 RiverOnline caught up with Charlie Simpson, Alex Westaway, Dan Haigh and Omar Abidi before their McClusky's gig.
Screaming 14 year old girls may not be the sort of crowd that Kingston’s McClusky’s normally draws, but then Fightstar is no normal band. It’s fronted by ex-Busted member Charlie Simpson: remember the two million albums they sold in the UK?
But Fightstar are working hard to put Simpson’s youthful misdemeanours behind them. Formed in 2003 by guitarist Alex Westaway, bassist Dan Haigh, drummer Omar Abidi, and lead singer Simpson, they have been working hard to earn their own reputation.
Their new single, The English Way has just been released, and after their McClusky’s gig they spoke to RiverOnline about writing songs and knife-wielding fans...
Have you played around Kingston before?
Charlie: Omar actually knows the area quite well. I don’t live far from here – in Wandsworth – but I like Kingston, it’s a nice place
Dan: There’s an amazing milkshake place round the corner.
What kind of fans do you find come to these events?
Charlie: You don’t get the average Joes coming here, these are the hardcore fans
There’s a line outside already, armed with their autograph books
Charlie: Yeah, there’s a group of people who’ve come to every single gig of ours, and I mean every single one, ever since we started playing in 2005. We call them the ‘Fightstarettes’
That’s dedication! Is there any member of the group that comes up with the lyrics or the songs or is it a group effort?
Charlie: It’s completely a group effort. We’ll start with an embryonic idea, a tune or a riff or whatever, and then take that and put it into a band situation. It’s like baking a cake, you’ve got all these ingredients and you just pull it all together.
Alex: And then eat it
You left Island Records because they were trying to encourage you to move onto a more pop-y sound. Now you’re with Search and Destroy Records – what’s been your experience with record labels in general?
Charlie: Island Records were just trying to completely manufacture us. Now, we’re basically in complete control of what we do. It’s a joint venture between us and the record company. At our last management, we were just lost in admin, we had absolutely no control. Good advice for people starting up their own bands is that you don’t need management, you can start it up and manage yourselves. Management just takes a huge cut out of what you make and nothing comes out of it. Now, we’re in charge of our own destiny.
Omar: The music industry has come full circle. It’s gone back to the mid-70s when it was always co-operative, little management companies, and they were cheap. Things are so much better that way.
You’ve said before that America has a wider market for your kind of music. Would you ever consider making America your main focus rather than playing in England?
Charlie: The thing with America is that the mainstream radio over there plays hardcore rock, and you just don’t get that over here, it’s all pop. But the problem with that is that the competition is huge. Europe is actually a really good area to focus on – we’re releasing a record over there for the first time next year.
Charlie, you’ve had your time with Busted and you‘ve got a good few years behind you now as a band. Is there anything you wished you’d known at the start, any regrets?
Omar: You’re always going to have regrets as you’re naive at the beginning, whatever way you look at it.
Charlie: Only from a business perspective though. From a creative point of view, we’ve only ever released songs that we’re proud of.
Dan: And now we’ve learned how to run our own business
You’ve had your fair share of gigs, you must have had some strange experiences?
Dan: This is a pretty scary story: a few years ago we were at a gig and this guy came up to us and said he owned a limo company and offered to sort one out for us to get home. We’d had a good few drinks by that point and he lived nearby, so we thought we’d go along. We got to his house and he told us he’d recorded a few songs of his own, and he’d put them on for us to have a listen. It was an old vinyl record, and literally as soon as the needle hit the record, he turned out the lights, jumped up on the kitchen table and stood staring manically at the row of knives he had along the wall.
Oh my god! What did you do?
We were absolutely bloody terrified, and he was playing pretty weird music, so we just ran for it!
Charlie: And the worst thing was, I forgot my phone
Did you go back for it or just leave it?
I went back to get it! I had to go inside his house again, he was pretty pissed off.
I think we’ll leave it at that!
The English Way is available now and you can view the band’s official website here.
Read RiverOnline's review of the whole night here. Picture credit: Brian Rasic/Rex Features
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