back to Clifton to see my old friends, the best people I could ever have met.’

Says Jake: “I went to school with Jas and Cameron, and Billy and Grant are my cousins. They’re in my Trouble Town video as well.”

Two Fingers also features Wollaton actress Vicky McClure.

“She’s lovely.” says Jake.

“I had to do a bit of acting in it. We had to improvise. She’s such a great actor and she really helped me with that.”

It was in 2010 that Jake appeared on the Post’s online video show, This Is Live, as an unknown.

“It’s incredible that I did that only two years ago,” he says.

It was his current manager, Jay Hart, who saw the video, got in touch and began working with him.

Jake signed to major label Mercury Records last year.

He has since been played on Radio 1, appeared on Later with Jools Holland and supported the Stones Roses at a secret gig in London.

On Monday he will fly out to the US for a tour with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Snow Patrol.

“It’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” says Jake.

“So if it means I’m really busy and getting a lot of attention heaped on me, well that’s the way it goes.”

Jake, who says he has heard of Seventies band Paper Lace, one of the city’s few chart successes, came home last weekend.

“It was nice to have a break but when the album came out on Monday the work started again.

“I won’t be back in Nottingham until my gig at the Rescue Rooms in November.”

That’s already sold out so he’ll return on February 15 to play Rock City.

“A couple of years ago I played in the basement at Rock City supporting a country band and no-one was there. So headlining on the main stage is a big thing for me.”

Potentially becoming Nottingham’s biggest music star at the age of 18 doesn’t phase Jake.

“I don’t really know anything else to be honest.”

He adds: “I enjoy meeting celebrities and the parties but what I enjoy most is sitting down and writing songs”.

Post reviewer Mike Atkinson, who last year had a feature on the emerging Nottingham music scene published in The Guardian, says: “This time a year ago, Jake was playing a late night residency at the Glee club. It’s been an extraordinary ascent.”

Local music champion Mark Del adds: “It's an amazing achievement for Jake and incredibly exciting for Nottingham.”

NOTTINGHAM'S ALBUM CHART SUCCESS

Swing Out Sister topped the chart in 1987 with It's Better To Travel. Singer Corinne Drewery was born in Beeston and grew up in Long Eaton but the family left for Lincolnshire when she was eight.

Ten Years After have been the city's biggest album sellers with millions of sales in the UK and US but the blues rockers never topped the chart, although they had eight Top 40 albums in the late Sixties and early Seventies.

Stereo MCs reached No. 2 and won a Brit Award for their 1992 album Connected. Rob Birch and Nick Hallam left Ruddington in their late teens and moved to Brixton.

Paper Lace topped the singles chart in 1974 with Billy Don't Be a Hero but their albums failed to chart.

Alvin Stardust, the '70s glam rocker who grew up in Mansfield, had two albums in the UK chart during 1974: The Untouchable (No. 4) and Alvin Stardust (No. 37).

Iron Maiden have topped the album chart five times and have a Notts connection; frontman Bruce Dickinson was born in Worksop.

The Wanted have reached No. 4 and No. 5 with their albums and the band features Newark's Jay McGuiness.

Which Nottingham musicians to follow on Twitter

May 2012

May 29 2012 is Nottingham Trending Day on Twitter. Follow @NottinghamTrend to find out more about the campaign. Meanwhile, here are the Notts musicians with the biggest number of followers...

JayMcGuiness

@JayTheWanted

380,530 followers

Born in Newark, Jay studied at the Midlands Academy of Dance and Drama (MADD) in Carlton then auditioned for, among other things, a new British boy band. The Wanted are now one of Britain’s biggest alongside One Direction and JLS, with No. 1 singles and albums and sell-out tours.

Joel Peat

@LawsonJoel

25,855 followers

He is guitarist with Lawson, a new guitar band who supported The Wanted on their arena tour earlier this year. Joel grew up in Ravenshead and following his A levels moved to Guildford in Surrey to study at The Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM). But he quit after a year to try and make it with Lawson, the band he’d joined while at college. After three years of touring the UK gig circuit, Lawson were picked to open for The Wanted on their theatre tour. At the end of that they signed to Polydor. As well as another tour with The Wanted, Lawson have played shows with Avril Lavigne and recently returned from Los Angeles where they finished recording their debut album. That’s due for release late summer.

Dog Is Dead

@Dog_Is_Dead

6,185 followers

After signing to Atlantic Records last year, the Rushcliffe quintet have supported Bombay Bicycle Club, played major festivals such as Latitude, Bestival and Leeds and Reading, had airplay on and played sessions for Radio 1 and BBC 6Music, and appeared on the Channel 4 soap Skins. They’ve even played at Fashion Week in Milan for Burberry.

So far they’ve released two singles for the label, Hands Down and Two Devils. A third is due next month.

They play Rock City on Sunday as part of the Dot to Dot festival.

Liam Bailey

@liambailey

6,101 followers

The soul singer, who grew up in Beeston, released two singles on Amy Winehouse’s own label before signing to Polydor. He guested on the Chase & Status Top 5 hit Blind Faith and joined the duo on their UK and European tours. Despite finishing his album for Polydor it was never released. They parted company last year. Songs he’d recorded with Amy Winehouse were also lost when his laptop was stolen. Since then his single When Will They Learn? was played on Radio 1, as was Breathe by Delilah, which features Liam’s vocals.

He’ll be joining Natalie Duncan and other Notts musicians at Nottingham Contemporary on July 6.

THePETEBOX

@THePETEBOX

4,617 followers

THE award-winning beatboxer has played shows from as far afield as Mexico and Africa. He’s supported dance troupe Diversity on a sell-out tour and his videos have been seen by millions on YouTube. The Australian-born Sneinton resident recently released his debut album Future Loops.

Jake Bugg

@jakebugg

4.412 followers

He signed to Mercury Records last year and has since released three singles with an album due in October. Although he is a big fan of Donovan and Don McLean, the 18-year-old has been drifting across genres with his singles, from classic Bob Dylan (Trouble Town), tender country (Country Song) and raw garage rock (Lightning Bolt). He’s been playlisted on Radio 1, opened a show for Example at Rock City, toured Europe with Michael Kiwanuka and Country Song is currently being used to soundtrack the TV ad campaign for Greene King IPA. Last week he appeared on Later With Jools Holland alongside Jimmy Cliff and Paloma Faith.

He’ll be at Rock City on Sunday as part of the Dot to Dot festival.

Sam Beeton

@sam_beeton

2.926 followers

The 23-year-old from Carlton is an old hand at this pop music lark having been signed to major label SonyBMG at the age of just 17. He released one single, toured with Sandi Thom, James Morrison, Scouting For Girls and Paolo Nutini and even played a show with Katy Perry.

After a period of stagnation on the label, Sam set up Sweet Luigi Records, through which he has released an EP every month via a subscription service. Two of his songs, Under The Fence and The Storyteller, have been played on Radio 2 and he performed the latter on BBC 2’s The Review Show. He’s also an occasional Burberry model.

Ronika

@ohronikagirl

1057 followers

SHE has been dubbed “the Madonna of the Midlands” for her 80s-influenced dance pop, that has earned Lowdham’s Veronica Sampson attention from the Mirror, The Sunday Times, the NME and the Guardian, who described her as “destined for pop greatness”. Last month Radio 1 played her latest single Automatic. Chic’s Nile Rodgers tweeted that he thought the track was “dope”. She’s due to hit the chart soon guesting on the new single by dance producer Herve.

* follower numbers correct 4pm May 25 2012

Lawson (Joel Peat)

May 2012

I grew up in Ravenshead, although I moved to Mansfield just recently. I did my A levels at Joseph Whittaker School in Rainworth and worked really hard in my first year but at the beginning of the second year I went for an audition at a music school in Guildford. They basically told me I’d got in, so after that I let it slide a bit.

I started at The Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford when I was 18. It’s basically the coolest place on the planet. You play the guitar every day and learn about the music business. It was such a good environment for learning how to play in a band. If you’ve seen School of Rock with Jack Black... well, it was like that.

One of the tutors was in Wayne’s World, which is my favourite film,  so I was massively star struck.

There wasn’t much emphasis on making your own music, it was more about you getting a job as a session musician. But I’d been in bands since I was 13 and that’s what I wanted to do.

Ryan (Fletcher, Lawson bassist) went there as well, although we knew each other before. We left after the first year to concentrate on the band. We’d met the other guys through friends of friends.

My dad was livid that I’d dropped out. He was a professional footballer and played for Sheffield United. Because it didn’t really work out for him he didn’t want it to happen to me. He’s in Nottinghamshire Police now. My mum is a music teacher and she was more supportive at the time, although my dad is really proud of what we’re doing now.

When I left ACM I started working to pay the rent at places like Gap, folding T-shirts, and in restaurants, while writing and rehearsing with the band at night. We all had real faith in what we were doing.

We were doing that for three years before we were offered The Wanted tour. We didn’t even have a record label at the time.

Up until then we’d been touring around the country in a van that needed jump-starting after every gig. We played the basement at Rock City as part of the Dot to Dot festival, which was amazing for me because I’d seen so many gigs there.

We’d done a video, a cover of Bruno Mars’ Grenade, and we got around 60,000 views. Someone from The Wanted’s label saw it and thought we should be given a chance on their theatre tour. Andy (Brown, frontman) had been in a band with Max from The Wanted and said they should check out the video but by that time their management had already seen it. It was pretty weird.

So we ended up opening for The Wanted. We’d gone from playing to ten people in a pub to 7,000.

At the end of that tour we got signed to Polydor.

And we The Wanted again when they did the Arena tour earlier this year. It opened in Nottingham and I remember during the afternoon, standing on stage looking out at this empty arena that I’d seen so many gigs at. It was one of those moments when you realised you’re on the right track.

All the family came down to that gig and I’d never felt pressure like it. My younger sister went backstage and saw The Wanted and she was just crying. I never get that reception from her! She saw Jay (McGuiness) and started shivering and crying.

Jay is another Notts lad and he’s a good laugh. We went out in Nottingham after the gig. You have to watch your back with him though because he likes a good prank. I ended up on stage one time with egg and flour in my hair after one of them.

We did two shows with Avril Lavigne in London and Manchester. We’d grown up listening to her music and there we were supporting her. She’s quality, she’s got a great voice and she’s absolutely stunning.

We’ve just come back from Los Angeles. We’ve been so lucky because it’s become a second home almost. We finished the album out there with producer John Shanks, whose worked with Take That and Bon Jovi. It should be released at the back end of the summer.

And we’ve just filmed a video there. We were on this rooftop over-looking downtown LA and we could see the Hollywood sign, the sun was setting... and we looked at each other as if to say ‘how did four complete idiots manage to get here?’

Lawson play Stealth in Goldsmith Street on Wednesday May 16. Tickets are £10. Go to www.livenation.co.uk for details.

Lawson’s debut single, When She Was Mine, is released May 27. Watch the video at www.lawsonofficial.com.

Parade

November 2011

My weekend: Bianca Claxton

ALL this week we’ve been doing Blackberry's Live And Lost. They dropped us in a cave on Sunday in Buxton and since then, every day we’ve had to get to a different location to undergo a challenge.

We’ve been using Twitter to appeal to fans to give us lifts and food and somewhere to sleep each night.

They gave us each a Blackberry and we’d just say “We’re stuck in Ipswich and we need a lift to Broxbourne; can someone give us a lift?” Whoever helped us would set a challenge once we’d reached each destination.

We had to play netball for one, which was really embarrassing. I hadn’t played since school. Another one had fallen out with is friend so we had to write a jingle and then sing it to her. She wasn’t very impressed, to be honest.

The worst was feeding creepy crawlies and lizards. Me and Sian were just a wreck.

We finished last night with a gig in London and it’ll all be shown on Channel 4 on Sunday.

Rizzle Kicks, Chipmunk, Professor Green, Example and The Wanted have all done it in the past. We were the first girls to do it so I think they expected us to be completely useless but we dealt with it quite well.

The hardest thing was not eating. We’ve been starving hungry. We normally eat a lot of carbs. And a lot of cake. Everyone always says how surprised they are at how much we do eat but because of the dance routines we do on stage, we need to keep the energy up.

Because we haven’t been able to do that this week, we were all quite ill, full of coughs and colds yesterday.

It’s been a bit crazy but we’ve had a laugh.

We wanted to have a sleep but we’re off to Blackpool today to do a signing for our album which was released this week. We’re really excited to have it out, finally.

It has the singles Louder and Perfume on it and the rest of the tracks have all the same kind of energy. So they’re girly anthems, not taking ourselves too seriously. But there are a couple of ballads on there as well as a clubby track. It’s a good old pop album.

Tonight we’ll be doing a gig in Blackpool for Children In Need, which should be a good one.

Tomorrow we’re doing another signing in London and Birmingham.

On Sunday I think we’ll be back home in London finding out how well ouralbum has done in the charts.

All five of us still live together and we’re still really enjoying it.

The only times we do argue are what to watch on TV. Jess watches MTV Base and all those car-bashing programmes and I can’t deal with them. They drive me mad. I always Sky+ Glee, America’s Next Top Model and X Factor.

I watched the Lion King on DVD the other day and had a good cry at that. It wasn’t the 3D version. I think that might freak me out.

We don’t get to see many gigs although me and Jess went to see Wretch 32 the other night. Most of the time we only see other acts who are performing at the same gig as us. So last Sunday in Ireland it was Jedward, The Wanted, JLS and we went on stage with Westlife.

So far we’ve supported Shakira, Alexandra Burke, Ellie Goulding and Black Eyed Peas at Alton Towers, which was amazing. We’ve also played with Shayne Ward, Boyzone, Westlife and at the weekend we did a gig with Jedward – and we love Jedward.

Next month we’re doing two shows with Mel C and I’m dead excited about that. We are all huge Spice Girls fans. They were just the best girl band.

Hopefully we’ll be doing our own tour next year.

At the moment our fans on Twitter are saying that we should support The Wanted on their arena tour next year. But I don’t think I could tolerate The Wanted on tour. They trashed our dressing room again when we were in Dublin. And of course it was Jay (McGuiness). It’s always Jay because he’s from Nottingham and that’s what we do.

Parade’s self-titled debut album is out now. You can see how Bianca and the girls fared with Live and Lost on T4 this Sunday or visitwww.blackberry.com/liveandlost

The Wanted

March 2011

IT has been a busy week for The Wanted. Not just because the boy band are at the centre of today’s Red Nose Day, with the official single, Gold Forever - any single release means long days of press, radio and TV interviews.

“Promotion weeks are always dead busy,” says Jay McGuiness, who grew up in Farndon.

“We’re always up early and finishing late. We literally just get up and get chucked in a van. We never know what we’re doing.”

Added to promotional duties, the quintet are having to fit in rehearsals for their debut UK tour that’ll bring Jay back to Notts next month.

Don’t expect any co-ordinated dancing a la Westlife or Boyzone. The Wanted don’t do that.

“There’s none of that spinning and grabbing your crotch,” says the 20-year-old, who lived in Carlton for two years, while studying dance and drama at MADD.

So what are we getting?

“There are a few sections that will hopefully surprise people because of how good they are but there’s one that should surprise because of what we’re actually doing.”

Stop talking in riddles, man.

“I can’t really say. I wish I could tell you more. It’s a section where we’re paying tribute to someone.”

Is it Gary Glitter?

“(Laughs) No, I don’t think that would go down well.”

Is it a show that’s heavily focused on the music rather than a big stage production? There are no flying cars, for instance?

“If we had the budget there’d be flying cars. There is a little bit of production but it’s mostly down to us to make it a good show. It’s a cool set though.”

And I imagine you can’t say what it is?

“Nah. I’m not being very interesting am I?”

They will be previewing songs from their next album, the follow-up to the self-titled top five debut, which produced the chart-topping single All Time Low and No. 2 Heart Vacancy.

“After the tour we’re going to have five days in a country house somewhere to do some writing,” says Jay.

After that they’ll be in the US, where they’ve already signed to Def Jam, the home of Jay-Z and Mariah Carey.

For the date at the Royal Concert Hall on April 2, Jay will be seen by his family and friends, who have filled up his personal guest list quota for pretty much the whole UK tour.

“I’ve had to tell my mum to stop sending me people’s names because I’m not allowed any more,” he says.

Poor mum. At least he remembered her birthday last week.

“I sent her flowers and she hates balloons so I sent her a box of balloons,” he laughs

With your face on them?

“Can you imagine? I sent her a link to a video as well that I’d recorded for her with a message on. Apparently she cried.”

Jay, who lives in London with the rest of the band, is still single, yet band member Max has been dating Corrie actress Michelle Keegan and Nathan has been seen chatting up X Factor’s Cher Lloyd.

“They were like two kids at school,” says Jay.

“We sang puppy love to them and she was furious. She stormed off.”

What about you? Tesco Mary, perhaps?

“(Laughs) Let’s circulate that and see what happens.”

Or as Max is seeing Corrie’s Tina, maybe you could go out with Vera Duckworth.

“Isn’t she that old one? So you’re linking me with Tesco Mary out the X Factor and Vera Duckworth!?”

The busy week culminates tonight in an appearance on BBC1’s Comic Relief 2011, where they’ll be performing Gold Forever. The Wanted follow the likes of the Spice Girls, McFly and Girls Aloud in releasing the official single for the charity.

He says: “We hope we do everyone proud.”

Gig

Who: The Wanted, Twenty Twenty

Where: Royal Concert Hall

When: April 2

Tickets: £24, returns only

The Wanted

December 2010

Jay McGuiness (right)

How much time are you getting off over Christmas?

Ten days which is wicked. We can’t ask for more than that. well we could but we wouldn’t get it. I’ll be spending it at home in Newark and some time in Nottingham, because I have a lot of mates in Nottingham.

What is your Christmas Day going to be like?

My sister will wake everyone up way too early. We’ll put our best clothes on and go to Mass. After that we’ll do the rounds visiting the relatives and collect all our presents, then have dinner, watch TV and get a bit drunk. Boxing Day is the big one for us because all the relatives and friends come round to ours. It’s manic. I’ve three brothers and a sister and we’ll each have a couple of mates round.

Are your family expecting better presents this year because you’re a successful pop star now?

Definitely. They used to hint that they’d want a top or something. Now it’s “I need a new laptop”. So do I.

What do you want for Christmas?

I think I’m a bit too old to get a big present now. Maybe a new tank for my (pet) lizard. That’s probably the most exciting thing I’ll get.

Have you had any Christmas presents from fans yet?

Oh yeah. Whenever we do signings we get loads of teddies and toys. I get packets of Skittles because in an interview once I said they were my favourite sweets. I’ve got a drawer full of them. We did a thing at a church the other day... in fact, Bill Nighy was there, which was a bit weird. And this girl gave me two CDs. We all get a lot of letters declaring love.

Have you got a girlfriend?

(Laughs) Nothing steady.

What was your most memorable Christmas present?

That was always a bike. And your mum would wrap it up, which was crazy.

And the worst?

Last year I got a belt and a pair of earrings. I’d bought the family a Wii, one brother an iPod, another a Celtic top, my sister a dead good pair of trainers and I got a belt and earrings. And I had a better belt and earring in anyway.

Why do you wear earrings, you girl?

That’s what my mum said.

When did you stop believing in Santa?

When my older brother found out and he told the rest of us. I was about three or four, so I don’t really remember actually believing in Santa.

Will you miss the rest of the band?

Probably. It’ll be the longest we’ve been away from each other for about a year.

 Tell me about your new single.

It’s called Lose My Mind and it’s out on Monday. It’s the one we did on the X-Factor actually. The video was shot in New York in a fairground and we got to go on all the rides. But people have said it looks like we could have been in Brighton, so we thought ‘well, that was a waste of a trip’. At least I got to go to New York, although I was gutted because I’m not old enough to drink over there.

How would you sum up your 2010?

It’s been the most unusual year I’ve ever had because the boy band thing happened.

What are your plans for 2011?

We got straight in to rehearsals for the tour which starts in March. There’s a lot of production gone in to that. Then we’ll finish our second album. We’ve already started writing for it.

Any plans to try and crack the US?

We’ve now got a record deal with Def Jam in America, so we’ll be making flying visits but I don’t think it’ll be a massive tour. We want to really own it over here first.

Who: The Wanted

Where: Royal Concert Hall

When: Saturday April 2

Tickets: £24, returns only, 0115 989 5555

Web: www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk