Charlie Simpson has made no secret about his first time in teenage hearthrob band being less than perfect.
Infamously likening the experience to ‘torture’, he left band mates James Bourne and Matt Willis in 2004 to join alternative group Fightstar, and thought he’d never look back.
Fast forward over a decade, with the band having been reformed for a good four years, he admits that the second time’s a charm.
‘I much prefer it this time round because we’re 100 per cent in control of everything,’ the 33-year-old revealed to Metro.co.uk.
Describing the first time round, which saw the boys land four number one singles by the time they were 18, as a ‘whirlwind’, he added: ‘I felt like we were cogs in a machine towards the end and we didn’t have anywhere near as much creative control as I’d have liked, and that’s one of the reasons I decided to leave.
‘But now, I’ve got so much more experience, I’ve made loads of albums in other projects, and I feel like now everything’s on our own terms,’ Charlie explained.
Most of all, he values being on ‘the same page’ as his band mates – which led to a surprisingly nostalgic fourth album.
After releasing Night Driver back in 2016, which marked their shift to a more electronic sound, it seemed Busted of the past was dead.
‘That album just came out the way it did, it didn’t really have any forethought and we did purposefully want to make it different to the original sound,’ Charlie explained.
‘We just felt like we wanted to do something fresh and go wherever it took us.’
Then came Halfway There, which can only be described as an utter nostalgia fix.
‘We started trying stuff out in the same vein [as Night Driver], but it wasn’t really coming as naturally,’ the Year 3000 hitmaker recalled.
‘We just ended up thinking, “What do the fans want to hear?”. [We wrote] the song Nineties and it just seemed to fit.
‘We got to the point where we were just like “What would a quintessential Busted fan want to hear from this album?”‘
Describing the record as ‘an album I don’t think we could have made 10 years ago,’ Charlie puts its success partly down to the lads’ time apart.
‘We needed those 10 years apart to be able to come back and do this in this way now,’ he revealed.
Despite the guys not having been in the same room for years, Charlie revealed their friendship fell back into place just fine.
‘Because it never affected our friendship, it was very much creative differences that we ended the band on, it wasn’t like we had to rebuild a personal relationship,’ he recalled.
Pointing out that reforming the band was a slow process, he revealed that the openess he, Matt and James have towards each other ‘means the band never has to split up again.’
‘We never really had to have like therapy sessions and open up on how we felt in the last 10 years, we’ve had conversations naturally,’ Charlie recalled.
However, returning an ‘unrecognisable’ music industry was a challenge he hadn’t expected.
‘I feel like it’s not even the same industry anymore, it’s so so different to what it was like in 2002 because of streaming,’ he marveled.
‘With the whole change with how people consume music, I feel like the music industry itself is unrecognisable to the one that I came into when I was 16.
‘I feel like it’s a different place, I feel like it’s better in some respects, creativity and there’s a lot more diversity in pop music now than there was.
‘As a musician, it’s also harder for young musicians. It’s harder for emerging artists to really find their way.’
He’s quick to say that it’s ‘absolutely true’ he was disillusioned with pop music when he left Busted for Fightstar.
However, he’s fallen back in love with it and can clearly see where he fits in.
‘At the moment, I think pop’s in a pretty good place. You’ve got people like Ed Sheeran, Adele, and obviously huge global artists making really good music,’ he said.
‘I think one qualm I have at the minute is guitar music…Like where are the f***ing guitars?!
‘In 2009, when I was with Fightstar, guitar was the new pop music, and now I feel like because so many kids are making music in their bedrooms or on their computers, there’s not so much guitar music around.’
Luckily, Busted returned to save the day, as he revealed: ‘That’s one of the reasons we made this record.’
With the star admitting he’s not capable of everything he was in his twenties, he values sincerity above all – being quick to point out that there are many things he could have done over the years if he was simply in it for the money, including joining Matt, James, and McFly in supergroup McBusted.
‘Whatever you do, it’s gotta be sincere. If it’s not sincere, it’s not going to work,’ he pointed out.
‘I think if you’re not, you’ll end up in a tricky place.’
However, despite his disillusionment with pop music and Busted’s first shot at the industry, he thinks on whether he’s got any regrets.
‘I’ll never regret anything because it’s led me to where I am now, and I’m happy with where I am now,’ Charlie explained.
‘Everyone can look back and think “Oh I would have changed that”, but in general, every decision I took led me to the point where I’ve been incredibly fortunate to play music for 20 years and I’m doing things I never dreamed of when I was a kid.’
Despite his seemingly carefree attitude, he makes no secret of the fact that he feared the fans would take their leave during the band’s 10 year hiatus.
‘In that 10 year gap, there was that thought of “is there going to be an audience for this anymore?”’ he admitted, adding that ‘you can never take anything for granted.’
But he’s well aware nostalgia’s on his side, explaining: ‘The funny thing is, the longer you’re away, the more the yearning for a band to come back there is.
‘It’s why a film can make a sequel 20 years later, it stays with people, I think that never goes away.’
Grinning, he added: ‘Nostalgia’s a hugely, hugely powerful thing.’
Thinking on our tendency to blast What I Go To School For on a regular basis, he might just have a point.
Busted are set to perform at London’s Hampton Court Palace on 8 June.
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