42 MusicWeek 20.09.13 PROFILE MCFLY
wonderful things now that we’re looking forward just to doing something normal, releasing an album the traditional way.
DJ:Normal is weird for us.
You mention CD:UK a lot in your book. If you had money and time what would you do to fix the problem of music on TV? All: It’s sad.
HJ: CD:UK was so awesome, wasn’t it? Kids on Saturday mornings wouldn’t say ‘I’m watching TV’ now - the problem is the internet.
DJ:The Abbey Road Sessions were amazing. Plus, I’d get up and watch Ministry Of Mayhem.
HJ: You would not, Danny. DJ: I’d Sky Plus it.
TF: The equivalent of that I guess is X Factor and The Voice and…
Are you lovers of those kind of shows? TF: I love watching it. Getting The X Factor performance is amazing, the ultimate [promo]. And that is far bigger musically for a band than anything that was around when we first started.
HJ:Or Strictly… or Jonathan Ross, Chatty Man, all the big chat shows. CD:UK was awesome.
TF: I remember their breakfasts, they had really herby sausages.
DP: And very dry beans. DJ: The studios were lovely, Riverside.
Does that feel like a past life now? HJ: Yeah, a different era, gone are those days. Top Of The Pops, CD:UK, what else?
TF: I had a silver flip CD player. I remember the batteries were terrible…
On your 10 year anniversary, is there anything you’d like to say to the person that captioned that infamous NMEpicture [‘Cunt, Wanker, Dickhead and Twat’] of you in your early career? HJ: Hmm. I know what I want to say but I’m not going to say it.
success [its writers] just slagged them off. But this band didn’t sell out.
ABOVE Got Attitude: McFly are regular cover stars on the magazine - the two pictured here were Attitude’s best-selling issues in their respective years
“It annoys me that people get so annoyed with bands. ‘What are One Direction like - are they dicks?’ What, because you’re jealous of them?” HARRY JUDD, MCFLY
DJ: ‘Where are you now?’
HJ: It annoys me, people get so annoyed with bands. They ask ‘Oh, what are One Direction like, are they dicks?’ Why? Just because you’re jealous of them and they’re famous? Why does everyone hate everyone? It’s so ridiculous. I don’t like certain bands that are in the NME but I don’t go out of my way to tell people, I’m just not bothered by it.
TF: Well done mate, you called a bunch of 15-year- olds cunts.
HJ: I was talking to this guy from a certain band, one of the biggest bands in the world, about [NME] and they were saying how it used to be a massive supporter of them but as soon as they had
SIMON JONES:‘I WISH EVERY CLIENT COULD BE LIKE MCFLY’
Simon Jones, co-founder of Hackford Jones PR, has helped McFly branch out from music into other areas of entertainment media - not least reality TV and unlikely magazine covers… “I really enjoyed the time around when we were doing all the reality stuff with McFly. Harry went into Strictly and Dougie went into I'm A Celebrity, and in that space of two weeks both of them won the shows. “The media really like McFly because they have always
been polite, nice and great in interviews, on time and accommodating. No one’s got a bad word to say about
them - if you look at the columnists and stuff they are like ‘Aw, we like the boys’ that’s why they have lasted 10 years, they are really genuine nice people. “There are going to be some fun promo things coming
up: we have shot a cover of Attitude. The naked one that we did [in 2010, pictured] was so shocking for people. “I would say that they are the nicest people to work with. There are never any problems or hassle on both a personal level and a media level. They are just four totally normal people and never get themselves into trouble - I wish every single client could be like that!”
TF: Except they sold out stadiums. DJ:What’s cool about having 300 tickets left?
HJ: It makes [NME] cool if they don’t like certain people, it’s just marketing. TF: It’s such a game. A pantomime. DP: It’s like going back to school.
In your book you also mention tour promoters taking a chance on you going to Brazil and it went really well. Would you advise upcoming bands to do the same? TF: What’s hard is that if you don’t have the backing of a major label to push you internationally, you need to have had a big hit in these countries. Then it’s so expensive for a band to go on tour.
HJ: It’s about the cost. You don’t want to have a shitty show where you haven’t got your crew, equipment, flights, hotels. That costs us money, which is fine, but we’ve lost a lot of money from going out and touring places because we want to see our fans.
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