As teens, McFly shot to fame and became one of the UK’s biggest boy bands of the noughties, notching up an impressive 10 No. 1 singles and millions in album sales.
Becoming household names has its implications and the group learned the hard way when it came to holding on to their privacy – especially on social media.
In the early days, it led to a couple of awkward fan encounters. “I remember a situation when I was sunbathing in a private villa in Cyprus,” remembers Danny Jones in RETROPOP’s July 2023 issue. “Some fan had travelled all the way across the island because she’d seen a picture that I put up, recognised the view and thought she’d chance it and come over. She was shouting ‘Danny’ down the street and I went over like, ‘What do you want?’, and she goes, ‘I’m a big fan!’. She had a McFly T-shirt on and everything.
“This was at the start of social media and it shat me up a little bit because they know where you are at all times,” he admits, with Harry Judd experiencing a similar situation outside of his home.
“The first time I had Instagram I didn’t know you had to turn your location off and outside my house were these three girls wearing McFly hoodies,” he laughs. “I was like, ‘That’s a coincidence. What are the chances?’, and then they said, ‘Yeah, you left the location on your phone. I was like, ‘Ohhh, OK’.”
It’s a far cry from their early days when they relocated to London and shared a band house, complete with personal security that meant they weren’t so cautious about their next move.
“We had a security guy outside because we used to get a mixture of fans coming over and locals finding out we lived there and egging the house,” says Tom Fletcher, “but we would leave the door open when we went out. We’d go to rehearsals or go on tour for a week and when we came back the front door would still be unlocked!”
This month, the group – also starring Dougie Poynter – return with their seventh album, ‘Power To Play’, which sees the boys return to the guitar-heavy sound of early hits like Obviously, All About You and their debut, 5 Colours In Her Hair. “On the last album, I think we were just excited to be back together in the band and recording again. We didn’t really have a clear vision of what the album was going to sound like,” says Tom. “This time, we knew we wanted the album to feel like a family of songs that belong together, but it just took us a while to figure out what that was.”
During the sessions, they made a moodboard for the project that brought together their individual visions for the direction of the LP and drew on the songs they most enjoy performing live. “We all wrote 5 Colours In Her Hair and Obviously – the really fun, uptempo ones,” adds Dougie.
“It was pretty much like going back to why we all got into playing our instruments in the first place,” continues Harry. “What’s exciting about being in a band, rehearsing, touring, and trying to recreate that on an album for the first time. That vision became very clear and exciting.”
On those early inspirations, Tom says: “We all got excited by bands when we were kids. Especially guitar music – it’s always been so exciting and aspirational and we’ve never really fully embraced that. Even though we’ve always played, we’ve never really fully embraced that as an idea and a concept until right now. So it became, ‘Let’s try and write an album that is gonna make kids want to play air guitar around their bedrooms!’.”
‘Power To Play’ is out June 9 on BMG. McFly’s ‘Power To Play Tour’ launches October 23 in Bristol and plays through November 22 in Nottingham.
Read the full interview in the July 2023 edition of RETROPOP, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
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