You Know That Guy from Busted? Yeah, This is His Other Band

Assuming you weren't living under a rock in the early-to-mid-2000s, you'll know exactly who Busted are, and their Blink-182-influenced breed of pop rock that's almost boy band pop; think if Waterparks or Five Seconds of Summer were now in their 30s or if the Nsync decided to grow out their fringes and became obsessed with Allister.

And, while I love many of these bands, it's pretty disappointing how so many bands followed in Busted's foot steps and began basically becoming pop singers with guitars; think 5 Seconds of Summer, Avril Lavigne, the Jonas Brothers, the Plain White T's (that's not a grammar mistake on my part, they really have an apostrophe in their name, which if it's intentional I could only guess is supposed to represent the “plain white T is”, because what would this T that is plain and white own. Finish your sentences man, I'm thrilled as the adventures of Mr. T.), Shiloh, their best mates McFly or maybe even Metro Station.

One of Busted's three lead vocalists (you starting to get the boy band comparisons?) was Charlie “Eyebrows” Simpson, who also played drums and guitar (because... they couldn't find anybody to actually play drums for them?), who was born in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Long story short, Busted broke up in 2005, but two years prior Simpson had already formed Fightstar with two people whom he by chance met at a party, and began jamming with at the party to Rage Against the Machine's “Killing the Name” and they ended up attending a gig together a few days later.

However, Fightstar didn't end as just a simple friends jokingly playing songs together (which is one of my favourite things to happen in the spur of a moment, so many horrible songs have been written by me and some of my friends, such as “Standing Around a Bin” featuring MC Circumsizzle, take a guess how that was written), because the band ended up releasing their début EP in 2005 and subsequent LP in 2006 and... they were an alt. metalcore band in the vein of Senses Fail or Funeral for a Friend.

I am by no means dissing Fightstar's music, their early music is average, but not terrible, however their later career saw a huge improvement in quality, as they simultaneously became influenced by heavier metal bands as well as post-rock bands, making for a much more interesting combinations of style, compared to following the trend of what a lot of other bands were doing at the time.

And if you're wondering about the other members of Busted, bassist Matthew Willis released an even more pop-leaning pop rock album in 2006 before being restricted to reality television shows like Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity... Get me Out of Here and Masterchef. Guitarist James Bourne formed one of the most generic pop punk bands that I've ever heard called Sons of Dork, who only released one album “Welcome to Loserville” and then began an electronic solo project called Future Boy. Guitarist Tom Fletcher (who was in the band for all of a day) ended up forming McFly, original guitarist Ki Fitzgerald, formed a band called Eyes Wide Open, who I can't find anything about because there's also a Swedish melodic death metal band with the same name, but he eventually became a producer who's worked with Pitbull, the Jonas Brothers, Union J and the Wanted and their founding bassist's only source of media attention in the past decade and a half is him suing the Busted boys for royalties.