McFly

Strange but true fact no 6,326: less than 12 months ago the only McFly anyone had heard of was Marty in the film “Back To The Future”. Fast forward to 2005 and McFly the band have become the only contenders for the title in pop’s premier league.

2005 has seen McFly off to a flying start after winning the Best Pop award at the Brits. The foursome have new material just waiting to burst into the charts, a full-scale headline arena tour this autumn and even their first Hollywood movie due by the end of the year. Having established themselves as one of Britain’s most exciting new bands, Danny Jones (guitar/vocals), Tom Fletcher (guitar/vocals), Dougie Poynter (bass, vocals) and Harry Judd (drums) are about to prove that the last twelve months’ Number Ones, multiple awards, double platinum record sales and thousands of gig tickets were only the beginning.

First up is the band’s brand new single (and 2005’s official Comic Relief release), a double a-side single with all proceeds going to the charity’s efforts around the world. On side one, we find ‘All About You’.

“I remember when Tom first wrote ‘All About You’,” Danny continues. “The rest of us were all downstairs watching TV, but all we could hear was this sound coming from Tom’s room. These backing vocals going ‘Bo, bo bo, bo bo, bo bo…’ That is all we heard, and we were just sat there going, ‘What the hell is that?’.” The rest of the lads found out pretty quickly: ‘All About You’ builds on the sophisticated style of early McFly songs like ‘Obviously’, further refining what are already emerging as hallmark McFly songwriting qualities. The version you’ll hear was recorded not in Tom’s bedroom but the more prestigious environs of Abbey Road studios, and comes with backing from a full 60-piece orchestra.

The ‘All About You’ video finds the band on top comedy form. “We’ve got Graham Norton, Kate Thornton, Harry Hill, Davina, Johnny Vegas, Ruby Wax, some guy from some… Er, an actor…” said Danny. Once you see the video, with its countless cameos, you’ll understand why Danny’s having trouble keeping track of them all.

On the flipside of the new single, ‘You’ve Got A Friend’ is an inspired Carole King cover. The song was never a hit single for King, but shot to fame after featuring on her 1971 album ‘Tapestry’ and has since become a classic. It’s even been covered by a handful of acts in the past. “I’m actually more familiar with the James Taylor version,” Danny explains. “His recording was just with an acoustic guitar with some bongos thrown in – it was quite chilled out once again and that’s the vibe we’ve gone for on our own version.”

The video for ‘You’ve Got A Friend’, meanwhile, features footage of the boys’ recent trip to Africa. At the beginning of January the band travelled to Uganda to experience first hand the situation they’ll be doing their best to help remedy. On the sometimes harrowing but ultimately inspiring trip they visited a project funded by Comic Relief – the Kamwokya Christian Caring Community. The project supports the community by caring for people affected by HIV/AIDS, running a health clinic providing vocational training as well as operating a primary school for children orphaned by HIV. Many of those young kids won’t even live to be Dougie’s age, let alone get into their twenties. “It was an amazingly humbling experience,” Danny explains. “Very emotional but also very rewarding. We cooked with them, laid bricks with them, did everything we could to try to understand one small part of what their life is like. We spent time with five-year-old kids who are HIV positive. Coming home and seeing people arguing over petty things… Well, you realise it’s just not worth it.”

“Going out there gave each of us a new perspective on life It made us all aware of how lucky we are, and realising that I’m in a position where I might be able to make more people aware of the situation is something that makes me feel really honoured. Everyone should go out there at least once in their lives.”

2005 will also see McFly taking a starring role in the major new Lindsay Lohan movie for 20th Century Fox (untitled at present), in which they play a band called McFly whose members Danny (Danny), Tom (Tom), Dougie (Dougie) and Harry (Harry) play a large part in, as they say, ‘the plot development’. “We met the director last year,” Danny recalls, “and he said that he loved us. And then when we got the scripts back it turned out we’d been given massive parts! Hahah! I really can’t believe it. I’ll probably be in the record books with the first Bolton accent in Hollywood.” The lads are hoping to contribute five songs – including some new ones – to the soundtack of the movie, which is due in cinemas by Christmas.

By that point, of course, the band will be on the road with their first headline arena tour, some of whose dates sold out so quickly that additional gigs have already been added. They’re promising a bigger, better live experience than autumn 2004’s sold out theatre tour, and you can expect to hear a whole raft of new material when they do hit the road, because the boys have already been writing for the successor to last year’s Number One album ‘Room On The Third Floor’. “We have,” Danny declares, “got some tunes.” He’s remaining tight-lipped on any further details, but from the early demos it sounds as if the band will breezily sidestep any ‘difficult second album’ issues.

In fact, with all this happening in 2005, the band’s first single seems a long time ago now – but ‘Five Colours In her Hair’ was actually released less than a year ago. After spending two weeks at Number One, ‘Five Colours…’ was followed by the band’s second Number One smash, ‘Obviously’, which itself was followed two weeks later by an album teeming with love, loss, frustration and a humorous songwriting spark that set McFly head and shoulders above the vast majority of the pop pack. ‘Room On The Third Floor’ shot straight to Number One – putting McFly in the Guinness Book Of Records as the youngest ever band to achieve such a feat. Two further Top 5 hits followed – with ‘That Girl’ in September and the album’s title track, with its astonishing ‘Airfix’ video, in November.

Under their belts – which are riding as low as ever – the lads already have hundreds of thousands of record sales, a Brit Award, thousands of gig tickets sold, and so many Smash Hits awards that they needed a shopping trolley to get them home, and right now they’re sounding more fresh and creative than ever. Amazingly, their momentum is still building. If you thought McFly made a big impact in 2004, that’s was just the beginning…