You would have been so proud of us, guys. Last week we went to go and interview perhaps the most important man from our teenage crush line-up, (apart from that boy in sixth form with the Jimmy Eat World tattoo) the one and only Charlie freaking Simpson. AND we totally managed to keep our cool. Sort of.
Charlie, formerly of teen pop-punk band Busted (and then heavy metal band Fightstar) is just gearing up to release his second solo album, Long Road Home, which is really good – handy for us because he's also a really nice guy. He even put up with us telling him all about the time we got drunk and sang Air Hostess to a bunch of people who were really unimpressed, which he didn't have to do, because it's an awful story and we're awful people for doing it in the first place.
Anyways, we chatted to him about Busted, getting wasted at the Kerrang Awards and why he's never been into one-night stands.
Hello, Charlie Simpson, your new album’s a bit good, although it’s a bit different than the Busted and Fightstar stuff
It’s weird, I find my solo stuff is just part of who I am as I’ve always been into acoustic music. Some of the first records I was ever showed by my dad were Jackson Browne and the Eagles and the Beach Boys, and I’ve always loved that big harmony sound. So it's always been a natural progression that when I did sit down to do a solo record, that would be what it was.
Do your fans get confused? You’ve made music for three very different sets of people
It was kind of weird because we had an eclectic audience when we started Fightstar as there were two different sections of people. And it’s happened again with my solo stuff, because I think that’s more for an older audience, like my parents' age. There was definitely a massive shift and shock for people when I started doing Fightstar. But it was a great time, and I’ll definitely do it again.
**Yeah, I used to listen to Palahniuk's Laughter on my darker teenage angst days. The rock world is fun, though; the Kerrang Awards look like a right barrel of laughs.
The most fucked I’ve ever been in my entire life has probably been at the Kerrang Awards, I went four years in a row, and I mean… fuck… the next day, I don’t really remember. You just get SO hammered. You spend the year touring and you meet different bands along the way, and then suddenly everyone just comes together like an epicentre of everyone getting completely fucked up.
Not going to lie, Charlie Simpson, but your eyebrows do funny things to me. How do you deal with all the lady attention you must get?
Yeah, I mean, I never really paid attention to all that stuff, but I was always really in a relationship during my time in the music industry so I never really did that thing and it’s not really in my personality anyway. It has never been part of my agenda to go around shagging loads of girls, I’ve never been a ‘one-night stand’ kind of guy.
And you just went and broke our hearts and got married. How long have you been with your lovely wife?
Six years.
But you’re only 29, Charlie Simpson – do you not feel too young to be doing such things?
I did, I did! I always felt like I was too young for everything. I’ve only JUST felt like I’m old enough to get married. I never thought I was mature enough. But I don’t feel that different. I mean, I feel really happy that I’m married to my wife, but I think the big BIG change is when you have kids because your lifestyle changes completely. Like I feel like I’ve only been married to my wife since we moved in together two years ago, so not a lot has really changed. I think the real maturity comes when you have kids – which is NOT HAPPENING YET but may be just around the corner.
Back when you were in Busted and we were both young, Charlie Simpson, things like Twitter didn’t exist. Is it weird having to use social media now for your career?
It took me a while to embrace it, to be honest, I didn’t pick up Twitter until like three years after it kicked off. I think it’s a necessity. It’s fine if you don’t want to be on Twitter but it’s not going to do you any favours.
Does anyone troll you on Twitter?
Trolling! I’ve never been trolled… maybe I shouldn’t say that, in case. You say something at the wrong time, and I have, and it really offended people. I made a joke the other day about football and I got SO MUCH abuse for it! My friend gave me the golden rules of Twitter and was just like… don’t say anything bad.
Excellent advice. Do you look back on Busted fondly, Charlie Simpson?
I do now, it was quite a difficult time at the beginning and it took me a while, but I do now. And I’ve got in contact with Matt and James again, I’ve had the most amazing time over the past 12 years and it started from that and I think I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to do what I did. But it has taken me a while to have a fresh perspective on it. So now I look back on it fondly.
What’s your favourite Busted song? Mine is either Who’s David or 3AM
There’s a track on the second album that I sort of wrote and it was starting to tell the tale of what was to come afterwards. It was a song I wrote with my brother called Why? … but otherwise definitely 3AM
A wise choice. What was with the video for What I Go To School For about? It was a bit naughty now I watch it back
I was on a TV show the other day, Lorraine, and she played one of the old videos, and I looked SO young.
Good hair too
Ha, yeah. I was 15 years old, it’s crazy to watch those. Yeah I suppose it was a bit risqué…
**But you’re back making funny videos again! Haunted’s hilarious
Yeah, some of my favourite videos are Foo Fighters videos, and Dave Grohl is the king of comedy videos. What’s genius about it, is that it’s serious music with hilarious videos. There are so many music videos now, so it’s really hard to do something different nowadays, so if you get the chance to make someone laugh, DO IT!
*Charlie Simpson's album Long Road Home is out on 4 August. Pre-order it here.
Follow Jess on Twitter @jess_commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.