Boy bands had their time in the sun back in the ’90s but The Wanted are reigniting our love affair with this pop institution. The Wanted is made up of five boys from the UK and they can actually play instruments.
Before you get your hopes up, various reports have revealed that all five are straight, so you can stop speculating over which one is secretly gay and focus on which member is more attractive. Their single Glad You Came has been hitting the club circuit and OUTinPerth spoke to Max George about his band’s speedy ascent to fame.
What do you think of Australia?
You know what, I genuinely love the place and I think it’s awesome. It’s sort of a nicer, cleaner version and more polite version of England and obviously you get to see a patch of blue sky over here which you don’t in England. We’ve been to loads of radio stations… and met a load of Australian fans.
It’s been almost a year since the release of your self-titled debut album, how has the last year been?
It’s been one that I don’t think any of us will forget. We’ve all aged about 10 years but thankfully that’s probably due to all the celebrating we’ve been doing. It’s been a massive year for us, especially in England. We’ve had some Number 1’s and a big selling album and we’ve been to some amazing places and travelled the world. We’ve gigged at some of the best places you can gig like Wembley Stadium in front of like 75,000 people, it’s just been awesome.
How would you introduce The Wanted to anyone who hadn’t heard of you?
First of all, we’re The Wanted. We’re just five lads from 18 to 23 and we don’t try to be anything we’re not. We’re a boy band but we don’t dance, there’s nothing choreographed about us. We just like making good music and that’s all we want to do.
How do you manage to get along as a group?
We don’t, we actually hate each other, and there are divides within the group [laughs]. We do get along, we’re like boss. We were housed together straight away so we sort of have to get along I suppose. I think we’re really lucky that we have a lot in common, some of us love football and we all like going down the pub. There’s always a conversation when you’ve got a pint in your hand… it’s just gone from there. I think when you go through stuff as good as getting a debut Number 1, that just doesn’t happen in your life and so when it does and it happens as a group, it brings you really close.
Can you still show your individual talents when you are part of a group?
Yeah, yeah definitely. I think we are very tight knitted as a group and there are no show-offs but when we do live gigs and we do a full set, we all play instruments, you see so we all like to show off what we can do ourselves and as a group. Siva and Tom play lead guitar; I play bass; Jay plays drums and Nathan plays piano, we like playing that sort of thing…
The Wanted received a lot of attention from the UK gay press, how do you guys feel about that?
That’s cool. We were having this conversation the other day and the gay fans in general, even if they’re not fans, when there’s gay pride or Mardi Gras, the atmosphere is always awesome. So we love any fans, we just love doing gigs and anywhere we can make an audience bounce, that’s all we want to do.
You guys won Biggest Breakthrough for the 4Music Awards, how do you keep up that momentum?
I think we just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing… the key to it all is making music that people want to hear. If we can’t do that anymore, then we don’t have a future.
Your next album is coming soon, what can you tell us about it?
A lot of it is written by us, so it’s very [much] from ourselves. It’s quite an upbeat album; I think Glad You Came is a good marker for what the album is like. We’ve put one or two ballads in there; you’ve got to do it, don’t you… It’s very much our influence on this album which is why we really want this one to fly.
Benn Dorrington
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