Fresh from winning a MOBO for Best Song for Beat Again, the fast-selling single of 2009, JLS are hoping to continue their success with their new single Everybody in Love. With their debut album also on the horizon, we find out from the boys whether they are feeling the pressure, their thoughts on friend Jade Ewan joining the Sugababes and why it’s ok to wax your eyebrows…
Congratulations on winning at the
MOBOS. Not only did you win Best Song, but you also won Best Newcomer. How did
that feel?
Oritsé: Absolutely incredible. We were in a category with Alexandra Burke and Master Shortie and Jade Ewen. Obviously they’re great artists and have done a lot over the last year and bring British music to where it is now, so we’re very privileged to win that award. We’ve had one release and to win Best Newcomer off the back of that is just incredible.
Beat Again was extremely successful, selling over 100,000 copies in the first week. Are you feeling the pressure to repeat the success with Everybody in Love?
Marvin: You know its funny, when Beat Again went to No. 1, straight away people were saying, “Are you going to come back with a bigger single?”
Aston: Before it went to No. 1!
Marvin: Yeah, even before that. And honestly, Everybody in Love is our favourite song, collectively, off the album and it's actually the song we thought was going to be our first single. No-one anticipated how well Beat Again was going to do and if Everybody in Love does equally as good, its going to be incredible. But no, we’re not feeling the pressure. We’ve got a great support network, great fan base, and we’re sure the song’s gong to do well. How well, we don’t know yet.
You shot the
video for Everybody In Love in
Oritsé: You can’t complain when you wake up and the sun’s shining and you go on the set at about 10am and there are four lovely girls to work with.
Aston: There were about 80, to be fair.
Oritsé: We had a lot of female extras. We had a great time. Obviously it’s a learning curve and to go abroad to do our second video is absolutely incredible. We loved the experience.
You all look very well-groomed and stylish. Would you say you’re metrosexual men?
Oritsé: Abso- well..
JB: Our job kind of requires that we have a certain image and a certain group identity, but we’re all very different and we all like our fashion, we all like to look after ourselves and there’s nothing wrong with that. We embrace that.
Marvin: There’s nothing wrong with getting your eyebrows waxed.
Oritsé: Though, for the record, I don’t actually do anything to my eyebrows. People think I do.
For a long time, boybands have been quite traditional and now you have come along with lots of choreography, showing a bit of flesh. How do you think you compare to other boy-bands?
Aston: There are no other boybands around, to be fair.
They’re all man-bands now. They’re all veterans in the game. We’re only just
starting out in our career and we’ve got to set our benchmark and show the
direction we wanna go. We just don’t just wanna have a fireworks stage show,
for instance. We wanna do something that can be shown worldwide.
Marvin: We want it to be really explosive, in terms of
the way we perform and the visuals, as well as the vocals. It’s going to be
really exciting. We just really wanna go out there and give our supporters the
best that we can. It’s going to be a lot more us. So far we’ve supported Lemar,
we did a club tour and we did the X-Factor tour, and now its just JLS. We’re so
excited, we can’t wait.
Oritsé: From our new album, I think fans can expect a lot of songs we’ve co-written. We’ve more or less been involved in writing nine of the thirteen tracks. There is going to be a song for everyone. Its going to be tracks that we enjoy performing on our tour and we’re very excited for all of our supporters to hear the material we’ve come up with. We’ve definitely done our best and we hope that they’re proud.
Aston, you’ve been friends with Jade Ewen for a while. How do you feel about her joining the Sugababes and how would you feel if JLS was to have a line-up change in the future?
Ashton: To be fair, the change in line-up, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. It’s one of those things where no-one knows the ins and outs of that whole situation. We saw Keisha yesterday and she’s very happy. She’s a happy girl. Jade is over the moon to be in the Sugababes. JLS is a collective so I doubt that would ever, ever happen. It wouldn’t ever happen. We started this as a four and we’re going to finish it as a four. Things change, and good luck to Jade. I think its going to be fantastic.
As well as the
Sugababes, there are a lot of female acts around at the moment. Are there any
ladies in the charts catching your eye?
Aston: Cheryl Cole.
Marvin: Paloma Faith.
Oritsé: Pixie Lott. Alexandra Burke. Dolly Rockers.
Marvin: The Saturdays… We’re just gonna name all the girls!
Everybody in Love is released on 2 November. The debut album is released on 9 November.
