Interview with: The Wanted

Back in April, I got to meet the charming boys of The Wanted and now that the article is published in the summer issue of Faze Magazine, I thought I’d do a full blog post with some Q&A. We did the interview at their hotel and it was nice to hang out and see that they’re just your average goofy guys who aren’t letting their huge success get to their heads. 

Here is a glimpse of the article, in the summer issue of Faze:

For my interview, I chatted with Jay and Nathan, who told me about their April Fools Day pranks, crazy fan encounters, favourite Canadian artists, and even taught me some British slang.

So this is your first time to Toronto, what are you most excited for?

Jay: I actually wasn’t too sure how it would go down but as soon as we got off the plane, there were hundreds of fans in the airport and I just thought, okay Toronto fans are crazy and I love it. They’re great.

Nathan: It was literally crazy. It was when we were waiting for our bags to come around. Then the security came over and goes “excuse me, are you in a band?” and we were like yeah, why? And he’s like “right, so you have three options. We can take you straight through to your car, we can take you out the back, or you can go out into the fans and say hello, but you’d be crazy to do that.” And we said right, so we want to see them.

So you went out to the crowd? How was that?

J: We instantly ripped away from our security and tour manager and I was just in a sea of girls for thirty minutes. But they were so nice. Sometimes in the UK, they grab you in places, because they see us on TV all the time, but here, everyone was just like thanks so much for coming to Toronto, I’ve waited two years, I’ve waited a year, I love this song, here’s a gift, and everyone was just so nice. And I was happy to be there for that moment.

N: Good that we got out alive though.

How would you describe your inspiration for song writing?

J: It’s a mix of different things. Sometimes you do just come at it from a music point of view and you want to create a sound, like I want this to be club-y, I want it to be melodic and ballad-y. Or sometimes you’ve got something you want to write about and then the song can be anything. If you’ve got a situation that’s stressing you out or you feel really good about, then you just sit there and Nathan will have a little play on his piano belt. [laughs - points to Nathan’s piano belt he was wearing]. So when you feel like making a song happen, it happens. When you try to force it, it’s often very hard.

N: It doesn’t work very well at all. It’s literally those days when you’re told you have to go in and write a song today and it has to be along these lines, then you never come out with anything good. When you just feel like you want to go in and I want to work with so-and-so, like “Jay do you fancy going in and doing a song?” It usually, 95% of the time comes out really well.

You have to be in that moment right?

J: That’s the one! I wish you could turn it on, but it just happens. It comes to you naturally.

Yesterday was April Fools’ Day, did you guys pull any pranks?

J: Yes, I got pranked by all the boys.

N: Yeah, we all did Jay. Because basically, Jay was part of the reason we got punk’d. And we all decided to get him back big time.

What happened?

J: They told me, in fact Scooter Braun, our American manager here, rang me and said “did you wear a t-shirt with a rude slogan on it?” And I said yes, why? And he went “because every radio station that has seen that has taken you off the playlist. You need to ring all the boys and apologize and you need to work out how you’re going to make it up to all of the radio stations.” I panicked. I rung all the boys and said I’m sorry.

N: Want me to read you the text? It’s great.

J: So they were there for like an hour later. I wrote an apology out to all the radio stations and all the boys I wrote them a note.

N: So Jay texts us saying:

Lads, Scooter just called with bad news. The radio we did, where I wore the blowjob t-shirt, was very offended and are going to pull ‘Glad You Came’ because they’re really conservative apparently.  He wants us to think of something we can do try to change their minds. I think maybe a video or something but if you have any ideas, let me know. Apologies lads.

J: I was sweating.

N: Jay is never that serious.

J: I’m the happy go lucky guy who doesn’t try to get affected by anything and when he said that, I thought, we’re not even dropping out of the top 10, we’re dropping out of the top 100 and I’ve ruined any chance we ever had. Eventually he was like Do you understand how serious this is? Can you make it up to them? I was like I can try. He’s like Do you even know what day it is? And I went “You dicks!” Because then I realized it was April 1^st. But I was so stressed and the relief was enormous. I actually think it was cruel and not even funny.

N: It was hysterical. Hang on a minute, you punk’d us on MTV. But to be fair, we did film the whole thing, so we’re currently compiling a video that will go out on YouTube.

What are some of the craziest things fans have ever done for you?

J: I guess Siva’s one was crazy. When Siva was moving house, she climbed into his moving van. So I don’t even know how she knew where he lived at all. But she got inside a box, and on the other side, like obviously travelled a while to get there, he opened it up and saw that there was someone inside it, obviously. He said she was sweating incredibly from being in there for so long, but she was just so overwhelmed. So he gave her a picture, made sure she was okay and sent her on her way. In fact, he said Max’s stuff was being moved to storage for a year and if she had gotten into that lori, she would be dead.

N: She’d be in storage!

J: So yeah, she picked the right lori.

N: But we highly encourage all our fans to do the most ridiculous things to get attention.

J: She had initiative. There were some girls, this is incredible. For a while, we had a ‘no girls backstage’ rule because there were too many fans that would pretend to be dancers for other people and get in, so we had that rule. But some girls shaved their heads and put on guy clothes and walked straight in. We knew straightaway that they were girls, it was like Shakespeare, someone dressing up as a boy or girl and no one notices. I was like come on they’re playing the girl.

N: They’ve got boobs.

J: So I just think if you can go through all that effort just to meet us, the least you deserve is a conversation, a picture, and some serious high fives - and a wig for the next two months.

N: That’s the new range of merch we’ve got: Wanted Wigs.

So Glad You Came is on a lot of summer and party playlists, what are your all-time favourite party songs?

J: LMFAO Party Rock Anthem. No amount of times you hear that song, you’re going to shuffle to it. I could hypothetically say here that I don’t want to hear it anymore, but [starts singing the tune] I can’t help it.

Can you do the shuffle?

J: I’m not very good.

Do you have any favourite Canadian artists?

Both: Bieber.

N: I’m going to be honest. His new song is completely different to anything he’s done before but it’s awesome. It makes me feel so relaxed when I listen to it and I actually go This kid’s so cool, it’s ridiculous.

J: I can see him developing into a little Timberlake and that made my mind up that he could do that.

N: And personally speaking, I’m a massive fan of Michael Buble. I am the biggest Michael Buble fan.

J: This guy lives and breathes Michael Buble.

N: I am a massive fan girl of Michael Buble. I found out he was potentially going to be at one of the TV shows and they couldn’t control me. And then he wasn’t there. I was devastated. I would love to sing with him.

J: And Celine Dion. She’s in Vegas right now. We saw her face on every billboard and every bus.

N: You know what’s really sad, just talking about Michael Buble just then has got me really excited.

What is your favourite city to perform in?

J: I’m going to have to be biased and say my hometown. Travelling to America and Canada is incredible because it’s such this dream that you don’t actually know if you’re ever going to cross the pond or not. But when I’m home and all my friends and family that we just see maybe once or twice a year are there and they go “I get why you’re doing it boys, because you’re having the time of your lives. Keep working hard and we’re proud of you” so that makes it really special. Every gig is awesome. As much as I love talking to brilliant people, it’s the gigs you come off shaking.

N: That’s the reason we do it. I’m going to have to be biased as well and say my hometown. But especially Gloucester, there’s no big arenas you can play and the theatres aren’t really big enough to put on an actual music event. But last summer, just after Glad You Came went to number one, we got a phone call saying do you want to play the rugby stadium? And Gloucester is one of the biggest teams in England and the stadium is amazing so I was like As if we’re going to be playing in my hometown stadium. So that was an honour.

They broke down some slang for me as well:

Buzzing = excited

Mint = perfect

Getting a tash on = making out with someone

Rumpy pumpy = intimate times/getting down

Bullocks = got guts

The Wanted will be back in Toronto in August for the KISS 92.5 Wham Bam 2012 so be sure to check that out!

- Christina

Follow my adventures on Twitter: @christinaaa28