Danny Jones - McFly, McBusted And More

Full transcript: Danny Jones on London Real

7:38 Welcome to London Real. Thank you, Brian. It’s amazing to be on the show, man. Yeah, as you said, I’m a massive fan, and you’ve done your research, man. That was an impressive intro.

7:49 You know, I don’t know. I think I kind of have a Bruce Buffer thing when I start doing the intros, and I’m kind of like, and here we go. In the red corner! Yeah, I love that. Fighting!

7:56 You know, yeah. But you know, I think I first, you know, we started connecting. When you were tweeting out, like, Love in London Real, and you were watching it, and And I think, you know, another band member of yours, your tweet, know you’re watching this on the way back from Ireland or you’re touring. And I was like, okay, this is cool. And so you guys obviously watch the shows.

8:12 And as a confession, this isn’t the first time we met. I met you a week, two weeks ago, right? We can have a go, whatever it was. Yeah, we met at one of the events that Tai Lopez had and we just bumped into each other. And that was really cool.

8:24 It was really cool to see you. And it was really cool that you were there. I just wanted to say that because, you know, people look at you and, you know, you’re 28, you’re touring the world, you’re marrying for Miss England and you’re coming that day and to learn. And so that says a lot about you as a dude. Oh, thanks, man.

8:40 I mean, I went there to literally learn about business, learn about how to use your money well and stuff. And I went, I suppose, to, I like to go out in my comfort zone and everything I do. So keep pushing yourself to be a better you. And it was my bandmate, Matt and Dougie, that introduced me to London Real. And then I started listening to that.

9:06 They introduced me to Bulletproof as well. And then from that, yeah, I just got really sort of inspired by the people that were on the show. And Ty Lopez was one of them, looked more into him and I really wanna start reading more books. So he’s got an amazing list of books and stuff. And went to his seminar, yeah, and I was gonna text you or tweet you as well, saying I’m going but we didn’t want to talk before the show did we? No yeah we were trying to keep it quiet and we were pretty good at the event. Even though you stood there I was like I know we were just listening to Ty talk for nine hours straight so but I mean it was cool and you were there and you were just one of the dudes I mean you know you know I don’t know what we expect when we meet people that you know that are that are in rock bands but you were you know you were there you were just hanging out you were like one of the people learning yeah man I felt I felt like I was back in college or something I had my little backpack on and my notepad and then Ty said he doesn’t take notes and I was like okay I won’t take notes either I’ll try and remember this whole thing of Ty talking for eight hours. Don’t listen to that I was taking notes in my phone. I had to interview him the next day so I was actually taking notes I was gonna ask him a question. It was my first seminar though you know I don’t really know anything you know I don’t know anything about you know business things

10:18 Or these all these MBA things and stuff and and it was just really interesting and the way he thinks about money and the way he thinks about life and you know in general was just really inspiring for me yeah yeah no I really like him is that something you’ve always tried to do as far as like get out of your comfort zone and and kind of explore new things I mean if you look back at your career is that like a trajectory of Danny totally I mean there’s it’s so easy to just live in your comfortable bubble you know and and you know in music you need to like when I first met Tom where when I was just turning 17 you know I thought I was was Liam Gallagher. I was just a lad from Manchester, wearing my Parker, and I was like, I’m not into pop music, screw this. And my mum, it was actually an audition that I went to, and my mum says, it’s for Universal Music, you never know what you’re going to get. And I looked around in the queue for the audition, and there’s all these guys stretching out and dancing and stuff, and I’m like, mum, this ain’t right, I’m the only kid with the guitar here.”

11:26 She’s like, no, just you never know what could come from it, you never know what could come from it. So we went to the audition and Tom was filming. Tom was just filming the audition and I went in and I had to dance. The first thing I had to do was dance. So I’m going, oh no.

11:39 How old are you? How old am I now? Then I just turned 17 I think. My sister was always a singer in the family so I was just the guitarist behind her and she went to auditions. I never did it.

11:50 And you can normally audition when you turn 16 anyway. So I was 17, I walked into this room and they’re like, okay, first thing I want you to do lads is all dance. So I’m like, oh my God, I looked at my mum through this glass door and she’s laughing her head off at me and I’m just sort of dancing like this. But what was amazing is Tom was filming and he was cracking up and they cut a long story short, they knew I wasn’t right for the audition of that day.

12:16 But they asked me to stay behind and play a few songs on my guitar. And I did, and again, I was going out in my comfort zone, didn’t know what I was doing I just thought I went with it but I knew at the end there was something good because these people were in with Universal so I played them a few songs at the end and they said oh do you know anything pop and I said Paul Weller and they all started laughing and I couldn’t understand why they were laughing and obviously Paul Weller isn’t the pop that they knew so Tom took me downstairs and taught me a Backstreet Boys song okay so a Backstreet Boys song and there’s me I’ve got like you know a proper indie haircut, thinking, oh, what’s this? And then Tom, from then, totally, we had something that we couldn’t let go, and he said, do you wanna come down to London and write with me?

13:02 And I was like, yeah, totally, man, yeah, definitely. So every weekend, I just went to college studying music production, and I was in Burry College, and every weekend, I got the train down to London, forgot all my homework and whatever I needed to study on, and I went straight down to London and I lived with Tom’s mom and dad every weekend and we wrote our first album and then we assigned to the management. We stayed in the Intercontinental in London. Yeah, I read something that you checked in there.

13:34 Check this when you’re like 18, 19. So you’re going to school up there, you’re coming down every weekend on the train. Every weekend, yeah. Just to write with Tom and Tom was based here. Yeah, and it was back in the day, remember mini-discs?

13:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah, for the video mini-discs. So he’d send me a mini-disc in the post and I’d get it and I’d put it in and he’d be like Hey Danny mate, it’s Tom, I’ve got a new song to show you and he’d start a song on the mini-disc and then you’d hear his mum shouting him saying your tea’s ready and he’d be like Mum, I’m just sending Danny a song and he’d be like and it’s funny, it’s amazing these mini-discs that he used to send me and that’s how we sort of wrote our first album and then we moved into the Intercontinental and that’s why our album is called Room on third floor. Okay. And you moved in there because you had been signed and you had some money and you thought let’s just do it in a certain place. Yeah. I signed to the management, pressed these management. And yeah, they sort of paid us, you know, give us a bit of money to live our lives and write our first album. Wow. Okay. That was McFly. That was McFly. Okay. And that was how it was born, you and Tom? That’s how it was born, yeah. And then we had management.

14:42 So me and Tom wrote a few songs with James from Busted as well, Busted were a band at the time and we sort of formed this partnership and trio that we were good at writing and we wrote all these songs. Then went to go and get a record deal. So me and Tom with the management played in the offices, real stale offices, trying to get a record deal just acoustically. And then we got a record deal. Okay, so you had management first and then record deal.

15:11 Yeah so it was just me and Tom, managers, the managers took us around all the labels and we played all around the labels, our new music that we’ve been writing. It was really exciting because you know, you go in there, you’re a nervous little kid with your guitar and you think you’re trying to look your best and you’ve got to play something and you go outside and you analyze the situation and what just happened and you know, your career is, you know, you want to get signed because this is what you want to do. So I get this feeling though that you always knew this would happen.

15:43 Like you don’t sound like one of those guys that this was on a whim or this was taking a chance. It seems like this is a destiny for you. Yeah I think so. I mean when I was about six I visualized playing, I said to my mum, I was watching Bruce Spring Scene and I just said to my mum, I want to do that, I really want to do that. And at the age of six, I remember my mum looking through the yellow pages and she found me a guitar teacher and she said, do you want to, do you want to, do you want guitar lessons, private guitar lessons?

16:18 And I just went, oh yeah. That’s six. This is a good mom. Yeah, six. And, and this guy, you know, he didn’t really take, take you one until you were seven and I, for some reason at an older age, my mum sort of, you know, chatted him up, I suppose, and got me, yeah, lessons with, with a guy called Jerry Bleasdale.

16:36 And he taught me everything I know today on guitar. Wow. And so you started at six and you started playing and writing your own music or just getting used to this? Yeah. I was, I didn’t write my first whole song until I was 16.

16:51 Okay. And that was a song called Not Alone and that was in my bedroom, in my house in Bolton. Okay. And it’s on our first album, I think. It is.

17:02 It’s a fan favorite, I think. And so again, I want to get back to this kind of Destiny thing. I mean, this was just something you, did you visualize or is it something that just fell into place? Because when you describe it to me, it just sounds like you were gonna get there one way or the other. Yeah, it’s weird.

17:15 I mean, I’m a massive visual, I love to visualize things and you know, like if we were to write or produce a song, the first thing I’d do is I’d hear it in an arena. I was like, how’s this gonna, you know, come across in an arena? So I, as a kid, I just visualized myself playing the same stage as Bruce Springsteen and no matter, I never really overthought things or I never really looked back and regret things, I just kept going with it and kept going with it and it was last year on the 7th of July we headlined Hyde Park and that’s the stage that Bruce Springsteen played.

17:55 I get tingles talking about it. That’s the stage he was playing when you first saw him or that’s his backyard basically. That, well he does that a lot, you know the Hard Rock calling. It’s changed over now to BST, Barkley card, Summertime, Fair or something, and Bruce Springsteen did the Hyde Park calling, and at the exact same stage he played. This is in New Jersey?

18:15 No, this is in Hyde Park. Oh, Hyde Park, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. All right, so we’ve headlined that, 60,000 people. And that was a year ago? That was last year, yeah.

18:23 That was last year, okay, and that, you kind of got a moment there because Bruce was there and now you’re there. Yeah, I had a massive moment because I went to see him the year before playing that festival. And that’s where I briefly shook his hand as well, which was another moment for me. But just playing that stage was like, I had a moment because I came off stage and I don’t know how to really take these things in. It was so overwhelming that whole day that I was in a dream state the whole day.

18:52 And I was looking at the crowd. I mean, I went on autopilot almost because I was the front man. I was doing my thing at Hyde Park And it was such a beautiful view. The sun was shining, it started raining, there was a rainbow above the stage. It’s crazy, it was like I was tripping.

19:10 It’s crazy, crazy. Why was that event so special? Because it was so big, because it was in London, or because it was where Bruce played? Because I visualized it as a kid. Okay, all right, so 22 years earlier, you’d visualized it and it was happening, or 20 years or 15 years.

19:23 Yeah, and I was never impatient to get there. I sort of waited and waited and waited and I just kept thinking it’s gonna, it’ll come, don’t worry, just keep working hard. You know, it’ll come. Like Peter Sage says, the river, you know, it’s not straight there, you gotta go around the bend and then suddenly, you know. You are a London Real person, I know.

19:45 So, and when you’re a kid, are you the kind of kid that’s waking up and, you know, stressing like, okay, I gotta get this, I gotta do this, I gotta move to London, I gotta find a label, or are you just kind of a persistent, this is gonna happen, energy? I’m more of a this is gonna happen kind of energy, yeah I try not to stress too much. I mean I do get stressed, everyone gets stressed. You beat yourself up or you’re hard on yourself? Yeah massively, I mean one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard and it applies to everything I do is when Bruce Springsteen was talking to a bunch of students and he’s doing his talk about, you know, I can’t remember what it was, music school or business school and when all he said was, you know, no matter what you do, he said, whenever you do it, he says, when I’m on stage, I’m the biggest bad-ass motherfucker.

20:38 But when I come off, I suck. And I’ve had that attitude with everything. As soon as I’m on that stage, I own it and I’ve got to be, you know, because I was so, I’m very critical of myself. I’m always like, you know, even coming on the show, I’m like, should I be going on it? Should I, am I, you know, just if I go in on the show or, you know, I’m always kind of thinking I’m a cool enough, I’m a good enough, I’m a this, I’m a that. But then I’m like, no, you know, you should, you’re a badass motherfucker. But then when you come off, take your constructive criticism, I suppose. Okay, and when you’re on, when you are a bad mofo on stage, are you that because that’s what the audience wants and I’m gonna be that guy or you just transform into that guy because that’s you deep down inside somewhere? I just transform into Springsteen Jr. That’s what I think. My mom always said he’s my dad.

21:27 Springsteen has an incredible energy on stage and I don’t even know if most people know that these days especially some younger kids but he gets on for like four hours and plays until he’s dripping with sweat and like I’ve never seen him live but I hear it’s like… Have you seen him live? Oh my god. I hear he just he exhausts the crowd because he goes and goes and goes right yeah he’s 50 something or older yeah yeah but that the thing is for me when Tom opened you know Tom and my manager Fletch when they opened the door to pop that’s when everything changed for me because I stopped pigeonholing music and I started to appreciate it for why it is good what’s great about song why is it successful and and you open up and you know I was so caught up in like I’m from Manchester I love my oasis still love all that still love all oasis ocean colour scene and being a muso you know I used to play around pubs I bust outside Marks and Spencers but then pop open me like it it made me a priest because pop is everything’s popular what’s popular music right you know there’s got to be a reason why it’s popular and if you can appreciate it and study it and analyze it and that’s when it opens your world to so much more music now I can listen to classical and then I found my electronic right right but before you used to hate pop music for all the reasons that people hate it and they call it pop yeah because they think it’s something that’s mainstream or they

22:57 Don’t appreciate for what it is yeah I don’t think I ever hated it I just never got it I was like okay what’s that why is it why is it big and you got it on that audition that day when you were forced to play the Backstreet Boys guitar. I learned, I can’t remember, I don’t know what the song is but it released something in me, I was like wow that’s a beautiful melody. I don’t know, I had a connection with Tom and it was after that when we started writing a lot of pop and you know understanding what a hook is because not a lot of people know you know like we aspire to greatness like you know Max Martins of the world you know he’s a great songwriter but I sort of still, I grew up on blues music. I grew up on John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Eric Clapton.

23:40 You just found that on your own, because that wasn’t exactly playing on the radio, weren’t you? No, yeah. I suppose I was brainwashed a little bit by my mum. There was no real Disney films in my house. I didn’t see that. My sister did, but I never really wanted to watch it. I was hypnotised and just in my world, just watching tuba the bells by my cold field.

24:02 That was my Disney film, or Bruce Springsteen, or Pink Floyd, I used to completely zone out and just, I suppose, study what they’re doing and want to be that and try and mimic it and try and move myself into that. So blues influence. I was listening to Keith Richards’ autobiography on Audible and he said, we listened to the blues from America and we fed it back to them. And I was like, that’s all we did. He’s like, that’s all we did.

24:32 In Britain we fed him back the same type of, you know, and I never even realized that. The thing is there’s so much, there’s so much heart and there’s so much soul, and Pop misses out a little bit on that. And if I can just bring a bit of soul and heart and feeling, like Springsteen, his utter faith in what he’s doing at that moment and belief, you know, cause I don’t know whether you know, but a lot, there’s a lot of Pop out there that, you know, there’s artists that just front someone else’s dream.

25:05 So you’ve got this good looking guy or whatever and somebody else is writing the songs for them, they go out there and they just front somebody else’s work. This is your typical, like from the 90s or the 90s, we’re gonna create a band, we’re gonna get some boys together, we’re gonna write the songs and they’re gonna be out there. That’s it. Okay, that’s fronting is kind of the meaning. Yeah, I suppose it’s a good business.

25:26 And why doesn’t that work? Well, it does work and it still works to this day. But it doesn’t have the longevity, I don’t think. I think that the reason why we are still here now is that from day one, we’ve written our own songs, we believe in what we’re doing. So when we go out selling it, we believe in it and we’re like buzzing.

25:46 And it’s like, it’s not work to us because we enjoy it and we’re there for the love of it. And our last single air guitar, I didn’t get any radio, but we still sold just under 400,000 tickets last year. You know so if and you create a fan base that are so fanatical and they’re a hardcore because they’ve they’ve got so much to buy into because you’re Loving what you’re doing, but you’re straight from you to them There’s no right and you can’t fake that genius with with human with fans and audience you can maybe fake it once Yeah, but then that’s why you drop off as soon as soon as somebody stops writing songs for you What are you gonna do?

26:24 Right and the fans wisen up they’ll know after a while if you’re not really your heart isn’t into that and the way you two Are in the way you act and everything and then it’s it’s just not congruent and for me being in a band It’s about the journey. It’s about going through the hard times going through the the fun times touring the world and being you know, I mean, I you know, I Wouldn’t like to be a solo artist because being in a band with your boys and there’s nothing better than going out playing one of your tunes that you’ve just written or a big hit that you’ve just had, looking to your right, looking to your left, looking behind you where your drummer is and just thinking wow and I’m getting goosebumps talking about it because you’re with your best mates you’re on a stage you’ve got fans jumping up and down it’s a drug for me that’s my drug. Yeah I believe you it’s kind of like that line in any given Sunday when Pacino’s like talking to the locker room and he said you know all the guys they don’t remember the trophies they don’t remember the money they remember that one time like on the 50-yard line you know with those guys as a team you know pushing forward and that’s what the guys remember 100% which is yeah I guess that’s a carnal human instinct right being with your pack your wolf pack and your tribe it feels good it feels really good yeah what is it like being in a band I know that we could

27:37 Probably talk hours about that but yeah you just talked about that and later I want to get into you know McFly busted him up so you can break that down for But just being in a band and having you know six individuals and you know different people But yet you have to come together to create you have to go away to tour together I mean, what’s it like? It’s been described as a marriage and all that stuff, but what is it really like well? What is it really like it’s It is it is it is like a marriage I mean some of the boys know things that my wife and my mum doesn’t even know you know so But what’s amazing about a band is, or our band, is that the bond that you have and what you go through together and the experiences that you have, it, I don’t know, I mean, you write music, I mean, there is, we do have our differences and but you’ve got to leave, like, we always try and leave our egos if we’ve got any, we try and not have big egos but we’ll leave it out of it if it’s creative and We tend to talk about it, and if you talk about how you feel, there’s no wrong in if you feel sad or whatever, and we know we’re there for each other, and we’re like brothers, we’re like blood brothers.

28:51 That’s the only way I can describe it, is that I know they’re there for me for the rest of my life, and no matter what we go through, you know, it’s like, and the McBusted thing at the minute, with two other dudes joining us, you know, we were, we wrote with James and Matt back in the day, so that seems totally natural. And again, it just seems more fun. It’s more of a gang than a band now, I suppose. Again, looking to your right, looking to your left, I have two new members.

29:17 There’s a whole new excitement, a whole new angle at it. And we write now in teams, because there is too many. Six opinions is too many. There’s too many cooks. So we go out and write in different teams.

29:32 But being in a band is the best thing that ever happened to me, because they are literally more than friends. They’re more than friends to you, and it’s your career, it’s your life, it’s your talk to them. They’re my therapists. They’re everything. There’s six individuals, so what if one of them goes off this way or two of them want to go off this way?

29:59 How do you guys stay together for the long haul when it’s just six different personalities? You’re all aging different. it’s in a crazy time of your life. What do you mean go off in what way in terms of problems or? I don’t know, it’s just, or how does everyone stay focused like, yes, that we want to do this band.

30:14 I mean, you say you work every day, basically, except for maybe a week or so off at Christmas. And I believe you. Two weeks off at Christmas. So you guys are working 24 seven. I don’t think people realize that.

30:22 I mean, the impression of what you do and what you really do, I think are very different. And we’ll get into that. Oh yeah, no, when we’re not on TV, we’re hammering away writing songs. But it just seems to get six people on the same page looking forward, even for 18 month schedule, it just seems hard, but maybe I just, you know. I’ll tell you what it is.

30:39 It’s a good manager. Okay. Our manager’s amazing. Our manager’s like, well, seventh member now. We call him, you know, the fifth member of McFly, but he’s like a band member, and he glues it all together and gets us hyped up and inspires us and keeps it moving forward.

30:56 He deals with all the shit. We do the good stuff, you know, and that’s how it is, and he tells us about the shit, but we don’t have to deal with it, so. Okay, yeah, you need a guy like that. It’s funny, the Eagles have a really good documentary. I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s all kind of Eagles.

31:08 And they interview all these people, including David Geffen, and like they had a bit of a, you know, as any, I guess, record label and band has, we can talk about that later. And they were, you know, David Geffen did this and the Eagles did this, but David Geffen at one point says, he’s like, I protected them from a river of shit that they would have had to do it. That’s what he protects. Managers got to protect you, man. Yeah, that’s what he said.

31:28 And you could see what he means. And then the band is thinking, you’re stealing all my money. And he’s like, I’m protecting you from a river. Well, you know, that’s one massive thing I will say is trust. You got to trust, you manage it to get you the best deals.

31:39 Because as soon as you, I mean, you know, it wasn’t that Tai Lopez thing, but it was very money led. And in our world, if you’re money led, you sort of tend to make wrong decisions. You know, we have to be more creative led. And what I mean by that is like, if we want to fly in, if we want a UFO at the O2 Arena to come down from the, you know, we’ll get, you know, We’ll work out how to get that, you know, but instead of thinking, well, how much is that gonna cost if we make this amount of money over 40 days of a tour and all this, we can’t think like that.

32:08 We’ve gotta just think creative to put on the best show for our fans so that they always wanna come back for another show. You know, we try not to, I mean, we never ever think about cashing in. We never think about doing a tour and how can we make the most money, you know. We try and do a tour that people wanna come back and see again. It’s interesting, I was thinking about you today And I was thinking about, we have a lot of tech entrepreneurs here, and we’ve had other people on the show that you’ve watched, Peter Sage, and Alex Icon is one that I think of it.

32:38 He’s like, Brian, you don’t get paid because you want to get paid. You get paid because you create value, and then that comes back to you. And I was just thinking, when you go to create, I mean, that’s what music is. You’re creating value to people, right? And then later, you’re monetizing it because it’s, what does Ty call it, reciprocal altruism.

32:54 But that’s ultimately what you’re doing. So when you talk about the music being important, when you sit down in your studio at home with your guitar and you’re like, I’m going to create something of value. I mean, that’s what you’re doing, right? Yeah. No, it’s amazing.

33:06 I mean, you know, how I’ve been writing recently is just, you’ve got, you know, your studio and you’ve got a blank page and I never, I never remember settings or sounds I’ve used before or anything. Cause I like to challenge myself. Every time I produce something or write something, I try and, okay, what’s going to work? What am I feeling right now? And how’s it going to work?

33:24 So it is amazing starting from absolutely nothing. You probably got a guitar in your hand and you’re like, okay, I’ve got to write a song. So it is a process that you can’t really explain, but you sort of just get on and do it. And then to be able to go out and perform that and see your fans’ reactions and people singing along, it’s just an amazing feeling. There’s a quote someone told me about from Nikola Tesla, the great inventor from like a hundred years ago and he said, you know, manifesting an invention of yours and seeing it working is enough for a man to forget his friends and his family and eating and sleeping and everything, which is kind of what you’re talking about, right?

34:03 Yeah. You know, and if, you know, the thing is to come and watch us is it’s total escapism, you know, no matter whatever your troubles in life, for that hour and a half or two hours of watching one of our shows, we want you to be a massive part of it. You know, my job as a front man is to make sure the dude at the back, the very back of you, I can only just pick out when the lights are on, he’s having the best time ever. And as soon as everybody’s up, dancing, singing, having the best time clapping.

34:32 When I say clap, you better clap or else I’ll pick you out. I’ll never forget, there’s someone at the Ulta Arena and we picked them out, they were leaving early. And we were on stage and we saw them leaving early, like, hey, hold on a minute, they’re they’re leaving early, where are you going? And all we said was, oh, she’s got diarrhea. And we just showed her up through that, the whole.

34:55 So we’ll pick on you, we’ll pick on you. Do you keep going? Or do you stay? You’re humiliated or something. She sort of watched from the steps of her leaving, yeah, but we pick it out.

35:04 But as long as everybody’s having a great time, that’s my job anyway as a front man, is to get everybody having the best time ever. Feeling like they know us, feeling like they’re part of the show, not just coming to watch us, we’ve cashed in, see you later. You know, to come back again keep investing in us. What makes a good frontman? How do you be that?

35:19 I was watching the James Brown documentary, which just blows your mind when you think about all the stuff James Brown did. You’re like, Jesus Christ. And I mean, the kind of energy he had up there, but it just made me think like, what makes a good frontman? And do you think about that often? Or do you just kind of go with what you’re feeling?

35:33 Well, it’s a little bit different in our band because we all sort of sing at the front. But all the boys look to me, I suppose, and they say, you know, you’re the frontman, you do your thing. But I think what makes a good front man is that, or just a good performer in general is make sure you’re having fun. Make sure you’re relaxed, having fun, and you’re not jittery, you’re not having any… And we talk a lot.

35:57 We have a lot of banter and stuff. Okay. With the audience or to each other. Yeah, just to each other. And we try and make it as relaxed as possible.

36:06 No matter how big it is, we’ve had band meetings on stage going, should we play a song, should we do this, should we jam one out, should we do this. And there’s no, you know, we’ve had PA’s go down and suddenly we’re like, what do we do? And we just, I don’t know, we get around it, but to be a good front man, you’ve got to connect with everyone. I like to point people out and have a moment with, even though you’ve got 14,000 people in front of you at the O2 Arena, connecting with one person is so powerful.

36:34 You know, sometimes I rely on the fans too much because I forget my words and this and I’m trying to think what they’re singing and then I start singing what they’re singing then I’m singing the wrong words and then it all gets messed up and but yeah I think just having loads of energy being and having fun you’ve got to have fun and be relaxed you know again because the audience senses that and they don’t yeah massively and that’s why they can sense if someone’s just up there to get paid it may it might work for a little while but yeah to me yeah I mean I can totally sense it if if somebody loves what they’re doing I mean I got to see shows all the time and I recently went to see Bon Iver or Bon Iver however you say it. It was just in Vernon and he was the only it’s the only guy who’s ever made me cry at a show which was weird. Wow. And people there were just like when he finished a song we all just looked at each other and went because it was so it was so amazing what he was doing and you believed in him for that moment you We were just looking at him and his music was, I mean, it was just, it was amazing.

37:45 I love the guy so much. I love the band so much, yeah. You know, you were talking to me earlier at Ty’s place and you were saying that you were training, you know, and you trained a lot, and you said, I’m training, I’m going on tour next month, Brian, and he’s like, being on tour, being on stage every day or every other day, you gotta be in shape. And I wanna hear about your training regimen, but what is it like on tour? What do you hate about it?

38:05 What do you love about it? It sounds like you mentioned this, like psychedelic experience at High Park. It sounds like, you know, different places, different days, is it like that? Or how can you describe it to us? Touring’s amazing.

38:16 It’s like having a routine, but a routine in a different place every day. Okay, which makes it different. Yeah, it’s the opposite. It’s like my life right now is no routine in different places, but suddenly you get this routine of touring is, well, you do all the hard work, right? We’re in rehearsals right now for the tour.

38:37 How long were you spending rehearsals? Well, we’re going out, doing a little bit in Japan and Australia and then we’re coming back to do the tour. We normally tend to spend, I’m really bad with dates and things. Like weeks and weeks. Yeah.

38:57 I’ll say a good month. And with six guys, do you have to rehearse more? Yeah, because obviously it takes longer just for everybody to get their place in what we’re doing and we talk about, we’ve got two bass players, so I don’t know how many bands have two bass players, we have to work out how they work together. One’s playing more of a deeper bass, one’s playing more of a guitar frequency, like dirtier. Okay.

39:17 That works really well. I mean, our friend of Houseman, Ed’s, says it’s a massive wall of noise now that you’re creating because there’s six of you and the drummer and, you know, there’s three guitars, two bass players and a drummer, so it’s a massive wall of noise that we’re doing. And you’re all talking about positions, what are you playing, when you’re playing it, and this is what rehearsals are like. Rehearsals are more for like, we really nailed down how well we play the songs.

39:43 So the first thing we’re doing, we’re not even thinking about vocals yet, so what we’ve been doing recently is we go in there and we learn bits and we have an MD called Jamie and he looks at how the guitar parts are working together and it really gets sort of like, nitty and gritty, to the point where it’s almost a bit obsessive, like how we’re I’m gonna end this song, how are we gonna start this song? And you’d yell, you’d say, you’re off timing, you’re off timing, we don’t want that earlier, we want that earlier. Is there arguing?

40:12 There must be some arguing. We’re at the stage now, no, there’s not really. There’s creative discussion. That’s what we like to call it. It’s good.

40:18 I disagree with what you- There has to be some disagreement or there’s no passion, right? Or there’s no perfectionism. But as long as you listen, and as long as you, like there was an ending today that we were trying to discuss, and I was like, I don’t think it needs another chorus on the end. I think the owners have got what they think. You know, you can go into depth with it, And Tom was like, I don’t think it needs another course.

40:38 He was like, because his idea was to do another course at the end, and you know, I said, I don’t think, so I don’t think, I think the fans are, I think the fans are already satisfied at this point. And he goes, okay, well let’s try it, let’s try a double course. We tried it, but no, no, no, no, no. So he had his point, I had my point, we tried it, and then we go to IMD, and he goes, I think he doesn’t need that. And that’s how we get around it, we try not.

40:57 Because over the years, we have had our arguments where I’ve been in a huff and I’ve walked out, He’s been a know from what’s out, but we’re at the stage now You know 12 years. We’ve been doing it So we sort of know when something’s good or bad and we’re not to listen to each other’s creative ideas and not get You know because and at the minute we go in from 12 to 4 hard start Okay hard hard start as in will you show what I was hard hard as you turn up at half 11, okay? You have you brekky or you you you’re very disciplined. Nobody’s showing up late. Nobody’s calling in sick people are there Yeah, people are there. Okay, so you show up 1130 has to be I mean that’s not fun I mean we perfectionist so it has to be that’s longevity great. You know it has to be great Yeah, we want to people to go wow We want people to talk about our show is the best show they’ve ever been to like I would do about Springsteen Right, you know right and that is the ultimate form of marketing and made and whether intentional or not it is right?

41:53 Yeah, we’re saying I went to this show and it was just yeah word of mouth I bet a lot of people don’t even think you practice that a lot of it I bet a lot of people thought your air guitar video was just you guys on stage And it’s just the way you guys wake up and roll out of bed And you’re just that tight and that cool right yeah I mean we are I mean that’s us everything you see is us like we we you know we’re gonna meet up with Matt Afterwards we’re gonna hang out and that’s us we we do things together Tori’s even more fun because we get to hang out even more like because work work hang out is different to hanging hanging out Cuz we know we work and we have those I suppose we have those Relationships where, okay, I know Tom’s working now, I know Harry’s working with me now, but afterwards we can go and hang out and go for dinner, do this, whatever.

42:36 And it’s a different relationship that you have. Just hanging out. It’s not business. No, yeah. Yeah, and we switch it on.

42:42 Talk to me on tour. I mean, I was, funny today, I was just thinking of this video by Bon Jovi, the Wanted Dead or Alive video, because I wanted! And it’s like, I think it’s got all the images of them on tour, and the song has allusions being on tour and being exhausted and I was like I gotta ask Danny if it’s like that I mean there’s also that famous Motley crew video where they’re on the bus and like doing all that touring stuff I mean is it like that I mean to be honest touring has changed over the years in the early days we used to you know drink a lot go out a lot and now we train a lot and we drink loads of bulletproof and you sleep a lot and we sleep a lot I mean I like to go down to the bar and you know I still have my I’ve got a very nice balance of being healthy and and socializing in that way and you know I was I’m a ball and boy I like a pint you know right but so after the show you will go down and socialize yeah because you know you can come from playing an arena like the alter arena straight on the bus well sometimes we do we make a make a decision before the Are we going to stay in a shower or are we doing a runner?

43:53 So if you do a runner, within minutes, you’re just in a hotel room on your own, in a shower, with ears that are ringing. And it’s the first thing I ever felt was really, really weird about touring. Like drug withdrawal, it must be. Yeah, I’m like, I’ve gone from thousands of people in an arena, like playing, because we wear ears and it’s super, super loud. My ears are ringing and I’m just, that was 10 minutes ago and now I’m in a shower on my own and it’s a weird experience, you’re just like, oh my god, so I’ll have to…

44:25 Little traumatic. Yeah, it’s a bit… Okay, so you stopped doing that. It took a while to get used to it, no, I’m used to it now, yeah, I quite like it now. So you do run, you call it a runner.

44:33 Yeah, we call it a runner, so straight off stage, straight onto the bus and we’re out of there. Is that the safest way to go? Or is there no point in hanging around anyways? Well, we want to get back to the hotel, you know, hang out, you know, we like to sit down and have dinner, have a drink, stuff, whatever. With each other, not with fans necessarily.

44:51 No, with each other. Yeah, we just like to hang out with each other, yeah. Okay, but now you’re used to that withdrawal, that chop off. That’s wild. Okay, I got to ask you about groupies.

45:00 Now this could be 10 years ago, or this could be now, is it what everyone would expect? Is it not? Does it depend on the city? Does it depend on how old you are? Again, touring used to be different, I’m a married man now, but touring used to be different.

45:17 She’s probably going to hate me for asking that question. No, it was all in our book. I apologise, Georgie, I’m just going to ask. London Real, you’ve got to be honest. But yeah, we used to have a lot of fun with it.

45:28 We were pretty more into going and getting a drink and getting out of our face together, really. really, more than going down and getting chicks because we were so scared of kiss and tells and getting bad press. Even 10 years ago. Yeah, even 10 years ago. I had a kiss and tell and I thought it was like the worst day of my life.

45:53 I was like, everyone’s looking at me thinking, you know, that, you know. So some girl, da-da-da, and then said, this happened with this guy. It’s funny, the boys came down with the paper and there’s a huge layout of this girl. I slept with Danny or whatever and he did this, did that, and I looked at her and and I’ve never slept with her, I didn’t even recognise her. So it wasn’t true or it wasn’t fair?

46:12 It was true, it was true. But the boys were like, yeah, it’s that one you didn’t, you know, and I was like, oh, I don’t even know. But apparently, you know, I thought she was a girlfriend. You know, I was with her for a little while, but you know, it’s hard, knowing who to trust and knowing how to sense, I suppose, latchy people that are just there for the moment and there for hanging about with you. And you get a lot in clubs, you know, these people that you’re in the VIP and people want to just come in and just learning how to read people like that was a massive massive learning code took a few years to do it you know right and ultimately you’re thinking about the brand you’re thinking about the band when you get bad press like that I mean I guess you don’t like it for yourself either but no I didn’t like it at all I hated it I felt so yeah everyone was looking at me and you know I just didn’t want bad press I didn’t want it and then my sportsman call about it’s like my any press is good press don’t worry about it rock and roll I’m not Okay, cool.

47:06 But you don’t agree with that? I don’t know, I mean, I try not to look back and regret anything because I think it’s molded me into who I am today and you learn, you know, how do you learn if you don’t make mistakes? Right. How do you put your filter up when you start becoming famous and you start becoming big? I mean, you get a lot of, Dana White from the UFC calls them Klingons, you know, you get people that all of a sudden, you know, they’re your best buddies, they got to have business advice, they might have girlfriends, they might have drugs, they might have this and like, how can you see the good ones for the bad ones, you know?

47:35 I don’t know, I think it takes a few years to master. I suppose who you hang out with is a massive, massive thing for me. My friends will do anything for me at any time, and I’ll do anything for them at any time. Having a good bunch of people, and our manager is a massive part of this, is keeping people around us who are true, and who are real, and who are genuinely going to help us and be there for us and I think that has played a massive part in how we are with people and how to notice, oh you know he’s not there for me, he doesn’t care or she isn’t or whatever and that’s simply it is your upbringing and management and friends that you have now because my friends would tell me if someone was being a dick and again my wife, she’ll tell me now you know my wife’s a massive massive played a massive part in it identifying who was bad people who was yeah women they have so much they pick up so much more than we do and you know be like Danny that I don’t like him or he’s probably not good for you or yeah that’s hard you know I’m taking control of it and not being not hanging around with those people you know because they brought I didn’t need that in my life you know especially suffering from anxiety you know anxiety has been a bit of weird thing that I’ve had to do with and let’s talk about that let’s talk about anxiety I think you first noticed that it happened I think when you’re when your dad left the family when

49:02 You were how old I think was 19 I was in New Orleans and I was filming if I was in a film Wow okay this is Lindsay Lohan really yeah that’s crazy I didn’t get that footage okay was this so this McFly is already McFly yeah McFly’s already happened we we had a few number ones number one album we flew out to New Orleans, I’m terrible with dates, it’s all a bit of a blur really to be honest, but Fleur out to New Orleans, we were filming a film and we were living the dream, you know. And you’re 19. 19 years old, yeah. I remember getting a call from my sister and my dad had had an affair and all this shit was about, you know, it really was weird to do with and being away from it as well. When that happened? Yeah, I felt this almighty like, I’ve never felt anything like it. But what was even more scary about it I suppose at the time was, I thought there was something seriously wrong with me because you know thoughts are quite a lonely place. It’s a lonely thing and you start panicking and feeling these anxious feelings and you think you’re the only person in the world.

50:15 It’s not talked about that much and it’s also something that’s really, it’s hard to figure out when you’re in it because it feels so yucky and like I said, it doesn’t seem to be talked about enough and I don’t think people know what to do and you feel, it’s very, you feel very alone. It’s so lonely, so lonely because you know, I actually remember speaking to my bass player Doug about it. I have to think of weird out of body moments because I zoom and your ears start ringing and you’re like, ooh, and he’s like, and he just went to me, yeah man, I get that as well.

50:51 And as soon as he said that, I just totally relaxed. I was like, oh my God, I’m not the only person in the world that has this. I’m 19 years old and that would be triggered by other events or it would just happen sometimes. Well, at the time I didn’t know what was going on. Okay.

51:05 My dad had an affair and I left and so I, you know, was having these feelings, not knowing what to do. So I just dealing with it, I suppose, being my, you know, it was there and it was in my brain and so I went home and we dealt with the situation best we could. Was it anger at him or was it the fact that you had to step up and take care of the family or can you place what the emotions were or could you not? Is that why? It was annoying.

51:31 I mean, I knew something was wrong because my mum and dad was constantly arguing and as a kid I’d always be the one that was trying to just piece you know I just want peace you know that’s right that can weigh on you as a child but yeah like I wish I wish I knew what I knew now and just said dad please talk to mum just communicate better you know I just communicate better right you can work this out but it went it spiraled it just went so far that he had to do what he did or whatever and you know and I took my mum’s side you know because the the way I saw her, you know, curling up in agony. I just had to take my one side and I just, you know, I said to my dad, you know, can you just please not be with this woman or sort your relationship out with me and my sister and before you do this, you know?

52:18 And he said, no, and I just, I’m not sportsroom since really. So you don’t look at that any differently now being 10 years older. I do, you know, I text him and I, you know, I love my dad. I mean, he was, we love football. We went, we had a season ticket for Bolton, you know, we did a lot of things with girls, you know, we went out and we drank him down the pub and had a great relationship with my dad, you know, he was, we really got on.

52:39 But just how I, how I saw what he did to my mum, I just had to, I just took her side and I was just like, that’s, I don’t want to be that, I don’t want to be that guy. Was it also what he did to you or did your sister too, or was it? Yeah, you know, what he did, you know, I just did the financial situation, you know, I was lucky, I was in my position that I took over my mum’s house. Paying the mortgage and pay for my sister’s school fees and stuff and helped out. I suppose I was now the man of the family.

53:11 Right, which is more pressure on you. Yeah, and then I couldn’t ring up home and tell them my problems because they were ringing me up and telling me their problems. And then suddenly I’m doing well and being successful and I know I’m famous and I’m the one that’s changing and no, I’m not, I’m trying to do this and be successful but I’m trying to be there for you at the same time. So it was a tough, tough time. And how did you kind of overcome that?

53:41 I mean, can you overcome anxiety? Is that even the right word, anxiety? Because it seems like such a general catch-all. Yeah, I know, I know, it’s weird. Whatever I was, I just felt so like I needed help.

53:52 But had an out-of-body experience, I mean, I’ve never heard it described. I’ve had three different types, I’ve had three different types. One is where I’m in a situation I don’t like, so I have this complete like dizzy, almost like it’s not a pass out, it’s not like I’m going to pass out, it’s more of a, I’m looking at myself. Okay. And it isn’t usually a foreign social situation that doesn’t feel right.

54:16 Either in interviews, live TV, like this, like this, yeah, yeah, but I’m cool now, I’m I’m enjoying this, but it was live TV, so it’d be like, okay, we’re going live in three, two, and I’m like, I remember looking at Tom, dude, dude, I’m freaking out, I couldn’t push it away. I couldn’t get rid of it, but there’s a few books that helped and then, oh, and then I had… That was one kind. Yeah, that was one kind. That was a mental, I suppose, freaking out.

54:48 Then there was the elastic band around the chest at nighttime. So you’re asleep and you’re just struggling for breath. And I learned later that it’s how your body deals with emotion. I wasn’t talking about my problems. Okay, so it manifested in the physical way?

55:05 Yeah, and so it came out at nighttime, or it came out in my brain like that. And it would just start making your chest tight? Yeah, so at nighttime, my chest was tight. And I was breathing and I was trying to, and my heart was going. When you were thinking about problems, or it would just kinda come on?

55:21 I’m a massive, I was visualising how, I feel, I suppose I felt my mum’s pain a lot and I was almost sorry at myself I wasn’t there for her. All I wanted to do was be at home with my mum and look after her or sort the situation out or something. So I’m away or I’m in New Orleans or I’m at home and I’m in bed and I’m visualising what’s my mum doing right now and I’m feeling her pain or I’m almost making it worse. She’s probably okay. I’m thinking, my mum’s at home, I’m upset, she’s hurting and that’s when it came out and then my heart starts beating and then I start thinking about my heart and I’m up well and it’s a trail, a massive list goes down your brain.

56:02 You see this massive list of things that you’re worried about and it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until you have a panic attack. The third one is a massive weird feeling in your tummy, that ball of… Like a knot? Yeah, a ball of like, emotion that you can’t, like the world hates you, like you’re not in control of things, you know? And when would that one come?

56:28 That one would come a bit later on, a bit later on. So suppose it came, the chest one, that was one recently that hit me when my granddad died. So your grandfather died two years ago? Yeah, 2013, February 2013. Okay, right, is that tattoo on your hand?

56:47 Yeah. Okay. Can you show it to him? Yeah, yeah. I got this done Friday the 13th, but also this was his ship HMS Kato in 2013.

56:57 Also that was just a crazy year for me in terms of it started off so shit and ended up amazing. Okay. It started off shit because your grandfather died. Yeah. My mum split up with her boyfriend at the time.

57:07 Okay. More stress. Another thing and then triggered another anxiety attack for me and just dealing with it, being the man of the family again. And then when I lost my granddad, he was the last male figure I have had in my life. And you know, you need a guy to talk to that, you know, about me.

57:21 So important. So important. So he was the last male figure and it made me freak out again. And you saw this… Ten years later.

57:29 Ten years later. I was cool. When I was 19, I didn’t know what to do. I was drinking a lot, you know. Does that help or not really?

57:37 No, it made it worse. It made it worse. And it helped at the time, you know. But it just, it numbs it, but you still have to deal with it later, and it sometimes gets bigger later. Yeah.

57:49 Is that what alcohol does? Does it keep you from dealing with emotions in the present, and then you end up having to deal with them later, and it compounds it? Yeah. Also, I suppose the cannabis didn’t help. That didn’t help either?

57:59 Yeah. As a band, we discovered, you know, smoking cannabis, I suppose, and we did that for a year or two, and that was our thing, but it bonded us. Okay. All we wanted to do was go, and we didn’t want to go to the club and party. We went to go home and just chill.

58:16 Smoked and hang out. Yeah, but it triggered everything, you know, it sent me to a bad place. What the cannabis did too. I suppose the cannabis, yeah, of course, you know, triggered a lot of, you know, I stopped and the anxiety was still there. How did that affect you guys creatively?

58:37 I’m just curious, with the cannabis, if you look back. Oh, at the time it was amazing. Okay, it was? Yeah, I mean, listening to music was amazing. Okay, but I mean, did you produce better music? I don’t know. I mean those things We just had so much fun I mean, you know, I I’m not a drug guy now, you know, you know, we’re totally We’ve learned our lessons. I suppose, you know, right? It’s like a couple of boys have been to rehab and you know If they ever come on the show, I’m sure they’ll tell you about it. I’ve never been there I’ve never felt like I’ve ever been that bad, but I have seen you know a therapist a few times about anxiety I believe that, you know, things I’ve done in the past have probably not helped that.

59:17 And then trauma, you know, things, just not having settlement at home as well has probably triggered it a lot for me because I’m such a, you know, I love having, I don’t know, having an upset at home, I felt so, I feel other people’s pain a lot, you know, if somebody else has got problems, I’m like, oh man, you know, I feel it. Is that with your friends too? So like I feel it even more you feel it and it manifests. It’s in a physical way for you So when my way yes, I’m a grander died. I mean I was was it sudden I couldn’t help these no he had them he had He was one of these get you know one of these guys that didn’t really like going to the doctor and you know He was I’m alright. Don’t worry about me. You know I don’t need a zimmer for him, and we used to joke a lot He was the Funniest one of the funniest humans I’ve ever met he was amazing personality and he and he made light of every dark situation, you know, and Grandparents are just a wonderful blessing. Yeah, and he always always said to me Doesn’t matter This is two things he says and he said it to me and my sister like he goes As long as you’ve done your best doesn’t matter if you fail as long as you’ve tried you’ve gone out there and tried it You’ve done your best Because how do you know is how do you how do you know you’re gonna fail if you don’t try?

1:00:35 And now that that stayed with me a lot and the other thing is He says as long as you’ve made someone smile every day He says make someone smile and the day is worthwhile And I love that That’s pretty cool. It’s cool. That’s pretty cool And so so, you know if you’re feeling a bit shit and you don’t make everybody else for shit just go in and you know make someone smile. Right and get some energy going. Get some energy going yeah. And so that was a tough year it started off tough. Did you ever find any way to deal with the anxiety or anything that helped it improve? Well I read a few but when I was 19, 20 I didn’t really you know I was in a it was so lonely I had no one to talk to I didn’t have my wife I didn’t have you know anybody and I mean Dougie was the first person I talked to about it. One of our, a friend that I talked to as I used to get it on used to get in situations like a customs cue at the airport somewhere I couldn’t get out of okay, and I’d always look at like okay The toilets are there just in case I feel that feeling again, so you can go and be alone Okay, I don’t want anyone to see I was scared of people seeing it because that makes you more anxious Yeah, okay. All right, so I was in a customs queue and I know and then I again the list of thoughts Okay, what if I won what if I had it was it was it was being scared of having an anxiety attack, right?

1:01:53 That’s what it was so I’ll be in a queue and I blow okay What if I had one now the guys are gonna think I’m dodgy, you know, the custom guys are gonna call me back I’m gonna know I’m just having an anxiety. How do I explain it? You know what I say to the boys because they don’t know about it. I’m how I’m feeling and it was a real, you know Lonely place, right? What was that? Okay, my my comfort blanket was kind of toilets there I can just say do I need the toilet quickly and I’ve got to go cuz once it comes on it comes on so quick Really and what does it look like an anxiety attack? It’s very gray and like hot and cold sweat. And you sit down and you want to just… Yeah, you sit down and you try and breathe. I mean, later on, when the triggers came back with an upset in the family ten years later, with my mum’s fella leaving and granddad dying, I wouldn’t see a therapist about it. And I felt like, because I didn’t want to put my shit on. I don’t like putting my shit on people, like, you know, I like to talk to my friends about things, but I don’t like to give them, you know, my real shit, you know. I know that’s what they’re there for.

1:02:58 Yeah, it is. But I talked to a tall, neutral person. I was like, this is how it is, man. I’m feeling like this. I had three or four sessions with this guy. He emailed me a book that he was about to publish, and this book just explained the most amazing way to think about anxiety, help me, you know, next time anxiety is there just say, okay, come on, bring it on, bring it on, I’m ready for you, you know, and stuff like that.

1:03:22 Okay, so don’t run from it, kind of head on. And also like, you know, there’s a story about this, this girl was scared of flying around the world and she had a, she was in a relationship and her boyfriend went and she was anxious and the boyfriend went away and met another girl and she was thinking, why have I missed that on that? Just because of anxiety. You know, my fellas now within the, and you know, the story goes on, but that’s just one small example a very simple example and you know I’m so for trying new things yeah and that’s a good thing because a lot of anxious people are flying is a perfect example like I’m not but like I know people that are and it keeps them it traps them in their life and they don’t want to go there yeah that’s uncomfortable yeah I still have to face the fear of flying every day you know okay I did 17 internal flights in Brazil you know and I’m still shit scared of flying but I try and I could do with it now not to do with it okay and I try and I’m okay nothing’s wrong with you because the first thing you think when and you’ve had an anxiety attack, is you’ve got all these problems.

1:04:15 Right, like hypochondria. Yeah, I’m scared of the hospital, but everything’s all right. Working out was a massive thing for me. Being healthy, getting your mind into focus. The therapist, my wife, speaking to my wife.

1:04:29 And also, a massive thing that really helps, actually, was I don’t do it as often now, because I don’t really need to, but whenever you feel like, you know, I’ve just been laying in bed recently, last 2013 and your heart’s going and I was thinking okay understanding what it is so I know now that because I’m not talked about something I’m upset about or a problem you have my body’s just letting it out you know a bit of a fast heartbeat at bed you know when I’m in bed okay so to deal with it I never forget he said I think it’s that the monks they breathe like four to six times per minute so he says slow it way down real deep out for four to eight seconds if you can hold it for two seconds and then again and if you can do that it just slows everything down and be at one with your breathing and just have a moment of being there and now rather than because Dougie made a massive massive point to me he said anxiety is living in the future depression is living in the past and you’ve just got to live for now being the moment we’re in right now me and you having an interview just enjoy it don’t think about oh shit when’s this gonna end I’m gonna get home how am I gonna do this how am I gonna do that asking questions of how how how that’s the definition of anxiety yeah that’s all it is about all these things that aren’t gonna happen anyway yes right just don’t gonna do so what whatever happens when I walk out of this room doesn’t matter I’m here from now I’m breathing I’m fine it’s

1:06:03 It’s cool. You know, I’m living for now. And do you take it a step further when you get those anxiety attacks? Do you think, okay, I’ve got to go talk to someone and clear up the air, or I’ve got to do something because so it just doesn’t manifest itself emotionally in me? Do you ever go that further?

1:06:20 I do think like that, but all I do now is, I mean, the guy who I talked to was really good, but now, honestly, I tell all of my problems and all of my issues, no matter if it’s going to offend or upset, I tell it to my wife. Okay. puts me straight, not puts me straight, but she’s, I know she’s, it calms me, do you know? It just makes me okay, yeah, everything’s all right. And you can communicate with a woman in a different way than you could with like a best mate, right?

1:06:50 You can kinda be a little more vulnerable, I think, too. Yeah, the thing is, when we first met, and past relationships that I’ve, I suppose I’ve learned from, and you know, Mum and Dad have been a massive lesson for me, is I just said to her, look, I’d love to be with you, but let’s just talk about everything. No matter if it’s gonna offend me, offend you. When you’re a dick, I’ll tell you when you’re a dick. You’re wrong with dick, tell me.

1:07:12 And we go by that. We try and just say, look, I didn’t like that what you did. And when you know you’re completely together at the same point of emotional and everything, you’re at the same point. You don’t go out to dinner and think, oh, she’s upset at me, I’m gonna leave that till later and so on. We try and just deal with it.

1:07:31 Do you over-communicate? Are you constantly like talking? No, we definitely don’t have a communique. I’ve only texted once today. No, it’s just cool.

1:07:38 You got to talk to me about marriage. I saw some, it was a pretty funny clip where you guys were talking about each other and you said you thought she was just a typical model who thought she was the bomb. She said, you’re just another pop star who looked at himself too much. You guys have a real fun relationship. You described her as being Northern, which people in the States don’t even know what that means, but why did you get married?

1:07:57 How did this happen? And could this have happened five years ago? Or were you not ready as a person? Yeah, it’s just like marriage for me, was never really big on it because of your parents because because I’ve seen bad stuff happen yeah yeah I don’t know I mean when my granddad died and the way she was with me and the way I felt at the time and how short life is I suppose or how long life is whatever you however you want to think about it because I knew that I wanted to be with this person and I wanted it to be a part of my family. And that’s all it was for me. It’s as simple as that. I just knew that I wanted to be with her. I wanted her to be a part of my family. And what annoys me the most is people around me always go, oh, you’re settling down now. Yeah, you’re settling down. You’re married. You’re this, you’re that. And me and George look at each of them. We just go, we’re not settling down. We’re just married because we want to be with each other.

1:08:55 We want to show our love. And that’s all it is. I love you. You love me. I want you to be a Jones, be a part of me, you’re my partner now in life and I’m so, I wouldn’t want anybody else. And it made us both happy, you know, and it was the most amazing day I’ve ever had in my life.

1:09:11 It was your wedding? Yeah. What are you saying? Well, yeah, well, I tried to sing, yeah. I mean, Tom, he did a speech that went completely global, massively on YouTube. I wrote a song for Georgia, but I did a speech as well.

1:09:29 Best man speech. I had it framed for all of my, I had six best men, which was the band and two of my mates, three of my mates that I grew up with. And it was a good day. It was unbelievable. I’ve never felt emotions like it. You know, I was very, like, to feel, I’m an emotional guy, like, especially when I’ve never dealt with, like, I’ve never dealt with grieving before and losing somebody and to have such a great bunch of friends and to feel so, and such an amazing wife and sister and family that I have.

1:10:08 And to feel that, you know, almost, you’re lucky to have that. You know, you can get so caught up in being a pop star and forgetting about that, you know? And they’ve totally kept me grounded, you know? My mate’s the best man, you know, best man I’ve ever dreamed of having and I’m so lucky to have them. Will she come with you on tour?

1:10:30 How does that work? Yeah, she likes to stay out of the way. She doesn’t like to be one of those girlfriends that does my head in as well as everybody else’s. You know what I mean? There are a few of those hanging around.

1:10:44 We like our space. We do like our space. It keeps it fresh. I’m away for a few weeks and I go home and it keeps it fresh, it doesn’t, being honest. But she does come on tour.

1:10:55 She’s a busy girl herself, modeling, but she does like to come on tour and she loves watching me perform and she says every time, I can’t believe it’s you, that’s my husband up there singing and stuff. That’s a healthy sign. That’s a good sign. Yeah man, it’s great. It’s great.

1:11:10 We have massive respect for each other, it’s not one is higher than the other, it’s very equal. It’s very even. No one wears the shoes. We sort of both do. Good.

1:11:20 Okay. And in family coming at some point, no rush. No rush, again, like we’re married and stuff, we’ve got so many dreams, we want to do a business together. and that’s why I’m going to size things. Why are you watching London Real?

1:11:33 Yeah, you know, I’m watching London Real. London Real’s a massive, massive part of helping my anxiety, you know? Your anxiety. Yeah, you mentioned in something you sent me and you said London Real helped you because you saw that other people think the same way you do. Yeah.

1:11:51 What I mean by that is when the boys in the band introduced me to London Real, I don’t read books, to read more books through time and stuff. I learn the podcasts especially. When you’re just in my headphones and I’m listening, I learn so much more, I take it in so much more. And the people that have been on here, like Peter Sage, like Brad Burton, people like that, I thought that way for a long time and I tried to explain it to my family, my sister, my people around me and nobody really understood it and I couldn’t I couldn’t explain why I felt like that or I couldn’t you know explain I just couldn’t explain it but I knew deep down that you know like like exactly what PSA says about the river so I don’t know like my sister she should not get something or something bad would happen and I get totally disheartened I get I I get, it drags it out on me.

1:12:54 As soon as somebody’s negative, I’m like, oh, you know, it really gets to me. So I’ve got to be, I’ve got to stay positive. And when Peter Sage said, you know, life’s not a straight river, you know, look at nature. He says, you go around the bend, you know, if you don’t get a deal or you don’t get this, you don’t get something you want. He said, don’t forget, it’s going to turn a corner.

1:13:16 There’s always something around the corner and it’s going to whiz you around until you get what you want. That sort of thing, that thinking of something is around the corner. Not being like, oh, don’t worry about it, something’s around the corner, I’ll be fine. It’s not that mentality, it’s like, okay, don’t worry about it, don’t be so negative, keeping it positive. Do you know what I’m trying to say?

1:13:37 It’s that sort of mentality and the people that have been on here especially thinking that way, and I thought I was the only person that was thinking it, like I’d be out to dinner with with my wife and I’d be like and it took a while for us to both understand this and I’d be I’d just be in another world because I was trying to I’ve got these things that I want to do things there’s a tune on that I’m totally over analyzing right now how they got that snare sound and I’d be out to dinner and she’d be like are you okay and I’m like yeah I’m fine fine always don’t worry about it and it was learning how to control how I’m thinking and how distracted I am. You know, learning when to switch off as well. Because she was like, are you cheating? Do you love me anymore? Because you’re not with me. Like, we’re out to dinner right now. You’re not here. You’re not here with me.

1:14:23 Right. You know, and so what I’m trying to say is basically like, I think people that have been on this show have just made it okay for me to carry on thinking that way. Just to know that it’s okay that you’re doing something that might seem abnormal and just just to know that like visualizing so I’ve always been a massive part like a massive fan I suppose of visualizing where I want to be like I visualize myself you know the house I want to get or the friends I want to have or visualize the Hyde Park moment I visualize that already I’ve already I’ve already thought in my head I want to do that, I want to be there, I want to get there, no matter if shit goes down or good things happen and I’m not there yet, I know that that’s still there waiting for me. So no matter how that journey is to get to that point, and then when I get there, I want something else.

1:15:19 You know, because the day you don’t have any more goals, I think you lose your mind, you know, you lose your mind. You always got to, and for me, now I’ll go on something like producing I want to produce I’ve just done a not a lot of people know produce for one direction I did wrote a song you know wrote a few songs for them and produce for them and you always you know I guess what I’m trying to say is just keep the positive mental attitude alive and be a badass motherfucker but don’t forget you suck sometimes okay that’s good I know and it sounds like especially you’re a visual guy, like I visualise, but you take a lot of information in audio. Audio wise, yeah. I guess it’s what you do, which is music, but it sounds like…

1:16:06 Because people are like, you don’t read? Have you read this book? I’m like, no, I haven’t. I don’t watch this, I don’t watch that. People sometimes say, have you been living under a rock?

1:16:16 No, because when I go home, I go in my studio or I play my piano or I play my guitar. Not necessarily to write a song and think, oh, where’s this going to go? It’s because I love doing that’s me I love to do that you know I’ll go out I’ll see friends and we’ll talk about what we should do together or go to the gym work out you know I don’t sit I don’t just go home and sit down and watch TV or watch this or do that you know I’m always trying to do something and be a better be a better me right and it sounds like those audio like kind of like positive messages or something that sounds like they get into your brain in like the form that we present them and somehow you connect with these people stories probably you couldn’t if you watched them yeah I was saying before we started if I watched it I’d probably get distracted right by what you’re wearing or the mic that you’re using right oh that’s a mic that Michael Jackson used on his thriller album which is apparently the mics yeah apparently this is it yeah apparently Michael Jackson used the sm7 or 6 whatever on the thriller yeah let me ask you a question so we can I want to clear the air on all the details here your Twitter says as you are one quarter of McFly and one sixth of McBusted.

1:17:24 Can you, as concisely as possible, because I read a whole article about it, can you give us the breakdown of McFly, Busted, and now McBusted? It’s a strange situation. It is. It’s very strange in the music industry. I think we’ve.

1:17:39 It’s a first, right? It’s a first, yeah. Okay. So McFly, back in the day there was two bands. Busted and McFly.

1:17:46 Busted, helped McFly. We toured with Busted on their first tour. McFly was your… McFly was… Yeah, well, Tom was the first, I was the second.

1:17:58 And then Harry and Dougie came along, and we lived in a house together. And the Intercontinental for a while. In the Intercontinental, then, when we got the whole band, we had a band house. Okay. Where?

1:18:08 In… Oh… Greater London? High Barnet. Oh, High Barnet?

1:18:13 Okay. Okay. And McFly had a number one, a number one album. So yeah, Busted helped us. They introduced us on, because there was TV shows around back then, like CDUK, Top of the Pops.

1:18:33 And that’s where we connected with the fans. As soon as they went, it was hard. It was hard. It went all onto iTunes. And we had to come up with ways of how do we sell music, we were all about hard copies at HMV, you know, you go hard copy, we sign it for you and we create noise like that. So we took, we busted, we got our fan base from that, busted, split up, then we were the band, we took over, we had the number ones, we had the tours.

1:19:03 So at one point McFly and McBusted were just touring together, so at McFly and McBusted were just touring together, and then they broke up and you guys… We sort of took over, nicked their fans, I suppose. We created our own fans as well and we went on various tours, arena tours, we had highs, we had lows, we had all sorts of things. But we were, I suppose, the only pop band that were a band, guitarist, writing our own music, trying to do what we love and sticking with it, not following trends, not trying to write a song to get on radio.

1:19:32 We were just doing what we loved, being a band, teenage angst, sort of stuff. And then, we had our 10 year anniversary, Kaz McFly, which is Royal Albert Hall. Right, yeah, I’ve heard about this. This is two years ago. No?

1:19:49 Yeah, somewhere like that. Somewhere like that. I’m shit with days. Royal Albert Hall, okay. Great venue.

1:19:54 And actually, just going back a little bit further, we had a tour and James came to write. James is from Busted. James just brought his guitar, we came to write some songs with McFly like we did back in the day and he was hanging around on tour and we were like mate we’ve got like the support acts have finished do you want to why don’t you go up and do a few songs like go up and play this song you just written or whatever. He said okay cool yeah so he went on stage at an arena and I can’t remember what arena it was and he played a song that he just wrote called Beautiful Girls and then two hits which was like Air Hostesso and the year 3000 and it was um, he calls it his Susan Boyle moment Thanks, man Talent he’s like everybody was just like was amazing and it brought you know ten years of not hearing this song and just this dude Who walked in he looking scruffy as anything and he’s like dad’s shirt just with the guitar playing year 3000 It was a magical moment, you know, and there’s something there’s something in the air that night wasn’t everyone I mean it was something it wasn’t just him. It was the group and it was just him acoustic on his own Okay, just play just went out there cuz he was he went on to be a songwriter He did musicals, you know rock musicals lived in LA lived in New York, you know All these places, you know only he was just living his life and he was just a songwriter and we were mates with him

1:21:11 He came over to write with us. He went out before we went on stage Played these songs and everyone’s all the fans were almost like oh, well, we want to hear this again So our manager and I promote was there and we thought for our 10-year anniversary We’d get the busted boys to come and perform with us Okay, now one of the busted guys who split up busted Charlie didn’t want to do it. He’s not interested He’s doing his own thing. He’s very successful in his own right, you know, his own music what he wants to do It’s great. You know, I follow what you want. You follow what you love I suppose so it was Matt and James and We did this little section in the show That was I suppose the McBusted the start of McBusted and the lighting guy at the back back, we went into sound check and the lighting guy put across McBusted and it just fit.

1:22:02 He just wrote it. Yeah, just an LED. An LED, okay. Oh, that’s cool. I wonder if the fans will call us that, you know, let’s have this moment and, you know.

1:22:11 So 10 year anniversary, we’re playing our shows, we’re playing our songs, the lights go down, song starts. The Busted Boys run on. Mac Busted is a little up at the back. Everybody’s going crazy in Albert Hall. And from that day, our promoter was in the audience. All the fans started calling us Mac Busted just because we didn’t think of the name, we didn’t think of what it was. As far as we were concerned, we were McFly doing our 10 year anniversary with a couple of mates joining us on stage, not knowing that it says Mac Busted behind Okay, in LED, that the guy just dialed in.

1:22:50 So all the fans started calling us McBusted. Oh, that McBusted moment was amazing. So I promoted Toby, Mike Nation was up there and he’s like, guys, I think you should do a tour. That night offered us an 11 day arena tour as McBusted, as a brand new band called McBusted. For some reason I was the last to find out about this, because my manager was like, It was like maybe Danny doesn’t want to do it. You know, it’s a good point, you know I mean, you know you live 10 years or you have McFly. Yeah. Yeah, how do you walk away for something?

1:23:22 It’s part of you. I mean, of course that’s gotta be tricky. Yeah, I mean Not walk away post. Yeah, I don’t know what is guy plus pause it But it’s a one-sided suppose cuz we had a we which went out to Texas. We called it an album We were ready to go with a new album, you know, okay But I’ll never forget, you know when my managers sat me down on the tour bus was like Danny everybody you know I wanted to I want to know what you think about this how do you feel about going on tour with the busted boys doing a tour as much you know as McBusted and I was just like that sounds so much fun you know and I was trying to chase the fun you know right anything that sounds fun to me I’ll go and do it out of comfort zone this was a bit yeah out of a comfort zone again yeah just trying again new things new things you know we could go back to the McFly and do the whole cycle of record an album promote it, go on tour, have two weeks, have a Christmas, come back, record an album.

1:24:16 Was it getting repetitive? Go on tour. McFly? No, it wasn’t because I think every time we record an album, we criticise it and we want to do better. We want to do another work and we get really itchy to get on with the new album, get on with something else and creative people are always trying to get onto the next thing I suppose.

1:24:35 Right. Okay. So that wasn’t getting stale but this was like wow. No. We were pumped about our new album.

1:24:40 We were just about to release it. Right. go to where you listen to the audience and they said yes yeah okay and you guys sold these dates out and it was just yeah the McBusted tour morning of selling tickets as well as it was was crazy we were staying in a hotel and the 11 dates went on sale at 9 a.m. and we had updates from my manager and he He just said, yeah, it sold out in like an hour or so. We’ve already added another O2, and we were just like, what?

1:25:16 This is crazy, this is fucking crazy, you know? What’s going on? That wouldn’t happen with McFly. No, because McFly was an arena band, yeah, but we didn’t create noise. I mean, McBusted captured everybody’s imagination.

1:25:37 You know obviously busted songs coming back McFly joining them and all of the songs put together as one band right was almost it was a super group it was a machine it was a super group it was a it was a thing that we’d created it was a monster that we created and everybody wanted to come and see it at first it was it was a first nobody’s ever done that before. Could you even create that from scratch or would that never work with those different talents and different ideas and six guys I mean I don’t know man I mean we’ve got ten years of well we McFly had hits and Bussy Dad hits you’re putting them together and you’re going on tour is there any precedent of this is there any what sorry you know precedent of bands combining like that I mean like I’m trying to think of something like from the 60s or 70s in America you know George Clinton with 20 people on stage I don’t know like you had the traveling Wilburys I suppose where they were like sort of old people but not two bands they were more solo artists not a Merger, no, not a merger of okay, and we were under the same management back in the day as well. Okay, we were friends, okay that we We wrote together it was just in the public were two different bands Sounds like as a lot of ego control to make that happen because if there wasn’t If people weren’t communicating and being honest and thinking wow, this is a great new thing Everyone would want to protect you got you there and protect their brand name. Yeah, so

1:26:55 But again, that’s where our managers great. He’ll tell us how it is and look, you can carry on with McFly, release the album and stuff, but I think this is an amazing way to capture people’s imaginations. And again, the boys are great. You have to leave your egos aside. James was just fulfilling his career as a massive songwriter. Me and Tom was just about starting producing and writing for other people. Matt was acting in EastEnders and Matt in films and doing his acting career, and we all just bonded over this ball of fun that we were about to create and when the tour sold out it just confirmed what we were believing and our excitement and how we visualized it to be.

1:27:39 Because I was a fan of Busted, I was like, I’d love to play their songs and they were fans of us and they loved to play our songs and it was a very weird, perfect situation. Has it been since then? Does it continue to go up? Is it the same kind of energy? Anytime we have a little downer we’re all like, okay guys, it’s time to end.

1:27:57 But no, it’s amazing. I mean, we’ve just put another tour on sale and it’s going amazingly well again. I mean, you’ll never capture what happened

1:28:07 In 2013, 14. Okay, last year. And that was huge. Yeah, when we saw just under 400,000 tickets headlining High Park was a dream of mine since I was a kid, so. And you guys have a lot of big dates coming up March and April.

1:28:20 I mean, you guys are playing everywhere, right? Yeah, we’re doing a couple of old twos again. Okay, do you like the old two? I love the O2, we’ve never played it before, it was the first time we played it last year, we normally do Wembley. Okay.

1:28:30 Wembley Arena. And the O2 is really steep, right? Is it, is it? Yeah, it’s huge. Okay.

1:28:36 It’s absolutely massive, yeah. And a lot of energy and people are kind of like on top of each other, colosseums. Yeah, and we have this thing called, so we have a stage and we have this thing, like a walkway that goes out in sort of a D shape. Okay. Or like a horseshoe shape.

1:28:50 Okay. And in the middle is our OMFG zone. Oh, okay. where fans are just stuck there and they’re just like in the middle, they can run around where they want. And we just keep going around.

1:29:01 We have mics, you know, out of the, on the walkway where we perform songs and things. And then at the back, we have a lift. This is the last tour set. We had a lift where we played a VT. We went up in the lift.

1:29:13 This is at the O2 Arena and I was scared for my life. Went up in a little painter and decorators lift all the way to the top of the O2, not strapped in. Got off onto a walkway, Perspex Walkway, walked all the way across to our UFO. This sounds ridiculous. Got onto our UFO and came down at the back of the old tour and landed and performed a few songs as well.

1:29:37 Sounds like a crazy trip, doesn’t it? Yeah, whose idea was this? It was all of us. We have many, many meetings about all of this. And you love doing that.

1:29:45 With crazy ideas. I love the boys. The boys have the most amazing imaginations. All right, so this is gonna continue. Mcbuss is gonna continue.

1:29:52 Yeah, continue until we get, you know, okay lads, let’s stop this now, yeah. The day it stops being fun, we’ll stop it. Okay, all right. Talk to me about producing, cause I don’t think people know that you do that much producing that you spend all this time in the studio at your home and you start with a blank slate. When you were telling me earlier about starting with a blank slate, it reminded me of those comedians that force themselves to do brand new sets every year.

1:30:14 Yeah, and that’s Louis CK is one of them. And for a comedian, it’s like the hardest thing to do because your bits are like your security. And so to throw it all away and start with a blank page. And also, you reminded me of Jack White when you were talking about that. And from the White Stripes, there was a documentary he was in with other guitar players.

1:30:31 I forgot who else was there. It was like a Led Zeppelin guitar player and him. And he’s like, what I do is, when I’m making music, he’s like, I’ll place the piano half a step further away. So when I’m on my drums and then I got to go to that, I got to reach an extra step further and see how that changes my music. So when you were talking about creating, I was thinking about him and then you said people most people don’t know what a hook is and I want you to explain that but Talk to me about why you always want to produce and what that’s like

1:30:58 Productions always been a Massive love of mine. I suppose because well, I went I studied it in in college But I suppose I had a fast track being in a band because I I got to sit next to You know amazing producers You know like Hugh Padgett who produced police Genesis his engineer, Jay Reynolds, Jason Perry, who was in a band called A, who produced amazing stuff, produced our last album. You know, I’ve sat there and I just asked questions and I watched what they do on the screen, I watched how they engineered, I watched how they put microphones into kick drums, I watched how they EQ’d guitars, I watched what they did on the desks and tried to absorb it all, you know?

1:31:47 Instead of, because in college, you get a, well I thought, when I was in my class, I was like, I was thinking, not that I already know this, I was just thinking, this is such a long way around what I wanted to do. You know, and I suppose it’s teaching you the proper way. But I just wanted a fast track. I wanted to get in there. I wanted to get hands in, you know, and I was looking to get all of that education from real people.

1:32:09 When you were doing, this is when you’re laying out your albums in London. Yeah, just laying out our albums, yeah. And this is in the studio, you’re watching these guys. and everyone else is doing their thing and you’re the sound nerd, the sound geek watching all the little details. I loved it.

1:32:23 I loved asking about equipment. What does that do? What does that do? What’s compressors? How do they work?

1:32:28 And limiters? How do they work? And, you know, cause these guys are recording me, recording my band. So I want to know about it. Cause I love production.

1:32:37 I just need to know about it more. I keep thinking of Dr. Dre when you’re saying this and he’s known as being one of the best producers in hip hop. They asked him, like, how are you so good? And he said something like he listens to the artist, or he tries to listen to what they’re about, and then he tries to take that and then make them the best them, something like that.

1:32:57 But what makes a good producer? I think being, I don’t know what makes a good producer, but my point of view, I think being in a band and then producing helps, because you know how they feel in the studio. because the studio can be a really intimidating place. You go into it, you’ve got all these things that you don’t know what’s happening. Then suddenly you’re in front of a microphone and this is your album.

1:33:21 This stays for you for the rest of your life. You’ve got to sing, you’ve got to perform right now. So it’s. And then they tell you, create. Yeah, okay, can you sing that for me?

1:33:30 Okay, oh, you know, and you’re singing or you’ve got to do, and there’s massive pressure because then you get it wrong and then you think, oh, I’ve got it wrong. You’ve got to do it again. You’ve got to do it, how many takes does this guy want? How many takes will he let me do? Sounds like an anxiety psych.

1:33:42 I have an anxiety, I have a list of, you know, again. But, you know, luckily we were pretty decent guitarists. Me and Tom, we’ve been playing since we were young and we got on with, we loved the studio. I like studio was our place of, you know what, there’s nothing better than being in the studio. There’s always a magical moment in the studio because, again, you start from a blank page.

1:34:04 You set up a BPM. You start creating this music and this whole wall of noise that’s three-dimensional and stereo and huge and then all of you have this moment where you look at each other going this is amazing nobody’s heard it nobody’s had an opinion on it nobody’s put a negative on it and you have this like moment where you’re like oh we’re the best man in the world this is the best thing ever that moments always amazing that moment of creation when you know you have something that’s gonna be big well you think you think you do yeah I mean I mean, you’ve got to put your trust, who knows what a hit is. How often are you writing?

1:34:41 Well, I’m writing all the time. Okay. I mean, how often are you correct when you think you all have something in a studio and you’re like, this is going to be big? Well, you can only write from your influences and write from your strengths. So when you’re in a session, you know, if something gets your heart beat, I always go by, there was an electronic dance group called Swedish House Mafia.

1:35:07 Yeah, sure. And they said, goosebumps never lie. And as soon as you get goosebumps, that for me works. That’s right. And that usually carries over.

1:35:17 Yeah, in any music though, classical, dance. I can get goosebumps in dance music, hip-hop, whatever, whatever, rock. And as soon as you get that moment of like, wow, that was an amazing moment. I think that’s when you’re right, or you know you’re right. Because it works for you.

1:35:35 Music, you know, our music doesn’t work for everybody, but our fans, they love it, they’re jumping up and down to it, they have loads of energy, they get their goosebumps, moments, and I think that’s when you’re right, you know? What makes a hit? Nobody knows. What does make a hit? I think a hit is, you can’t tell what a hit is, I think, I don’t know, I think, I don’t know.

1:36:03 I don’t know what a hit is. Well, we go in the studio, we try our best to, Hooks is, again, they’re so hard to describe. Max Martin is one of the best songwriters in the world who gets Hooks completely right. For people that don’t know, what is the classical definition of a hook and then what is your definition of a hook? The classical definition of a hook I would say is that it’s something that you can’t get out of your head.

1:36:32 It plays on, you know, goals and I can’t get that song out of my head. I can’t get, that’s a hook. And some of it stays with you. If you listen to something once or twice, you always remember that little bit of it. Okay.

1:36:41 And a hook can be different to anybody, you know, which can be words. It can be, it can be a guitar riff, you know, it can be words. It can be a shout. It can be, you know, beastie boy shout, you know, it can be anything. Um, and, and I think that I agree with that, you know, it can be anything.

1:36:58 And most people don’t understand what a hook is. They think it’s something else. I think people put too much pressure on what a hook is. Oh, what is a hook, man? Like, we need to get a hook out of this song, you know?

1:37:09 A hate could be a hook, or it’s what people are going to remember, that’s what I think. Okay, and that’s important to you when you go into produce, you’re thinking, I want to make a hook, or not always. For me, a hook is a feeling as well. A feeling that you get when listening to that song, like, oh my God, And the hook can be how much you invest in that song, so I’m like totally zoned in. I’m hooked on it.

1:37:38 Right. The hook is you’re hooked on the song, that’s what I think. And I mean, you know, anyone who produces something, you always judge how much it’s consumed or how it’s consumed. Even I do that. I mean, how many, you know, views does Peter Sage have or blah, blah, blah, you know, or how many copies did you sell of air guitar?

1:37:55 And so for you, is that the metric of success? No, I mean we… Is it a metric? It is. Oh, well it is, yeah.

1:38:03 And other people may look at it and go, oh, you know, they didn’t sell as many this year or that year or this or that. But for us, you know, how, I suppose, well, I personally measure my successes when I’m touring and I’m seeing people’s reaction to our music and I’m seeing the amazing compliments on Twitter. If you’re having a bad day, I go on my Twitter timeline and the fans, man… crazy because I was checking because you tweeted out a London Real thing and I went to check on the Twitter and all I was was we love you Danny can’t wait to see you again can we see good like nothing about London Real awesome I’m sure they’ll they need to get into this they need to get into this I love it our fans will love this but yeah I mean if you ever have a bad day just look at my Twitter timeline and how do you deal with bad press or bad reviews or people that hate your music how do you deal with that I never read reviews I hate it I just I get so it really affects me okay bad stuff about me bad stuff about the band bad stuff about something I’ve worked so hard at you know still and it still bothers you did it completely yeah I mean a person’s opinion can affect so many more people you know it crazy isn’t that crazy and were you always like that or was it worse in the past not always been like that okay I just choose not to I don’t read I don’t read any I try not to read you know at the bottom of a YouTube clip or at the bottom of, you know, a paper review. I read a good one. But I just

1:39:31 Try and, because I see a gig, how I see it, I don’t really like to watch it back either. I’ll only watch it back if something’s I need to brush up on. Like a concert gig? Yeah. Okay. A video? Will you watch your own video?

1:39:45 Sometimes I’m surprised. I’m like, whoa, we are good. But because I’ve had such a It’s a great time in my head and what I visualise the show and how I think I’m performing or how I think I’m looking. Looking good on stage for me is a massive thing, if I feel like the shirt’s not too, it can affect my gig. Okay.

1:40:02 Well, you’re the front man, so it’s got to all be perfect, right? Yeah, it’s all got to be perfect. The hair, the… Right. Well, that’s important.

1:40:09 But no, it doesn’t… Oh, it’s just flopped down. Do the thing. But yeah, I mean, I see it, I visualise, I’ve had my experience of it, I thought it was good. But we can come off, we can come off, we’ll go straight on the bus, and our manager, like we’re gonna make that great show, high-fiving, woo, that was awesome, yeah.

1:40:28 And our manager will come on and go, he’ll say, it was good, yeah, yeah, and he’ll go, it was all right. And then suddenly you’re like, aww, and then you think, okay, let’s listen why it wasn’t that great. And then the next gig we do, we try and correct that. And I have never ever missed a gig, I don’t think, in my life. Mr. Gig.

1:40:52 Mr. Gig, no. And I’ve never ever put less than 150… we try and put 150% in. Play it like it’s the last show you will ever play.

1:41:00 Don’t think about the next show tomorrow. You know, scream if you want to scream. Fuck up your voice if you want to fuck it up. You’ll deal with that tomorrow. I never forget, I was in… I had bronchitis, I was in bed just before I was playing the the Emmy and Arena it was called at the time, it’s now Manchester Arena. And I had two doctors look at me and they weren’t getting me right and I was so ill, I was coughing up all sorts of stuff, bronchitis is pretty bad. And these dots came in, they gave me a vitamin B12 shot and I was up and I was ready. And I did the show and I turned up like 20 minutes before, went straight on stage, had one of the best gigs of my life.

1:41:40 But afterwards, I’d never run so quickly to my bed. But that’s the thing, you’ve got to, but that was an experience for me. You’re like the hardest working man in showbiz, like James Brown, right? I don’t know, I don’t think we’re, no, I do like to sit down and watch a movie every now and again or something, but we do work hard, you know? And I think that if you work hard, you get what you deserve, I suppose, you know?

1:42:02 Yeah, I think that’s a theme. Now, what’s, I mean, next five years, you talk about business and kind of entrepreneur, that’s something you’re kind of fascinated and interested in. I know you say you don’t like to you’d like to live more in the present, especially when you’re on stage, but what’s out there for you? What are the goals on your mind? I’m sure you’re already visualizing. Yeah, I’m already visualizing. I mean, I’ve only, this is all brand new to me since listening to London Real and going to Tiles. You’ve given us way too much credit. Sorry, sorry guys. It’s funny because, you know, I do this show and I have these fantastic people on and I throw this stuff out there and but then for me, I’m like you, I gotta, I have to think about the next show and and think about the next show.

1:42:38 And that’s healthy for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don’t want to look in the rear view mirror as they say in America. But I don’t know that people like you are having these experiences listening to these people. And so it’s good for me to hear that.

1:42:50 Yeah, I mean, it’s fascinating. Where music and being in a band has just taken me. And I’m meeting people like you and just the people that you meet and the situations that you get in there, just crazy. But now I suppose that I just, I went to Tiles thing just thinking, okay, I need to learn a bit about business. I’d like, you know, I like to try something new.

1:43:20 You know, the boys will be laughing at me now because they’ll think, oh, he’s never gonna be an entrepreneur. But you guys are in a way. We are in a way, I suppose, yeah. You run your own huge, massively successful business. Yeah, and sometimes things I’m not doing too much.

1:43:31 Is that, am I already an entrepreneur? Do I just stick with what I’m doing? Or do I wanna go into different things, you know, start up a business, start up a, you know, anything really, a fitness clothing brand, whatever it is, I’d love to do that, I’d love to do anything like that. So I have big, I’m always talking to my friends going, mate, you wanna start something up, just start something up. Went to the gym the other night, I was like, dude, we should start like a comfy clothing brand, like just fitness that looks great, that you can walk, you know how footballers turn up in their gear, but just it looks cool, so you can wear it out, and as you know, all these different ideas, and whether they happen, I don’t know, like Tayl says, either IP or PI.

1:44:10 Impatiently patient, patiently impatiently impatiently. And the good one is IP. IP, yeah. I’ve never heard that concept before, but it’s kind of interesting, you know, the impatiently impatient, if you don’t know this, that’s the person that always has these things they’re gonna do in the future. And when they decide to do them, then they do them for like a day.

1:44:28 That’s the classic, you know, what the classic example he gave is, during the Christmas times, you’re gonna start losing weight January 1st. In the meantime, it’s a big party. And then when Jam 1 comes, you go to the gym for two or three days and then you’re like, I don’t have the goal, because you’re impatient about your goals. But again, that struck a massive chord with me because I was like, I’m always, why can’t I just start it now? You’re always impatient.

1:44:51 I’m like, get out and do it, get out and do it, impatient. As if this is such a thing as II. I’ll start some in a, okay, fuck. But yeah, I’m trying to be more IP. Okay, so going toward the business, I mean, it sounds like another curiosity for you and going out of the comfort zone, so.

1:45:05 Massively, yeah. I mean, I’d love to, you know, invest my money, you know, do whatever, just start, I don’t know. Whatever’s good for me, I’d love to do a property, I’d love to do stuff in music, but I mean, production-wise, I’d love to be working with other people and become a big producer. My DJing’s a massive thing for me. Right.

1:45:24 You know, that’s just a hobby, you know, which is big for me. Yeah, I’m just trying to, but again, trying not to do too much. I wanna become a master in everything that I do. Right, and you have to juggle family and everything too. Exactly.

1:45:39 And you’re already totally busy. See my busy man. I’m sure your wife is like, aw, Jesus. Another thing. Another thing.

1:45:44 That’s why I’ll try and involve her in some way. Right, talk to me about your fitness. I know you’re a UFC fan. Massive UFC fan. And so am I, you know, I’ve had a bunch of fighters here and it’s funny because a lot of my London Real audience, they don’t like the UFC, which is, I get it, that’s okay, but some of them are like, we don’t understand the whole piece.

1:45:59 Conor McGregor is fighting this weekend, it’s gonna be exciting. Yeah, Irish crazy guy. Yeah. Yeah, he’s got a huge profile and he’s like one of the most famous fighters now I can’t he’s amazing. He is amazing. I love watching him talk. Yeah, I like watching him fight and Yeah. Yeah, he’s got something that’s a hit. He’s got he’s a hit right now. He’s a hit Yeah, right now he’s a hit right now. He’s a hit It’s gonna be interesting to see you know, kind of what happens with that. Yeah, I mean, I’ll definitely be watching it the problem is is that Um, you know you’re working all day and these things are on it like three four in the morning for us So you’re watching it like that, you know, yeah, I can’t stay up and watch my life anymore So I mean sometimes I have friends over and we’ll do sometimes it’s boxing on first So we’ll watch the boxing We’ll have a few beers We’ll have a bit of food on and we’ll do a UFC night and we’ll all watch it and we’re shouting at the screen Cuz yeah, it’s great I’ve been having mates that are into it and you know in my job as well Luckily, I get tickets to these things or I can get easily, you know, hopefully get tickets these things and take a mate You know, ringside and stuff and one of my good pals at the minute is a boxer, Luke Campbell.

1:47:02 You should get him on the show, he’s an amazing guy. I’ll tell him about you guys and I’m sure he’ll want to do it. Again he’s another amazing, amazingly focused athlete who’s up and coming, you know, in the boxing world. I got to support, I walked him in once with a Team Campbell tee shot. Never felt so hard in my life.

1:47:23 But you didn’t do what Mayweather does, which walks in with Lil Wayne rapping while he walks in. No, man, I don’t think I could do that. No, you couldn’t play playing guitar. I said to him, I’ll produce you a song that you walk into. How about that?

1:47:35 Okay. Like a big dance song or something, I’ll do that. Okay, that can be good. But I like being a part of the team. I don’t like to be there just because of what I do.

1:47:41 I like to, or who I am, because I hate that stuff, I hate that, I don’t like, I like to be there because I’m supporting him, I’m his mate and I’m going to wear his t-shirt and I’m going to be a part of his team. Okay, as opposed to being there just because you’re just because yeah, and he totally gets that I said look I don’t want to if you want me to be up there with you and walk you in I will 100% do that and It really meant a lot to me sent me a text after saying it really meant a lot and that meant a lot to me You know, right, you know There’s some news recently about the light heavyweight champion John Jones and he just won like the most massive fight of his life And then he like test positive for like some cocaine metabolites or something and he’s like 27 And he’s obviously physically doing his job, but he’s had this meteoric rise where everyone is telling him, not only are you super famous and you’re getting all this money, but now you’re also physically the baddest man on the planet.

1:48:33 And so I was going to ask you, because you’re a similar age, and you’ve had a big rise in stardom. And when you see something like that happen, are you thinking, I mean, would you think to yourself, I understand what he’s going through. I said, with all the Klingons and all these bad people and he’s at a party, or do you think, Well, this is part of the cause is you gotta step up your professionalism at the same time. I mean, what do you see? Something like that happens.

1:48:55 No, I don’t really know. I mean, I think that, so what’s happened? He’s, he’s been, I’ve told him he’s done this. He was just, it was like, it was like an out of competition drug test and he tested positive for like cocaine metabolites, which means it was in his system, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t illegal because it wasn’t in competition.

1:49:11 Then he went in and won the fight. And then when the news came out, he checked into like rehab for a couple of days. And so, and so it’s like this, Well, there’s a whole lot of media storm going on, but it just makes you think, you know, he’s a fighter and I’m sure he has good intentions, but also when you have this meteoric rise and then also men treat you differently when you’re a fighter, right? I mean, Jesus, I can’t imagine. Yeah, yeah, that’s, I mean, you know, I’ve, you know, you go out, you party, you do the things and then suddenly, because you’re the man of the moment, everybody’s your best friend, even the bouncers.

1:49:45 You’ve been there. I’ve been there. You are there. What was, I don’t, I don’t, you know, I try, I suppose I’m there now, but I try and avoid it. I try and be like, okay, yeah, whatever, you know.

1:49:54 Again, learning about the situation, learning, okay, this is, he’s only doing that because of that. You know, you know, I’ve been handed, you know, drugs into my hand that I’ve just been, what the, I don’t do this, get rid of it. Suddenly everybody thinks you’re something that you’re not. Do you know what I mean? Without knowing you.

1:50:15 Which can probably cause even more damage. Yeah, hugely, yeah, yeah, huge. Because now, yeah, before that you might have felt fine and now you feel like a fraud or you feel like. These guys are not gonna be there when you’re on the floor sweating, puking up with anxiety. Right.

1:50:31 But they’ll be there when you’re the man of the moment, you know? Right. You are wise beyond your years. I’ve got a funny feeling that the whole my busting crew are like wise, like you guys are the wisdom of something 10 years older. I’m very lucky to be amongst such a wise group.

1:50:46 They’re even wiser than me. Right, I bet. I’m the dumb northern one in the group, you know? Last rock and roll question, when you look in the past and you see people like the Janis Joplins and the Jim Morrisons, and you know, is that rock and roll image of, or the Ozzy Osbourne, I don’t know, I could go on and on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

1:51:01 I’m gonna be a rock and roller, and I’m gonna just be totally messed up as well, and like, is that, is that gone, where we’re gonna see these people? Because every musician that’s successful that I’ve spoken to, they all have, they all work hard. They’re all usually completely sober. They’re all like, you know, like you. And so like what happened in the past?

1:51:20 Do you think that was an anomaly of the past with the music business or? I think, I mean, I reckon you’d be surprised how much of a front that was. I don’t know the ins and outs of it, but I know people that, you know, go on stage with JD bottle full of apple juice. You know, it’s just a front that this rock and roll has to live on and we do this, we do that, and we stay up all night, we do that, some people do. I’m not saying they don’t, and credit to them if they could out drink, we used to go out and try and be that and drink this and that and whatever, but there becomes a point where you can’t do it anymore, you’re like, I’ve got to sort my life out, and we realized that when a couple of my boys checked into rehab, we hit it too hard, we did too much, we can’t carry on like this.

1:52:03 And we’re learning so much more about nutrition and health, and there’s all this new music that is associated with being looking good and feeling good, and for me, I look at it, well, me and the boys, we look at ourselves as athletes. I don’t wanna go up there and feel like shit and perform like shit, I wanna go up there, putting 100%, 150% into it with maximum focus. And I think, you know, credit to them, But if they could do it high as a kite, it was more psychedelic.

1:52:39 The music was a bit more about it back then, but nowadays it’s more about, for us personally, it’s about being more focused and on it and delivering something that’s great. I mean, I wish I could get high and just sit back and listen to some music, but you don’t do that anymore. My mum was a bit of a hippie. She used to, she traveled to Morocco on her own, did all that and you know, she taught me a lot about it and yeah, I suppose you’d be surprised, there’s a lot of front to it, there’s a lot of like, it’s talked up I think.

1:53:15 But there is people that do do that as well. Right, it sounds like you’re such a perfectionist and all of you guys are, that if the product starts to suffer, then you’re gonna be like, what the hell are you doing? Yeah, that’s what it is with us. Yeah, as soon as it starts to suffer, like we’d hate it to, you know, and someone not turn up because they’ve had such a heavy night the night before If we do have a heavy night, we’re in there and we’re laughing about it, oh, I’m hanging, yeah, you are, this, that, you know, we’re trying, again, yeah, we are perfectionists and we’re quite military about our rehearsal time.

1:53:42 You know, I’ve been, I’ve been pretty military about my guitar playing, you know, I was, I didn’t watch TV, I didn’t watch, I’d practice and practice and practice. You know, I was a better guitar player back then than I was now, and then I am now, you know. That’s the theme of the show, hard work pays off. Totally. It’s also one of your cognitive biases, as Ty says, you’re working, you’re making a work for you.

1:54:00 So you’re using fear, one of the big biases, of not performing and the social anxiety or proof to make you work hard. 100%, yeah. So you’re making it work for you. 100%. As opposed to letting it.

1:54:11 You know, I used to carry my guitar around at school and got spat on for it, got bullied for it. You know, and there’s so many people that just give up just to make money. You know, if somebody’s really talented, they’ve got to carry on, they’ve got to believe in themselves, they’ve got to visualize themselves playing Wembley Arena. Don’t visualize yourself playing in the pub. Visualize yourself playing Wembley, Ultra Arena, and don’t be satisfied until you get there.

1:54:36 Stay on your mate’s couch. It’s about the journey, you know? And is that the advice you give to the young musicians that are watching? Because you said you want to kind of send a message out to people that want to be in the business. Is that it, to visualize and think big?

1:54:48 Think big. Well, for me personally, I just always have someone you look up to. My mind was Springsteen. I said I just want to do that. I want to do that. I visualized it and I stuck with it.

1:55:02 I was impatiently patient for 12 years now and you know I’ve only just conquered one of you know what I visualized as a kid was playing Hyde Park. 60,000 people and took me 12 years, 11 years to do that. The problem is with music is that there is part of it be in right place, right time. And there’s also part of it, half talent, half work. You can have the talent and you can just sit on a couch and not get anywhere. But talent isn’t enough these days. You’ve got to have the talent and you’ve got to work hard at it.

1:55:37 Get yourself out on YouTube, get your talent out. And if something’s good, it will make it. If you’re good at it, become a master at it. And don’t let anybody see it until you’re a master at it. Okay. So don’t release any garbage. Make sure you’re a master at it.

1:55:51 I’m a massive corporate of that. I will produce something and I get so excited. Like I’ll do a dance track and, you know, I did a dance track and I played it out. I did one on the Thursday and I played it out when I DJed in Cardiff. I played it out on the Friday, just for fun, you know, because you can do, but it wasn’t really finished.

1:56:09 I mean, everyone was loving it, but you know, I’m so pumped about playing a song to somebody that’s hardly finished, but don’t put it out. If you’re a new, upcoming, you know, Don’t put it out until it’s the best sounding lyrically, performance, and production. And then you get the wow factor. Because people don’t think of it like, oh, I can hear how it would sound. It’s got a sound and visually be what it’s gonna be.

1:56:37 That’s what I believe anyway. So put the work in. That’s the biggest part. Yeah, put the work in. Yeah, just put the work in because talent isn’t enough.

1:56:44 It’s hard because it’s funny when you see, you on tour, when you see the air guitar video stuff. I guess as part of the music business is you almost by definition make it look easy or make it look so much fun that no one sees all this hard work that you do. No, nobody sees behind the scenes. And also, just going back to the advice that I give somebody is belief in yourself and take the note of being a badass motherfucker when you do do it. But then when you come off, you have to… There’s so many people that get caught up in their little pigeonholes of, oh, I’m a musician. I’m not going to do that.

1:57:16 I’m not going to do that. Just try it. If nothing comes of it, nothing comes of it. Go out and try it, meet people, get involved, work with different people that you never think you’d work with. We worked with a guy called Tyile Cruises, massive R&B guy, that we didn’t, we’re pop punk rock.

1:57:32 We’d never thought we’d work with them, that it’d work well, and we had one of the biggest hits we’ve ever had, which was Shine a Light. It was just trying new things, and getting out there and doing it, and using your talent, and using your strengths, but believing in yourself, but not being big-headed. Right, so be a bad motherfucker on stage, and when you get off stage, be humble and open-minded. Yeah, and listen. And listen.

1:57:56 Wow, man, these are gems, man. Peter Sage is gonna be listening to this in Dubai, thinking, man, I like that Danny Jones. I like Peter Sage. That’s all good. I’m gonna hit you with the end of episode questions.

1:58:08 Oh, shit, are we there already? Yeah, well, you know, it doesn’t mean we have to wrap up, but I’ll hit you with them anyways. Danny, if you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Danny, I guess he would be in London, the High Barnet House? Yes. Okay. And give that young man a bit of advice. What would you tell him?

1:58:22 Don’t smoke that joint. I would say, I would say, Danny, listen, there’s this dude called Brian Rose that’s got a podcast called London Real. You need to get on it quick. You need to learn a bit about it, a bit about how people, you know, a bit of business, a bit of this, just get on it quick, because it’s really, you know, it’ll help you out. And that would have accelerated your career, right?

1:58:50 Well, at the time, I was in such a lonely, you know, not a lot of people know. I was in a lonely place with my thoughts. And honestly, mate, just, I can’t tell you how it made so much sense, like people on here and the way they think made so much sense about how I think. And I was thinking that back then, you know, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get it across, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say or tell them how I was thinking. I just went with it.

1:59:18 And I suppose it was, you know, by going with it, it brought me to here today. But I would say back then, I’d say, you know, just go with it. Keep going with it. I don’t think I’d have listened, though. Back then, you know, I was one of those guys that was, I was in a bubble.

1:59:35 I was living the dream a little bit, maybe. I tried to keep my feet on the ground, sorry. But it was hard to, when you’ve just had a number one and everybody’s loving you and everyone’s being nice to you. Your friends are the ones that tell you the truth and it hurts to hear the truth sometimes, it really hurts. Do you stay close with the friends you grew up with or do you have people up north that you stay close to?

1:59:56 Yeah, I try to. Or is there a lot of tension there when you start making it? Because like you said, everyone says, oh, you’re a rock star now, you’re rich and you might be like, well, I’m actually not that rich yet or actually I’m not cool all the time and I mean, that must be tension. There’s not, what’s amazing is that I don’t see the people, I don’t associate my people with it, give me attention. All my mates back at home, who I grew up with, I don’t see them that often, but I was at school with.

2:00:23 They say to me, oh, it’s good to see you, Danny. You’re doing so well, aren’t you? And that’s enough for me. I’m like, wow, I didn’t expect you to say that. I think it’s like, can I come down to London?

2:00:34 Can I come hang out with you? Who are you hanging out with? They never pester me. They never text me every now and again. I meet up with them, I take them out.

2:00:41 I do use it and abuse it. We’ll go to a club and we’ll have a good night, but only once or twice. Right, so they’re happy for you. Totally happy for me. And that means so much for me, like to me.

2:00:52 Yes, we have our own lives. They’re still in Boulton, working, or they’ve got out of it in Manchester, or wherever they are, and they might be struggling, but I’ll never, ever forget, at my wedding day, and my strongian day, he said to me, I said, Danny, you know, if any shit goes down, my door’s always open. I’m like, that’s amazing. That’s a pretty cool thing to say. It’s amazing, you know?

2:01:17 And to have friends like that, I must be lucky. Yeah, no, you are lucky. Second part of that question, best advice you’ve ever received? Oh, best advice I’ve ever received.

2:01:31 Roger Daltry said to me, what’s your money? Hmm. Wow. That’s it? Good. Did you watch your money?

2:01:41 That’s what he said, didn’t expand on that. No, he just said, watch your money. And I was, I was a, you know, it was, we were quite, you know, we had an amazing opportunity to do a charity thing where we sang My Generation with Roger Daltrey. And we get to, we got to hang out with him a little bit and, and he was a, he’s an amazing guy. He always tries to get us to play for his, his teenage cancer trust, but we always have a tour on.

2:02:08 So we’re busy touring all the time, but we’d love to do it. And, you know, when you get a, you know, a voicemail from Roger Daltrey asking you to do a gig for him, you know, he’s an idol of mine, the who, you know? I watched the who just before Jon Ensel died at the Manchester Arena, just going, wow, I want to do that, I want to do that one day. Constantly saying, I want to do that one day. So having that advice from Roger Daltrey, he just said, watch your money, just watch your money.

2:02:37 And did you take that on? No, I bought Aston Martin’s and facility and spent a lot of money on R.R.D. Oh, R.R.D., yeah. Rock, Rust and Depreciation. Yes, yes.

2:02:47 But I’m now, see that advice, I didn’t know how to go about it. And now, I’m trying to correct that. That’s part of my journey now, is to go and correct that, watch your money, you know? Good, and was he talking about also as a band, watch your money? I suppose so, yeah, just be in control of it.

2:03:08 Watch out for, you know, we put our trust in our manager, so we’re so close to him, we’ve been with him from day one that we trust that he, you know, will never rip us off and we’re very honest about percentage is splitting it. We have those discussions, we have to. We say, what you’re bringing to the table isn’t more than what I bring to it, why should it be more to you, whatever. We have those discussions and we trust that he isn’t doing this, doing that, and that’s enough for us, you know, and you know, the boys are not idiots, they’ll be the first to correct, you know, getting someone’s face if they were messing us about.

2:03:41 Yeah, a lot of musicians don’t want to talk about business. Yeah. The great musicians are good businessmen. You have to. Yeah, you do have to.

2:03:48 There is a balance that you have to have because you can get tied up in it too much that you lose total focus of what you’re doing or writing or producing or the gig you’re doing. You know, if you know you’re getting, imagine it, so if you were getting like, okay, you’re on stage and going, This gig, okay, we’re getting paid like 10 grand, okay. Commission that, split it six ways, and then I’ve got to pay tax on it. This is only worth like 400 quid, fuck it, I’m getting out of here.

2:04:15 You know, you can’t do that. Right, that’s dangerous. You can’t do that, but yeah, that’s dangerous because you’d be up there doing a, you’ve got to just be there for the moment and hopefully it goes onto other things, whatever. But the manager’s there to do all that. We just try and watch it, watch our money here.

2:04:30 Are there any bands you look at now that you’re like, I want to be that in 20 years, like Aerosmith comes to mind that are still touring, or the Rolling Stones, or anything like that. 100%, I mean, we’d love to do, we, in our eyes, McFly will never die, we wanna do the Zimmer frame tour. What’s that? The Zimmer frame tour, you know, when you go on, we’re so old that we have to come on. Like a walker.

2:04:53 Hi guys, you know, we’d love to do that. And we aspire to be that, you know, this is what we wanna do for the rest of our lives, because we love it so much, you know, Every day we get up, there’s something exciting happening, there’s something great that we wanna do, we’re promoting what we’ve produced, you know? We love it, we absolutely love it. And we have goals and we have complete hunger every day to try things new and be a better band, a bigger band, you know, not just in England, but we’re trying to go global now.

2:05:28 Yeah, talk to me about America. What’s the deal with America? Yeah, America, we went out there with McFly, We played the Gramercy, a couple of nights in the Gramercy, played a couple of nights at the Roxy, which is amazing. But we’ve never really gone over there and spent enough time to conquer America. Because you do have to spend the months over there.

2:05:51 You have to put in the work, yeah. And the UK and Ireland was so precious to us, we couldn’t leave it alone. Because if we left it alone, we’d have lost it. And we didn’t want to lose that. That was our gem, that was our true hardcore fan base.

2:06:07 On Facebook you see where your fans are, there’s a lot in America, there’s a lot in Canada, there’s a lot in Brazil, but South America is huge for us. Why is that, do you think? I have not a clue. It is unbelievable. I think you guys have really good, positive, and big energy, maybe the Brazilians really have that, because they have big energy.

2:06:26 We had an album called Radio Active and they went crazy for it, and it was almost It’s like, because we sort of rebelled against record labels, we were like, okay, our first album was like, we’ll do anything you want. The second album was like, fuck you, we’re not going to do what you want. You’ll see it on our album covers, we’re like dressing differently, we’re a bit more miserable, we want to do the things we want to do. They used to say that you learn all this thing, you know, you learn things that you wish you didn’t do what you did do.

2:06:48 And then our third album, we started our own record label called Super Records. And then, because we weren’t an international priority on the record label, we wanted to be. So we made super records, we made radioactive and it got us out to Brazil and we were huge in Brazil and Argentina and Chile. So it was amazing, it was amazing to do that. It gives us massive freedom because we had the money in the bank from all of our other albums and tours and things that we did to start our own label and just do it on our own. The internet was huge because when we first started there was no Twitter, no iTunes. We went through a funny stage where we were selling physical copies and then our fans were like 16, 17, suddenly you had to buy online, but they didn’t have credit cards. So we were like, how do they buy our music? So then we started doing text, phone, like a, you know, you text a number on your phone bill, trying to think about ways how we can sell our music. Because our core fan base was, you know, 14 to 18, didn’t it? That’s their mum to buy a thing off iTunes. We’ve gone past that stage now, but we’re always trying to think of the next thing, the next thing, the next thing to sell our music.

2:07:59 Because you guys went from physical copies through the iTunes and now to digital now. Yeah, we’re still like not massively digital selling band. We still sell a lot of physical copies because they like to be a part of it. We sign it for them. You know, have you seen that?

2:08:13 We sell tour tickets, tour tickets for example. That’s how we justify our success, tour tickets. Have you seen, do you know the band 30 Seconds to Mars? Jared Lado, he made a documentary called Artifact, which was documenting their fight with their label, I don’t know if it’s Sony Records or what, over like a course of three years, and how they were selling these hit records and then giving bills at the end of the year for millions of dollars. And so it’s a fascinating documentary, it’s a little bit like, you know, it’s very Jared Leto and there’s a lot of him in there, but you know, it’s interesting to see the struggle between labels and musicians and how now they just tour because they get the money from touring, and the label just, you know, whatever, makes their music, but they couldn’t walk away from the label because they needed the distribution, but the label never paid the money for their music, so it’s this weird dance.

2:09:00 It is weird. I mean, we’re back with Ireland now where we started, and we learnt a lot, and again, you’ve got to put your trust in your mind, because he knows about it, he’s been in the business a long time, he’ll get you the best deal. You know, for us, we were very lucky with Fletch, our management, and you know, he We knew what he was doing, so we didn’t get messed around, you know, and we knew that towing would make money, so we built on that, we became a great live band.

2:09:26 We knew, now we own our own merchandise company. So now we make, you know, there’s no middle man for the merchandise, we get straight, we collect the money there and then from the venue, take it with us on the road and design it all ourselves. You know, people don’t know that, we design all our own merchandise, we design our own stage set, you know. You are an entrepreneur. Yeah, but with six guys and seven guys, right? We’ve got a team of us. Yeah, okay, so I suppose we’re in a in a funny way Yeah, those good lessons last question is well, I guess you already gave it this is advice to the 20 year old this listening I I guess you kind of gave it which is you know work hard you have a distribution medium and make sure it’s perfect Right. Yeah. I mean, I love what Peter sage says. I think it was is is don’t be me cuz I’m taken He says be the best you that you can be, you know, find your strength become a master at it believe in yourself yourself, but listen as well, listen to advice, don’t take advice, literally just take advice that you want to take, you know, listen to a lot of people and take little bits from everything and mould it into you, mould it into the best that you can be, you know, and as a performer, as myself, I just try and be the, I know my strengths, my strengths is when, set aside production, DJing, whatever it is, I know that when I’m on that stage, I own that stage and my job is to get everyone who’s there loving this band and having a

2:10:51 Great time. Just having a great time. Not even loving the band, forget that. Just have a great time. Because that’s what we’re here for.

2:10:56 The next hour and a half, two hours, forget about everything. We’re here to entertain you. You just relax and enjoy yourself. But it is hard out there and don’t give up because there’s so many labels or things that might pick you up and then suddenly give you up as well, you know, they might take you up and then give you up and because the thing is not giving up, visualize what you want to be and don’t give up. Powerful advice, powerful. You know you asked me what makes a hit and I don’t know what makes a hit but this show is gonna be a hit. I know it is and you know I’m just, I’m really, I’m glad we connected and thanks so much for watching the shows and I’m glad They meant something to you. That’s like a massive massive turn in my life. Wow. Okay mentally mentally That’s powerful. Well, I think the thoughts the thought process. Anyway, I think it’s having Because ultimately I’m kind of in your brain and my guest is in your brain when you’re listening to a podcast It’s actually a really intimate relationship allowing someone to invade your brain. Yeah, and so these thoughts are going in your head and Like you said you kind of close your eyes maybe on the back of a bus or whatever you’re doing Yeah And you get this and I and I don’t think there’s been anything like this, you know I’m kind of in the history of media, so.

2:12:10 Well, the boys always laugh at me because I’m sort of, I’m so zoned in. I mean, I’ve tried reading books and I get distracted by sound or visually. I can read a book at first thing in the morning or at nighttime when I’m in bed, perfect. No worries for me, there’s no distractions. Visually, again, I might get distracted by what’s in the background, what’s this, what’s that.

2:12:28 But straight in my headphones, and the boys laugh at me because I’m always like this. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. Like agreeing, disagreeing. I’m totally in the room with you, totally in the room with you and I never knew there was different ways of learning.

2:12:43 You know, I left home when I was 16, I went straight down to London and you know, you find your feet, you find yourself, I was, you know, and you find these things and they educate you in a different way. You know, it’s not, you know, when I was in my school lessons, I was staring out the window just thinking about dreaming what I wanted to be. I didn’t give a shit about what they were teaching me, you know, and it’s such a shame. My music teacher didn’t even know I played guitar.

2:13:07 That’s crazy, you know this education system is almost like the way that movies and music used to be because it was like it was like one movie or one band and everyone had to kind of either like it or not. And so it kills me when I hear like that’s a that’s a poignant example music teacher didn’t even know. No, he didn’t even know. I mean, that’s another thing for me. I would love one day to have, you know, I don’t know what it would be is finding talent, finding people that I can invest in to become great.

2:13:35 I would love that. to find musicians and artists and give them away, if not anything, just giving them a bit of positivity and belief in themselves. I’m doing it now with my sister, she’s struggled over the years, she was always the singer and then I made it, made it whatever you wanna say, I don’t know, was successful. She’s like, fuck’s sake, I was always the singer. But she’s totally, she totally respects what I do and I think she’s got a lot of respect for me as I do for her and you know she started being very negative about it and again with this a lot of positive thoughts that now you have I try and drum it into it the way you think about it the way you know don’t give up basically so I’m trying to do it now and if I can do that to anybody you know inspire somebody to be great in their strength not go and work somebody else’s dream then I’m a happy man.

2:14:32 I think this is going to inspire a lot of people in a different way than in your music is because I think that people can listen to this side of you. It might have that inspiration like people have listened to Dorian or Peter or those kind of people. People are like, oh, okay, that’s what it’s all about. So this is crucial. Thanks for coming on and thanks for being so honest.

2:14:50 Thank you for having me. Thank you. Like I said, I’m a massive fan of the show and it feels weird sitting here. I’ll admit that. Yeah.

2:14:59 It feels really weird. I think it went pretty well. for you you know I you know I was asked the questions but you probably know all this stuff about me anyway yeah dude I’ve been I was I was listening to your thing today what’s the guy what’s the guy called the poet who interviewed you oh oh silly breaks yeah yeah he’s a good interviewer man isn’t he he was pretty great he was he was pushing you scared about your job yeah he was digging too and he was like okay but wait a second Brian what really happened and I was It was funny because when I’m in this chair, I’m so used to it, you know, and I’ve had people that sit down and they’re like, Brian, well, what if I say something I don’t want to say?

2:15:36 And I always say, well, then don’t say something you don’t want to say. But when I’m in that seat with all the lights and was silly asking me questions, I found myself just talking and not really thinking. So I understand it’s kind of like that weird psychedelic experience when you get in here with the lights. There’s no one else here. It’s amazing.

2:15:53 I was thinking about it. Like when I first, when it’s pop music and it opened my eyes to everything, so it’s a bit like you. so many different people, from different, whatever it is, but you’re so open-minded and you wanna hear about it. And so like, how do you, first of all, do you take a bit from everything and add it to your life? And why do you, why are you so interested in people?

2:16:19 Jesus, Danny’s trumping me today. It’s a good question. I think there’s a lot of things going on here. I think this is a therapy session for me and it has been for the last three years. I think this is my way to communicate with people.

2:16:30 And I think I had helped this pent up in my previous occupation for 10 years where I was just focused on myself and focused on accumulation. And so I think this was the way I snapped and went back the other way. And I think this is my way of, yeah, communicating with people. And so you have a career where you put your emotion on the line and that creates great music and stuff. And I think musicians are more in tune with their emotions.

2:16:53 But my previous career in incarnation as an engineer and then a Wall Street guy, I wasn’t. And so it was all about hard figures and be tough and go and work hard and all that stuff. But I think at some point, you can’t hold that inside you. And as a human, you have to let out your other emotions. And that could be an anxiety attack or that could be quitting your job.

2:17:15 Talk about it the light you say. Yeah, powerful that is. Yeah, it is. It’s super powerful. You have to talk.

2:17:22 And you asked what I get from the guests. I get so much, but I think it’s on a subconscious level because I get to experience all these good, I think just the good energy alone probably lifts me up in a great way. After I have a great show, I mean, there’s nothing better, it’s probably like you when you have a great show, but when I have a great interview with someone, I mean, I’m flying, you know, it feels great. And so yeah, I don’t know if I answered your question, but I seem to get all this good energy and I seem like everyone that comes on this show is basically great people.

2:17:50 And all the fans I meet on the street when they stop me, they’re great, cool people. I mean, the people we met at Times event, I mean, these are like, did I believe in that so much? Great, good energy, good energy. I vibe off good energy, I love it. There’s something to that.

2:18:01 As soon as somebody knocks it though, I’m, it drains, it drains the sun. It can ruin a room. It can ruin a situation. And you should run from it. Those are good signs.

2:18:09 You should just get the fuck away from it and edit them from your life and it might sound rough, but life is short. I know, but someone said that. Ty said, PSA says that, right? Oh, did he? Somebody said that, just get rid of it.

2:18:19 Yeah, and you have to. And every year, I’ve had people on here, I’ve had Tim Ferriss sitting here, who wrote the before-hour workweek books and a bunch of things in the States. I said, what are you doing for New Year’s? What are your New Year’s resolutions? You know, the biohacking things.

2:18:31 He does, yeah, he did a four-hour body as well, yeah. And he said, Brian, I’m thinking about things to eliminate from my life this year. That’s what he said, and I was like, wow, that’s powerful. People, bad habits, business partners, I’m eliminating this year, and it sounds rough, but sometimes you gotta get rid of bad energy in your life. It’s all true.

2:18:48 You have to be, as Dan Pena says, he says, I says, get selfish, and I think it’s a horrible word, selfish, But sometimes you have to, I mean, life is short and you only have so much emotions. So you got to keep the energy positive around you. Yeah, don’t let, don’t let somebody take that energy. That’s the thing. Because you spend, because not only, when you get a bad thing happen, not only do you get distracted about what you’re doing and how good you were feeling that day, maybe, but you spend so much time thinking about it, especially me, I’ll be worrying about it, I’ll be thinking about it, the whole situation.

2:19:16 And it’s just that so much energy that suddenly you’re like, oh, why bother? And you don’t want that, you don’t want that why bother moment. because you want to keep it, you know, I go home. Again, if I listen to one of the podcasts, I go home and I’m buzzing to my wife. I’m like, oh my God, you have to listen to this.

2:19:32 Can you please listen to this? Because I’m buzzing about it. I’ve got such good energy right now. And I’m telling everybody, I go to the pub and I talk about it. You know, I go out with mates, go to whatever.

2:19:42 And as soon as somebody zaps that energy, I’m like, oh. But it will never ever, it will never get to me to the point where I’m like, okay, that wasn’t a good idea. I’d be like, okay, I’ll come back to that. Do you know what I mean? I’ll come back to that later.

2:19:59 I’m a bit, you might not like it, but I’ll find someone that does. And I’ll find someone that does wanna vibe with me. It’s amazing how that one person can pull the energy out of you. It’s weird, I guess it’s an old human trait that we had from thousands, thousands of years ago. And I think my mom and sister, my family’s amazing, but they’re not most positive people in the world and I can only learn from my experiences and what I’ve been around so trying to be different and come out of that and I’ve already branched out by just going down to London and doing what I love and doing what I want to do. How can I change the way they think and it’s already worked you know my mum’s great now she’s she she was so down for so many years and quite like she won’t know that she’d be negative but she’ll think certain negative things.

2:20:50 And I’m like, well, why are you thinking like that? Something might be around the corner. I don’t know how I talk to her about it, but I try and every day, just little things that keep it positive. And obviously, them being around me and coming into my life, they get a good blast of it, I suppose. And when people see you change, that’s when they usually start making changes.

2:21:08 This is, I got my TED Talk coming up in two days, and everything’s gonna be fine, but one of my themes is that people, they hear all this information, but when they see you making these positive changes in their life, then they notice. And then they’re like, well, what’s Danny doing? What’s Brian doing? And then they’re like, I better go check this out. And it might take them a while to figure it out, but then they’ll be like listening to you what you say a little more.

2:21:27 It does not come out once, does it? It takes a while. And it definitely doesn’t come from you lecturing them. No, no, no, it might take you lecturing them to go out and find and investigate and research, and then they gotta find it for themselves. You gotta find it for yourselves almost, I suppose.

2:21:40 Yeah, and your peer group, they’ll look at you. So if you have good friends or family, they will watch you, and they’ll be like, oh, he’s changing, why is he changing? it’ll kind of come around, so yeah. Yeah, but I mean, where I’m from as well, they’ll probably think that, like, because I’ve never done meditating. Okay, yeah, I was gonna ask you that.

2:21:56 Love to do it, I love to get into it. And do it. But I think I’ve already got a form of it. Okay, with your music? With music, yeah, if I sit down and I just play, or I sit down and play guitar, I sit down and produce something, I am not thinking about anything else.

2:22:09 I’m almost zoning out to nothing. Yeah. I’m just like, and it’s not as, because I’m like you, as soon as I start of nothing, I’m thinking that I’m thinking about nothing. So, you know, I’m one of them people, I suppose. There’s different forms of meditation. I mean, if you do really hard anaerobic cardio, you get into this weird meditative state where you’re not thinking about anything else except that kettlebell or something. And yeah, I mean, music in that sense, there’s a lot of different ways to, some people cook and meditate because of this process. And they’re just in this kind Football for me, playing football, just the way out of it, just the normal things for me are meditative.

2:22:47 Have you ever tried floating in the tank? No, I’d love to do that. There’s some in London, isn’t there? Yeah, floatation time. I’d love to do that.

2:22:53 Good. I need to go back in. Yeah, I would love to do that. What are the guys that ran the tank? He told me, he said, it’s meditation for lazy people.

2:23:00 Because you have no choice. You’re in there and it’s just like, there you go. But also like, if I’m… I suppose when I go to bed at night, I don’t shut off. me a while to go to sleep because I think about, not anything necessarily about the day, I’ll just think about things that I wouldn’t think about in the day. Do you know what I mean by that? I’m thinking, oh, something that comes to my head and I thought about that. Oh, I’ve not dealt with that feeling or I’ve not dealt with this or it’ll take me a while to get to sleep. And I suppose that’s a form of meditation to get, I don’t know, I don’t know what meditation is. I’ve not really done it, but.

2:23:38 You should give it a try. I would love to, yeah. Try being impatiently patient about meditation and starting tomorrow. I mean, not that I’m trying to push meditation on anyone, and that word has a lot of weird connotations to it. Yeah, a lot of people, my mates probably think, well, you were weird or you meditate.

2:23:51 People call it mindfulness now in America, whatever you want to call it. That just means that you’re trying to maybe detach your mind. There’s a book called Little Book of Mindfulness that somebody sent me. I see a friend, my wife’s friend sent me it, just because I was feeling anxious one day and it was amazing. Good little book for little stories, little spot of self-help but you know there’s apps there’s apps to them that will just kind of just give you tones yes and allow you to try that yeah you know mindful so what I do is I wake up in the morning I brush my teeth and I get back in bed in the dark and I sit up against the headboard and I have these you know those guys that like Jack Cameron on the yes I walk well from Amazon I bought a hair that petted those headphones and so you put them on yeah okay yeah yeah and I put some eyeshades on and I just sit there sometimes you know the girls are still asleep and I’m just like and I sit there and I do 20 minutes of my own meditation and then when I wake and then I then I’m done then my day starts okay right so this is the thing for me like in anything in training and whatever it’s inconvenient right right how do I make it convenient because I’ve tried with in terms of diet anything like that I just do a little bit every day make it habit and suddenly I start craving it I start doing it okay well it’s the same it is the same but 66 days right yeah yeah I mean make it

2:25:03 Short then do five minutes I mean the thing is my routine I’m describing you could sleep five more minutes in bed or you could just go back in that environment that’s already quiet and dark and then sit up and then just could say five minutes of maybe run an app mindfulness app and how does it help you well I find that if I do that over weeks at a time I just find that I’m more in control of my mind my mind’s not impulsive really my maybe my thoughts don’t race like you were saying and I just I see it as a big list it just goes and and that’s thing about meditation if I stop one day I’m not gonna feel it but if I stop and then a month later I know that all of a sudden a little bit of anxiety or bad habits are gonna come or I’m gonna be a little tense or you know I won’t feel I feel like after a good hard workout that’s the way meditation makes me feel if I do it really regularly really I just feel more and generally calm I feel in control of emotions so my feeling after work is amazing isn’t it it’s crazy I think when you first start working out you don’t know you feel it oh yeah no yeah as you work out more in your life you don’t you never get back to that endorphin rush.

2:26:00 But the problem is you feel it, you think, oh, I feel amazing. Two days after you feel that shit, because you’re so sore and you don’t want to go back in the gym again. Yeah, but I like feeling sore, man. I kind of lose. Yeah, I know.

2:26:11 Soar’s the new sexy. Is it, right? You train a lot. Well, train, yeah, not as much. I mean, my drummer and bass player, actually, they’re utter machines because they’re addicts.

2:26:22 Okay. So, I mean, I suppose they’ve taken it the other extreme. Yeah. That works. cognitive biases. Yeah, they’re totally addicted to working out and nutrition. I suppose I would say I’ve got a happier balance. I love training. I love training. I love boxing training.

2:26:44 I love MMA. I was saying to you at the Tai Lopez thing, I was like, what can I do that’s not going to affect my ears, my face, my hands? Yeah, right, right. Yeah, because you need all those instruments. I sit there and I’m I’m almost shaking cause I crave to train MMA. Right. Cause I feel like I could be so good. I like that. I love it. I’m not scared of getting hit. I love it. I’m telling you, you should try grappling. You should try some Brazilian Chichitsi. I know. Cause it’s not going to bust you up and just get with really good experience. Black belt who’s in his thirties, who’s not going to become crazy dude and just start doing some grappling. Yeah. If you know of anybody, I’d love to see if If I could try and start that.

2:27:21 I’m sure that guy is listening to us right now because we have a big fan base there. Right. Oh, amazing. So contact me or contact Danny. Yeah, amazing.

2:27:29 I’d love to do that. And go down that road. We’d love to. All right. I’m wrapping this up.

2:27:34 And yeah, I’m going to wrap this up. Yeah, they should follow you on Twitter. You know, they’ll find you. Oh yeah. Anything like that.

2:27:41 I mean, yeah, I don’t really sell myself that well. But yeah, I’m on Twitter. I’m going to come see one of your live shows because they sound awesome. Yeah, come along. Yeah, come along.

2:27:48 And I’m going to pick up on this energy. Yeah, for sure. All that good stuff. So, again, thanks for coming on, thanks for being honest, yeah, this really suits you because this is you, you’re kind of what you are, what you are, right? Yeah, I am what I am, you know, like, I like that honest approach to everything because then nothing is, nothing becomes fake or anything but nobody thinks you’re fake and I just love the, yeah, I love the show, I’m happy, so happy that I could be a part of it.

2:28:16 Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure, as we say, on London Real. It’s about the journey. Yes. I wish you well on yours.

2:28:22 Come back and see us in another year and check in. It’d be a lot of fun. I would love to, yeah. Okay. When I’m an entrepreneur.

2:28:28 No, I am already. All right, buddy. Thanks very much. Thank you so much. All right.

2:28:36 Take care.