INTERVIEW - Nathan Sykes from The Wanted

Hi Nathan! You and the band are all in your teens or early 20s, how did it feel having your single All Time Low get to Number 1 at such a young age?

It was crazy because we’re all fairly young and it just came from nowhere. We didn’t expect to get a number one at all; we’d have loved to have even just got top 40. The single kept going up and up on iTunes and held out through the week. It’s just crazy for all of us because we’ve been working so hard over the past year and didn’t know if it was going to pay off.

And do you still get a buzz when you hear your songs on the radio?

Definitely! We just got off a flight from America, got in the car and one of the first songs that came on was our new single Heart Vacancy. We were like ‘We’re on the radio! Turn it up, turn it up!’ So yeah, we do still go a bit mad whenever our songs come on the radio, and we probably still will do for the next ten years ha!

Your new single Heart Vacancy has got quite a different feel from All Time Low. What’s the song about?

I think it’s just about you trying to convince a girl that’s been hurt by someone that you’re not going to do the same to her. It’s basically a love song, but it’s got a good beat to it too. It’s a completely different side of us from All Time Low.

And what can we expect from the album? You’ve worked with people like Guy Chambers and Taio Cruz on it haven’t you?

Yeah we have! It’s really cool because we’ve all got different influences; we wrote about 50% of the album so we’ve all put our different backgrounds and musical influences on it. There’s one track that’s a very stripped back ballad; just piano and strings, and then there’s a few quite rocky ones too.

So you felt like you were in safe hands with these experienced songwriters then?

Yeah! We walked into the studio and were like ‘There’s Guy Chambers!’ It was quite scary for the first few days; he’s got a really dry sense of humour. Like we’ll be in the studio singing and he’ll lean in and go ‘That was... nearly there’ haha! But it’s been great working with these people, like most artists won’t ever get the opportunity to work with people this experienced in their whole career and we got to work with them on our first album so it’s pretty amazing!

As a boyband you have all these girls following you around everywhere, what’s that like?

We’re not complaining about it, not at all! We’re loving it!

With the music industry at the moment there’s all this focus on the internet – sites like Twitter and YouTube – do you feel this is a good thing?

We didn’t have any kind of instant success like some people do from the X Factor or anything so we had to really put in the groundwork, especially as it’s really hard to build a fanbase these days. So it’s great to be able to go on Twitter and talk to the fans; really communicate with them. It’s about keeping a good relationship with people who like your music and getting feedback too! We have a thing we do called ‘Wanted Wednesday’ where we post a video every Wednesday of what we’ve been up to that week and it lets all the fans know what we’ve been doing and lets them get to know our personalities which is really cool. So I think the internet side of things is definitely really important!

What’s great about you as a band is that you all feel very relaxed together – just five lads hanging out together having fun.  When you first got together you all shared a house together didn’t you?

That’s what people like about us; we’re all best mates and when we’re not working together we’re chilling together. We’ll just be watching the football or having a beer, something like that. We’re all really tight and that really helps when we’re writing music because we all know each other really well, so we know what sort of song will suit which person.

So is it quite daunting then to take that tight bond and then go out and perform to 80,000 people or so at Twickenham Stadium when you did the Help for Heroes charity concert?

I think it’d be worse if you went out there on your own but I know I’ve got the other boys there with me so I’m usually alright. For some reason I don’t get as nervous as everyone else. I think that’s the best thing though, all this hard work we’re putting in and getting opportunities to do stuff like that. It was an absolute pleasure doing that gig because it’s for such a great charity.

You work with Brian Friedman on your choreography and at that gig you came onstage bursting from a giant box before pulling out smoke flares; is it important to have that visual aspect to a performance too?

I think so yeah! It was like the first massive production we’d done and we were quite worried we’d get part of it wrong, like break our hand on the box or something ha! It was quite crazy but it’s definitely something we look forward to because it just gives you that extra boost of adrenaline.

So could we see this kind of thing expanded into a tour once your album is out?

Hopefully! If people want to come see us then we’re happy to tour! So that’s going to be really exciting and hopefully we can put on a really good show for them. We’ll be working really hard to give the fans something extra than what they’re getting on the album.

Recently you and the guys have been appearing in the style sections of quite a few magazines, did you expect this kind of focus on your ‘look’ when you entered the industry?

I think there’s that extra kind of emphasis on what you wear but we don’t go out there with the aim to stick to a certain image. We just wear what we normally wear on a day to day basis. We’ll just go into our wardrobe and pick out a few things and then wear that for a gig or whatever. Obviously we have a stylist to give us a bit of advice now and then but that’s it really.

At the moment there’s only really you and JLS in the boyband market so do you think this gives you a lot of freedom to do your own thing?

I think so yeah! It’s quite open at the moment; obviously there’s JLS doing their thing – and doing it really well – but they’ve got more of an R&B feel to them. We’re just going to keep on doing our own thing and hope people enjoy it.

And to finish off, if you had to describe The Wanted in just three words, what would those three words be?

Oooh! Hmmm.... ‘Pretty Mental People’! Haha!

The Wanted’s new single ‘Heart Vacancy’ is out now, followed by their debut album out 25^th October.