Charlie Simpson and Danny Jones on why Busted Vs. McFly is their take on the Hella Mega Tour, how they’re going to make it the “ultimate show”, and their gratitude to still be doing this after more than 20 years…
“We were worried everyone had already spent all their money on Oasis tickets…”
Despite recently announcing one of the most fun-looking tours of 2025, Charlie Simpson and Danny Jones can’t quite believe just how much buzz there is for next year’s Busted Vs. McFly arena run. That extends to the bands themselves – Danny giddily describes himself as “over-excited” as we meet at McFly’s musical haven of a studio in west London – and even though it’s nearly a year away, the pair can’t wait to put on the biggest battle-of-the-bands in pop-rock history.
And so, even if people have also splashed the cash on Oasis’ reunion, Charlie and Danny tease that this is a not-to-be-missed show. Busted Vs. McFly will be like nothing either fanbase has ever experienced before, they can promise you that. Kerrang! finds out more…
This whole ‘vs.’ tour is a pretty unique idea. Where did it come from?
Danny: “I’m not sure! Obviously McBusted happened, and this is like the clean-up operation for all the confusion of like, ‘What band are you in, man?’ This is the ultimate battle, but also it’s brand-new territory. I don’t think this has ever been done – the closest I’ve ever seen is the Hella Mega Tour that I went to, which was Weezer, Fall Out Boy and Green Day, and it was fucking amazing. When you get inspired by stuff like that, you look at your own situation and go, ‘That could be cool.’ It’s a take on that. We all got excited about this, and all of our inspirations and influences came into play. And yes it’s the battle of McFly vs. Busted, and it’s that thing of, ‘Who’s the better band?’ but it’s also a very exciting space because it’s never been done in the ‘vs.’ way like this. Everything that we’ve seen so far, the designs and the conversations, it’s just super exciting. There’s so much to put into it. It’s our 20-odd years of experience to make the ultimate show.”
Charlie: “It won’t run like a co-headline show. It will run in a way that you won’t have seen before. I just saw the renders of the staging, and that alone looks incredible, and something that I haven’t seen before. There’s going to be a lot of cool shit – there’s some WWF vibes as well!”
Danny: “We’ve got a lad called Paul Caslin – he started filming us back in the day…”
Charlie: “But now he’s one of the biggest show directors ever.”
Danny: “Yeah, he’s head of the VMAs now, and he’s helping us design this.”
Charlie: “To be honest, he’s hard to get, but we told him about the idea and he was like, ‘I’ll drop everything for this – I can’t miss it.’ He thinks it’s such an exciting prospect. It gives us so much room to play with, to do stuff that you can’t do with a normal show.”
Danny: “It gets the imagination going, doesn’t it? There’s no rules, and it’s a blank canvas.”
You probably don’t want to give too much away just yet, but how will it work? Are you going to be alternating songs, or doing mini sets each?
Charlie: “We don’t want to give anything away, but it’s along those lines. It’s not just going to be one and one and then that’s it.”
Danny: “But also, what we’re thinking now may change, because it’s an evolving thing. We had an idea this morning – me and Charlie were like, ‘Ooh, that’s pretty good!’ It’s a year away, and we’ve probably got another six months to get these solid ideas in place.”
What about production? You released a very dramatic, fight-y promo poster when you announced the tour, so is it along those lines?
Charlie: “It looked like a Marvel poster, didn’t it!”
Danny: “It’s like WWF and WWE, which we all loved back in the day.”
Charlie: “What’s the difference between the two?”
Danny: “Mate, I have no clue! But we’re influenced by that, and it’s that kind of theatre and rivalry of wrestling. We all spoke about how YouTubers sell their fights these days, and it’s that thing of mixing sport with music, but in a controlled way.”
If you were actual wrestlers, what would be your entrance themes?
Danny: “Maybe Memories by The Used! Or Taking Back Sunday: ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this…’ Those tunes from back in the day.”
Charlie: “Or a southern, whiskey, Pantera kind of thing.”
Danny: “Or you could go western, couldn’t you? Walking in with a cowboy hat, all slow and intimidating (laughs), chewing some straw.”
Charlie: “Tarantino vibes. You never know, we might actually ride in to the show on horseback. And that’s what’s cool, we don’t have to commit just yet – all these ideas are to play for! But what we do know is that it’s going to be different to anything anyone’s seen, and it’s going to be epic.”
You’ve honoured big band milestones recently – Busted with 2023’s 20th anniversary Greatest Hits album and tour, and McFly at last week’s pair of 21st birthday party gigs at The O2 in London. Both had these incredible setlists and performances, but in the spirit of the ‘vs.’ theme… who did it better?
Charlie: “I’ve got to say, us having Christopher Lloyd in our live intro cannot be beaten by any band. That was one of the coolest things of all time. (Turns to Danny) You can’t deny it! But I think we both put on exciting shows, man. I went to see these guys on their Power To Play tour.”
Danny: “Oh yeah, you were just telling me that was the best show you’ve ever seen…”
Charlie: “(Laughs) It was wicked. That’s what’s cool, that we can both say we put on exciting live shows.”
Danny: “Yeah, that’s the thing about this tour: it will push us to our limits. It’s like Messi and Ronaldo – without one, they’re not as good, you know? It’s like, ‘How good is your Top Trumps card?’ Or your Pokémon card – ours is the flawless card that you wear around your neck that’s worth, like, £2million (laughs). We could make those for the tour!”
Charlie: “We’re going to make fly-swatters to swat the McFly fans away.”
We’re going to ask you to stop trash-talking for a second and be nice about each other’s music. What song from the other’s discography do you actually wish was your own band’s?
Charlie: “It’s one from when I went to see the show the other day – one of the new ones, Route 55. I think that’s a wicked song, and it really hit me live. I got a lot from that, and I think it’s probably my new favourite McFly song.”
Danny: “Dougie [Poynter, McFly bassist] will be chuffed with that, because he spent a lot of time on it in the studio. My favourite Busted song, I’ll stick to what I’ve always said, which is Day Turns Into Night. It had such an impact on me when I first got into pop music – which is also when I first met Tom [Fletcher, McFly vocalist/guitarist]. He introduced me to the Backstreet Boys, and then I came and met Busted and couldn’t believe that he knew these guys! It felt so untouchable for me, being from Bolton, I had never met anybody who knew someone in a band that big, on a stage in front of, like, 15,000 people. It was like, ‘Whoa!’ Back then I had quite a pigeonholed mindset, and this world opened up to me that was so amazing and colourful and beautiful, and I started getting into melodies.”
Charlie: “It’s interesting, because Danny and I’s journeys are quite similar in that respect. I was very new to the pop world before Busted, and had very much grown up in the heavier world. But I can appreciate pop so much now. The musicians that I meet, some of them are in brutally heavy bands, and they can appreciate a Backstreet Boys song, and I feel like if you can’t, that makes you closed-minded, do you know what I mean? I love Pantera and Machine Head and Tool, but I also think that Max Martin writes incredible pop songs – I appreciate both sides of that coin. It frustrated me back then that it seemed so tribal. But now, all these barriers have been broken down, and that’s a massive positive for music in general.”
What’s the best thing about playing on a tour like this where you’re on the road with a band who you know so well?
Charlie: “We’ve never been on a tour like this before with another band where we’re basically sharing the headline. I’m looking forward to it, man, it’ll be cool! When I get bored of our bus I’ll just go and hang out on theirs (laughs).”
Danny: “Yeah! I think it’s brought out the kid in us again. Every band loves touring – there’s amazing food, a great routine – but the main thing is it brings out the kid in you. All the hard work’s done, you’re on tour, you’re having the best time, and this is just an excuse to be even more stupid, because we’ve got more people to show off in front of (laughs). We’ll get all the hard work done now, and we’ll go and have an amazing time – and may the best band win!”
What have been your standout live moments from this year?
Charlie: “Download Festival for us was amazing. That was my favourite show of 2024, and it was just a great weekend – I also did a DJ thing that night, and that was so fun, playing metal to 10,000 people in The Doghouse tent.”
Danny: “Love it! We’ve had a few highlights. I feel like we’re peaking as a band live, because we’ve played so much. I see it as match fitness, where if you’re out injured, you’re never as good when you come back. You need a few games to get match fitness, and I really do believe in gig fitness. The more you play, the better you get. For us, Tramlines was insane, and having Blossoms and The Courteneers watch us was so cool. The crowd reaction, and seeing flares and people on shoulders, that was insane. Obviously Isle Of Wight was amazing, and then topping it off was the second O2. And the reason why was on the first night, I’d already made all my decisions, and there was so much going on, and I looked down at my guitar and I had the yips [involuntary wrist spasms]. So the second night, I was like, ‘Fuck you, yips!’ It was all in my brain the first night, and your brain can get in the way. But the second night at The O2 for me was a career highlight – I just felt in control.”
Charlie: “It’s so hard when you’re doing these one-off shows [rather than full tours]. I had the Fightstar show [at Wembley] earlier in the year and it’s the same thing, where it’s such a big moment for one night, like Danny said, so if something technical goes wrong, it can ruin it. They can either be bad or good, and it’s a bit of a roll of the dice just having a one-off event – but luckily everything went great.”
What else do you have planned between now and the tour next year? Are either bands thinking about new music?
Charlie: “We’re heading off for some international stuff soon – we’re doing Japan, Australia and South America, which is going to be fun. And then we’re going to Los Angeles to do some writing for a new record. This is the tail-end of the Greatest Hits thing, and then we’ll get in a room and see what’s next. It’s exciting but it’s kind of weird because we’re at the beginning of it.”
Danny: “We’ve got a couple of gigs left this year, and then I’m looking forward to December and January off. We’ve just taken over the lease for another five years [in our studio], so that means we’re going to have to make some music! What that is, we don’t know yet. We have started thinking about new music, and we’ve also talked about other ideas, which I don’t know if I can say, but they’re… fun! But we’ll see. New music, for me, is always favourable, because it also reinvents the old music. Power To Play has been a massive album for us, and we’re so proud of it. Young Dumb Thrills before it was a bit of a weird mix of, like, ‘Okay, we’ve not made an album for a while and we’re all coming back together.’ But Power To Play was the first time we aligned on ’80s rock music, and we didn’t really think about anything other than just having fun and bringing the personality of the band back with guitar riffs. We had been so focused on getting on radio and stuff like that before, and we’d lost ourselves a bit. Power To Play has brought us right back, and what’s funny is they’re also the most fun songs to play live.”
Charlie: “It is difficult when you’ve all got different influences – in Busted, we’re all quite different, and you fly around that landing strip, just trying to find the right place. When you find it and everyone unites, it’s awesome. Sometimes it takes a minute – but it’s worth waiting for!”
You’ve both gone past the 20-year milestones – how do you feel looking back over everything to this point?
Charlie: “I look back at the last 20 years, and I feel very humbled by the fact that I can still sit here today and do what I love to do. It’s becoming harder for musicians, and it’s so hard for new artists – the landscape is different, the music industry is changing every day, but we still get to go out and play shows and make music, and that will always be the number-one win. I’m very thankful.”
Danny: “Hear, hear! I’m so thankful for our fanbase – I said this the other night onstage, that it’s about honouring the memories that you’ve shared to this music. Being people’s first dances, or memories to beautiful times… we don’t see any of that but we hear about it, and it’s amazing. And I’m so thankful that we’re peaking, because I thought it would have been like, ‘It’s all downhill from here!’ As we get older, you have to look after yourself a bit more, and since The Masked Singer I’ve been doing warm-ups, and I’m a better singer now because of that show. You try to push the bar every year, and I love that. I’m thankful, because we have fans that make us do that, and we have a band that makes us do that. When you feel the love like that there’s nothing better, because then you want to go and make new music, and you want to tour the world, and see these places and people. That’s the reason why we all picked up guitar in the first place.”
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