As well as being a super-famous rockstar, he is also my best friend. I met him on my gap year when I won a competition to meet his band, The Burnouts. Back then the bands I hung around with were small-time, so it was pretty cool to meet one of the most famous bands in the country and get to hang out backstage.
I remember their manager came out to get me and as we were walking backstage he said: ‘They’re going to love you, darling.’ Back then I wasn’t the expert that I am now when it comes to bands, in particular the inner (and outer) workings of your typical band member, so I weakly asked him what he meant. ‘Blonde hair, big tits. You’re just Dylan’s type, you want to watch yourself with him,’ he warned me, making me even more nervous than I already was.
When I was shown into the backstage room, it was Mikey King, Dylan’s younger brother who is also in the band, who I was introduced to first and he was lovely. Dylan was always the one I’d had the crush on, but Mikey was just so down-to-earth and charming. It’s no secret that Mikey is the real talent in The Burnouts, he’s the guitarist and he writes most of the music, whereas Dylan is the egotistical front-man with the pretty face and the shocking reputation. After I’d chatted to Mikey for a while, Dylan came in and he was everything people had warned me about. His ego was in full swing and I could tell he was going out of his way to try and impress me – he even played me an exclusive clip of their next single. Until that moment, everything I had known about bands I had loved, but being around this mega-famous arsehole was really starting to get on my nerves, so when he played me their new song, despite it being amazing, I told him it was crap – because that ought to bring him down a peg or two. Of course I instantly regretted saying it, but after a few seconds of straight-faced silence he burst out laughing.
‘I think you’re the only person in the world brave enough to say something like that to me,’ he chuckled and apparently the kind of person who will tell you your music is crap is exactly the kind of person you want to have in your life if you’re a musician and we became pretty much inseparable. We’ve been best friends ever since – although nothing more, I hasten to add. This works well for both of us professionally because if I am having a slow week with news he will give me an interview, and he can always rely on me to give him a bit of good press when everyone is reporting the negative stuff – like him ‘banging’ a female escort, for example.
With me living in Leeds and him all the way down in London, we don’t see each other as much as we’d like, but we talk almost every day and we always have a blast when he is on tour.
My mind darts back to the ‘real world’. Sitting at my desk and staring at my computer, I realise that I’m not going to be able to concentrate today, I’m just too excited. I go through the rest of my emails, clicking my way through the masses of press releases we receive every day. There are a few good ones but nothing too exciting, I’ll do them later.
One exciting email I have received is from a tour manager, asking to me to confirm that I will be joining a band on their tour. These guys are also my good friends; I used to tour with them when no one knew who they were, and now they’re embarking on their first headlining UK tour as a signed band, which is pretty exciting. I send a quick message (something which feels weirdly formal considering they’re my buddies) confirming that I will still be joining them on the road and then crack on with my work.
After four hours of replying to messages and writing items for the website, I am more than ready to go home. In what little time I have, I’m going to pull out all the stops for tonight. I only wish I had time to pick up something new to wear.
‘Don’t mind if I get off a bit earlier, do you, team? Big night tonight,’ I say, making my way towards the door.
‘Last one in, first one out,’ Jake jokes. ‘Lucky for some.’
‘Of course we don’t mind. If you do pull one of them, be sure to text me,’ Emily says excitedly. I think she may be even more excited than I am.
‘I don’t think so,’ I call back as I make my escape. It’s not that they are a bad-looking band, but my priority is the interview and I’m certainly not going to mess this up by getting my goals confused.
The Secret
I feel so old right now, and I’m only twenty-five. I’m at the Plastic Rap gig and, apart from a handful of parents and their young kids, I am surrounded by excited teenagers, most of them female. Unsurprisingly I haven’t bumped into anyone I know, so I have been entertaining myself. I’ve knocked back a few drinks and messed around on my phone quite a lot. It’s very important to keep the good people of Twitter and Facebook up to date on what I’m doing – not to show off, I promise.
Plastic Rap are currently playing their last song and for the millionth time since I got here I am checking my bag for my Dictaphone. Absolutely nothing can go wrong tonight.
Looking up at them on stage, I have to admit that I can see exactly what the thousands of screaming girls see in them. They’re good-looking in a goody-goody pop kind of way, not a tattoo or piercing in sight, which is something I actually quite like; it’s not that often you find a musician without one or the other these days.
When the gig is finally over, I make my way to the hotel next door where our interview is taking place. Before I know it, I am plonked down in front of the band, who are eagerly awaiting my questions.
All five of them are so chatty, they’ve got bags of character and they’re definitely saying all the right things.
Sometimes the really famous ones are rude or awkward and I hate it when there’s a particular subject I’m not allowed to ask about, but that’s not the case with these guys.
I’ve asked all the music-related questions that we’re expected to ask, so it’s time to get down to the juicy stuff.
‘So, are you boys allowed girlfriends? A lot of bands with large teenage fan-bases are told to keep their girlfriends a secret.’
Sam (the hottest one in my opinion) is straight in there with an answer.
‘Yes, we’re allowed girlfriends and we all have a girlfriend at the moment. Our fans are the most loyal fans in the world, they certainly don’t mind us having them. It’s all about the music.’
Fantastic answer, although I have to disagree. It’s partly about the music, but their fans are genuinely in love with them. Hearts will break when they read this, that’s for sure.
Eventually we wrap up the interview. I pose for a few photos with the band and I’m not going to lie, these are for Facebook. I’m still a band lover at the end of the day.
Sam moves to stand next to me and slides an arm around my waist as we continue to pose for the camera.
‘We’re having a bit of a party if you’d like to stick around,’ he says between smiles. Before I have chance to reply, in walks the band’s tour manager with a group of ten young-looking fans. They’re maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, so I assume they’re here for a meet and greet before the party starts. For someone who has been hanging around bands for so long, that’s a pretty naive assumption it turns out. As if to remind me exactly how these things go, Carl the bassist walks straight up to one of the fans and sticks his tongue down her throat. Maybe it’s his girlfriend? Sure she looks a bit young, but who am I to jump to conclusions? Then again, if it was his girlfriend he probably wouldn’t be kissing the next girl in the line right
