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Analysing ideology
- 1. Interview: The Wanted<br />We join The Wanted at Moti Mahal to talk pop stardom and football with the Saturdays! <br />Posted: Tuesday 27 Jul 2010<br />Above: The Wanted serenade us over lunch!/Ed Watts<br />Don¡¯t call The Wanted just another boy band. Okay, there are five of them and they¡¯re easy on the eye, but one listen to their just-released debut single All Time Low shows that these guys are a million miles away from the old-fashioned, clean-cut school of balladry and cheesy co-ordinated outfits.<br />More of a lad band then? And the new rivals to JLS? ¡®We¡¯d be very happy to have their success!¡¯ jokes Max, the band¡¯s heart-throb. ¡®Our music¡¯s really different, though. They¡¯ve gone down a more R&B route, whereas we¡¯re more indie and edgy.¡¯ Indeed, there¡¯s a rough-and-tumble energy to this quintet who aren¡¯t just bandmates on the verge of mega chart success; they¡¯re proper mates too who¡¯ve been living together in a ramshackle pad in south London for the past year, stepping over empty pizza boxes and avoiding the washing-up! With a packed schedule of live gigs and promo appearances for the new single, these guys (Max, Tom and Siva, all 21, Jay, 19, and 17-year-old Nathan) are hard to pin down, but the promise of lunch at top Covent Garden Indian eatery Moti Mahal proved too much to resist, and we¡¯re happy to report that we couldn¡¯t get a word in edgeways¡How are you guys different from the usual boy band?Nathan: You won¡¯t find us sitting on stools in our suits and standing up for the key change!Jay: We were in rehearsal once and someone brought stools in, and we went: ¡®Take them back!¡¯Should we call you a lad band, rather than a boy band?Max: We¡¯re not bothered what you call us. We¡¯re just average lads, from working-class backgrounds. I¡¯m from Salford, for example, and Tom¡¯s from Bolton. We haven¡¯t changed the way we live. As long as we don¡¯t get called ¡®man band¡¯ just yet ¨C that sounds a bit strange!<br />Do you see yourselves as rivals to JLS?Jay: Well, hopefully one day we¡¯ll be in that arena, but at the minute we¡¯re just trying to achieve what they¡¯ve achieved.Siva: To be even mentioned in the same breath as JLS is a compliment. And I guess it didn¡¯t take them long to get to the top.If we were to compare you to Take That ¨C personalities only, not the music! ¨C who would be who in the band?Jay: People say I¡¯m like Howard, I guess I¡¯m the dancer, and indie kid Siva is Jason, the model, with good looks. Max is Robbie, a bit of a lad. Nathan is Gary, with all the piano playing; he¡¯s a songwriter. And Tom would have to be cheeky Mark!You¡¯re with the same management as The Saturdays ¨C have you met them?Max: Yes, we did a gig with them the other week. They¡¯re lovely. We played football with them too. Vanessa¡¯s really good, she¡¯s wicked. Frankie¡¯s awful; we¡¯re still talking football! They¡¯re top girls. If you¡¯d like to hook us up properly, that would be cool!Jay: Vanessa is a fierce kicker. She boots it for miles. They are lovely girls.You¡¯re all sharing a bachelor pad in London ¨C who¡¯s the messiest?Nathan: Max and Tom!Tom: We do get accused of that. But none of us do the washing-up! To be fair, we have a cleaner who comes in twice a week! She¡¯s a machine, she ploughs through the whole house. She even does our washing and ironing.Tom: We got the essential furniture in pretty quick ¨C a football table and a darts board! Then a fridge full of beers, and freezer full of pizzas. What more do you need?Siva: It¡¯s great, it¡¯s like being at college ¨C except without the scamping for money, and making a tin of beans last all week.Max: It is a bit of a lads¡¯ flat. No girls allowed! Everyone hangs around in my room because I¡¯m the only one with Sky TV. Siva¡¯s got a telly too, but you slip off the silk bed sheets. And he¡¯s got candles too! He¡¯s the zen one of the group!Do you have time for girlfriends?Max: Not really, we¡¯re pretty busy. If we go for a drink when we finish a gig, there are nice ladies around, and we might socialise, but usually once we¡¯ve finished a gig we¡¯re in the back of a van travelling somewhere else.Siva: I¡¯m the only one with a girlfriend! Her name¡¯s Nareesha. We met a long time ago in Belfast. She¡¯s a shoe designer and she¡¯s from Jay¡¯s home town of Nottingham. When I started out in The Wanted, it was quite difficult for us, but I think she realises that I have to put a lot of time into the band.How are you finding female reaction to your gigs?Tom: We did a gig at a school the other day and it was mental! When we first did schools, nobody knew us, we¡¯d had no radio play or TV appearances, so it was a bit awkward. But the other day was brilliant, they stormed the stage! Max: I had my bum pinched about ten times ¨C one of them had a right grab and clung onto it for ages!Siva: I¡¯ve had a few bum grabs outside Capital FM and they took pictures of the bum grabs, and put them on Twitter!Max, we¡¯ve seen you before in the boy band Avenue, on The X Factor¡I look back and I have nothing but brilliant memories of The X Factor ¨C apart from being disqualified [after it emerged they already had a management deal}, which was hard to take, because we¡¯d got there and then had it taken away. Jay, you¡¯re called the Billy Elliot of the band. Explain!I grew up in a football-crazy household, including my three brothers and even my mum, who captained the local team. I was the odd one out, the rubbish kid who didn¡¯t like football! When my mum got injured she became a ref, but she went to dance classes to keep fit, and she took me along, and I got the dancing bug. I kept it up because it was the only thing I was ever good at. I got stick from some people, but I never cared ¨C I just loved doing it.Nathan, you¡¯re the baby of the band ¨C do you hate being called that?No that¡¯s cool ¨C the girls love it. They also call me the quiet one of the band. I¡¯m a bit of an old man really. I just sit in the corner with a nice cup of tea!Nathan, you¡¯re still at college and doing your exams ¨C how are you juggling that?Badly! No, I did my first year A-levels and did my exams, and I¡¯ve worked hard, but I don¡¯t think I¡¯m going to continue the second year exams just yet ¨C I want to go back and do them properly, when I¡¯ve got more time.Max, you¡¯re a Manchester City fan and a bit of a football nut. Did you ever think about being a footballer?Yes, I was going to go into football before I went into Avenue, because I¡¯ve played football all my life. I played for England Schoolboys. I never wanted to do music originally. Then, when I was 16, I tried The X Factor and got through to the second day¡¯s boot camp, and after that I realised I loved doing it.Siva, you¡¯re from a big family of eight brothers and sisters ¨C where do you fit in?I¡¯m the youngest, with a twin brother, Kumar. We weren¡¯t spoilt, though; we were like the Cinderellas of the family, always doing the work! We¡¯re identical twins, and people do mix us up. We used to do modelling together but I wasn¡¯t keen on it, I was looking to get into singing. Kumar¡¯s still modelling, and he¡¯s going to college too. He¡¯s getting a proper education!You¡¯ve been working with some top writing talent, like Robbie Williams¡¯ writing partner Guy Chambers. What was it like working with Guy?Jay: A-ma-zing! And scary at first!Siva: He was the first person we worked with in the studio, ever, when we started on the album. He just sat us in a room and said: ¡®Okay, sing!¡¯ I think we can all agree, we were all bricking it. Nathan: I nearly pooed my pants!Tom: Guy¡¯s a bit of a legend. We were all a bit like: ¡®It¡¯s the guy who wrote Angels!¡¯ It took a couple of days for us to get to know him, but he¡¯s so down to earth, I¡¯ve never met a guy like him. He¡¯s brilliant. He throws the best parties, too!Max: We¡¯ve also been working with Brian Friedman, The X Factor¡¯s choreographer. I¡¯d met him on The X Factor but I¡¯d never worked with him on a daily basis. He¡¯s such a nice guy but he can be strict as well ¨C if you got anything wrong, he made you do press-ups and squats!THE WANTED¡¯S SINGLE ¡®ALL TIME LOW¡¯ IS OUT NOW on Geffen Records. VISIT WWW.THEWANTEDMUSIC.COM<br />http://www.ok.co.uk/posts/view/24505/Interview-The-Wanted?printer=1<br />