This weekend I hung out with the UK’s hottest urban act and 2012 X Factor finalists MK1 backstage at Butlins Bognor, where I’d taken my family for a weekend away!
Myself and 10 other Butlins Mum Ambassadors attended the weekend where we could bring our families and friends, relax, meet the Butlins Marketing and Social Media Team including James the newest recruit, and generally have some good old fashioned Butlins family fun! I didn’t expect to be mingling with one of my favourite X Factor acts, but when I read the extensive entertainment listings that Butlins laid on that weekend, I was impressed to read that MK1 were performing!
Not one to miss an opportunity, I had a word with my lovely Butlins contacts to see if they could arrange for me to interview the band. So my people (ie; me!) spoke to the Butlins people who spoke to MK1s people and we made it happen! Here I am with my husband and kids (and a friend’s child) backstage at Butlins with MK1!
I had hoped to video the interview so I could share it on my blog, but MK1s management wouldn’t allow that so we had a chat instead where I could ask them all the things I’d wondered about since they were last on our TV screens.
The nosiest question I asked was who was the most famous contact they had stored in their mobile phone! Sim immediately replied “Uncle Louis!” Louis Walsh was their mentor in the X Factor last year and I remember the band ‘urbanising’ him when they got him into a onesie! It must have had a lasting impression on me, did you see my recent post about my own onesie?!
Anyway, Charlie’s most famous contact was Tulisa. The band told me she was like their ‘second mentor’ during the X Factor process, sharing similar roots and experiences as Tulisa’s band N-Dubz also came out of London.
I asked the group what they’d been up to since they left the X Factor and Sim told me how busy they’d been, recording, writing songs and performing gigs. They have also now launched a 10 night UK tour, starting in June 2013, and they are currently trying to decide what their next music release will be.
During their set they played my current favourite song and what I hope will be their next release (which I told them!) The track is called ‘Anybody Out There’ and here is the offical video from their YouTube channel.
I did ask the band if the original ‘third member’ Will, who got kicked out at the X Factor audition stage was still involved with the band as I was sure I’d seen him on the video for ‘Anybody Out There’. Charlie agreed that Will was in that video as he’d produced it but that he wasn’t involved in other tracks.
I was interested to know if Charlie and Sim had ever been to Butlins on holiday as children and neither had, so their first experience of Butlins was coming there as performers, playing to the packed out Centre Stage venue! That must have been a surreal experience. Personally I do remember the Butlins of old, having entered a fancy dress competition as ‘Madonna’ in Skegness, 1984, but things have changed since those days! Anyway, a sunny childhood in Butlins may not have produced the gritty urban dubstep crossover band that is MK1. They’ll have plenty of time for family fun when they’ve amassed their fortune, giving us the high energy, cutting edge beats we’ve come to love from this unique band.
I did ask Charlie when ‘Anybody Out there’ might be available to purchase on iTunes, as I’d been searching for it to download. She seemed surprised and called me a “nice lady”! Apparently people in their masses have been illegally downloading it, so to have someone asking to pay for the track must feel nice. As far as I’m concerned, I think that talent should receive its rewards. The band are paying their dues right now, performing up and down the country with little time off, building an audience. But if their set at Butlins Bognor is anything to go by, it won’t take them long until they are selling out arenas, and when they do, I plan to be right there, cheering them on!
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