McFly have put the brakes on their new album as singer Tom Fletcher throws himself into ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ rehearsals.
The singer is waltzing his way to victory along with dance partner Amy Dowden and, according to bandmate Harry Judd – who won the show in 2011 – training has come in the way of their new music.
Confirming he, Dougie Poynter and Danny Jones have completed their work on the follow-up to 2020 comeback ‘Young Dumb Thrills’, he told The Sun: “The progress has been great. We just need to get a load of Tom’s vocals down, then it’s finished.”
It’s down to just Dougie and Danny in the studio, after Harry welcomed his third child, son Lockie, with wife Izzy last month.
Their absence has led to the pair singing on the record more than ever before, with Harry revealing: “We finished the drums before we toured and I re-did one song after the tour.
“Dougie’s finished all of his bass and he’s been doing loads of vocals because Tom’s not been there and we’ve just wanted to get the melodies recorded and down. Danny’s done all of his vocals and stuff.
“It’s all sounding great, we’re really excited about it. I’ve genuinely never been more excited about new music.”
Harry recently revealed the group had been in the studio writing songs after taking a “different approach” last time round.
He explained: “’Young Dumb Thrills’ still had guitars and drums on it but there was programming and a bit of a different approach to recording.
“This time, from day one of writing and recording, we’ve had all our gear set up.
“So if Tom has brought in a song in the morning, we go straight in to playing it as a band to get parts that way. We’ve been writing songs in that environment as well, and writing riffs.”
And fans of the group’s ‘00s heyday will be thrilled to hear McFly are using their fourth LP ‘Radio:Active’ as a reference point for the new material.
“We wanted to approach this from more of a band perspective, how we would have done it ten years ago,” Harry mused.
“We wanted to let our instruments do the talking on this album. Our fourth album ‘Radio:Active’, we wanted to recreate that setting.
“Musically it is not the same as ‘Radio:Active’ but we wanted to create that same feeling of why we love being in a band and playing our instruments together.”
