After posting tons of teasers, Chris Bourne has finally premiered his debut solo single ‘MFT80s’ and it certainly hasn’t disappointed. He’s also released an official music video for the catchy song!
‘MFT80s’, which is short for ‘Music From The 80s’, is a killer track with an infectious pop/punk vibe that is missing all too often in the chart nowadays. It’s the music we love and the music that we definitely want to hear more of in the future. You’ll have ‘MFT80s’ stuck in your head for days.
Some may know Chris as a former band member of Hollywood Ending whereas others may recognise him as the younger brother of James Bourne from Busted. Chris even made a cameo in the iconic ‘Year 3000’ video; remember the child scientist Peter? Talent obviously runs in the family.
Now, Chris Bourne is ready to release his very own solo material so we caught up with him earlier this week. In our exclusive interview, Chris spoke about: his musical influences, writing a song which 5 Seconds of Summer recorded and much more. Check out his answers to our questions below!
We love ‘MFT80s’ – how would your describe the song for people who haven’t yet heard it?
“Interesting. I’d say imagine huge drums with awesome retro style analogue synthesisers fused with high energy funk guitar riffs and 80s throwback elements. That’s what you’ve got.”
The girl mentioned in the song only jams to music from the 80s. If you could only jam to one decade of music for the rest of your life, which decade would you choose?
“I think it would probably be the 80s or the 90s.”
Are you a big fan of 80s music then? If so, which are your favourite bands from that era?
“There’s a lot of cool bands from the 80s. If I could pick one, I like Hall & Oates and the stuff they put out. I love Eddie Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ – it has that synth sound that’s inspired a lot of the shit I’m doing at the moment. It’s crazy man. I think a lot of music that is coming out now on the radio has a lot of heavy 80s influence; from bands like The 1975 to HAIM. It seems to have come full circle; it’s like a new wave of 80s music which is cool as hell. I kind of wanted to incorporate that sound into my own music to be honest.”
There’s lots of cool visuals and effects in the music video – did you have fun filming it?
“Oh, the video was one of the funniest parts. Me and my friend James went out and we started filming stuff on the GoPro. We had a super low budget; we just went around and we drove out to Huntington beach in California. We started skating around town and we had a friend of ours, Brooke, who’s the girl in the video. We sort of just drove around and if we saw something cool, we’d pull up and start filming there. The day progressed and as you can see, the video starts off in the daytime and ends in the evening. It’s mental how the video went; we didn’t really plan anything. When we had all of this footage at the end of it, we realised that there was this cool abstract story there and it just works really well man. We’re stoked about it.”
Is ‘MFT80s’ a good taste of what we can expect from your future solo music?
“Yeah, I mean this single at the moment is the only thing confirmed to come out. There is definitely going to be more music; I don’t know if it’s going to be in the format of other singles or an album or an EP yet but there will be more music. There’ll be some awesome visual effects to go along with it too. The sound of everything we’re working on at the moment is cool man. I think ‘MFT80s’ is definitely a great track to come out with; it’s an awesome summer anthem and it’s amped. It should get people going and I think people will believe in it; I hope they do. I think it sets the pace for everything that’s to come so I’m really excited man. It’s just the beginning.”
Are you excited to play the songs live then? Can we expect a tour soon?
“Mate, I’m super stoked to get on the road again. We haven’t played a show since September so I just want to get back out there and get back on the grind. It’s a solo project but in terms of live performance, I already know exactly how I want to do it. I know a bunch of people back home that are down to do it with me so the second I get back from here, after finishing all of the songs, I can go back and really hone in on the live aspect of everything.”
Who would you say some of your musical influences are?
Chris: “My personal musical influences of musical influences specific to the song?”
CelebMix: “Both really.”
Chris: “I dunno man. Obviously I grew up listening to a lot of Busted; I was 8 when ‘What I Go To School For’ came out and it just seemed natural for me to wake up and we’d drive to school with a Busted CD in the car. As I grew up listening to music, I started breaking off into a lot more kind of pop/punk like Blink 182. Everything that James was really listening to; he’d come home and just give me a bunch of CDs. I’d get my guitar out and start playing along to the songs. A lot of Blink 182, Sum 41 and New Found Glory kind of vibes you know. I’ve always loved that kind of music but I love pop music at the same time; anything from Michael Jackson to Prince and even Backstreet Boys man. Max Martin is a legend; he’s a genius and all of his songs sound incredible. I think that’s kind of everything that still influences me today.”
Do you go to James for advice quite often then? Did you ask his opinion on ‘MTF80s’ before you added the finishing touches to the track?
“All of the time man. Whenever me and James hang out, we always end up jamming and vibing each other’s songs. That’s just kind of what we do. So whenever I write a song and I’m thinking about putting it out, I ask James what he thinks. I was working on a lot of music at the time and I think I finally hit home with this kind of vibe. I was working on a lot of different sounds experimenting and the second I wrote this song, I knew that there was something kind of special about it. We started laying it down with my producer Jarvis and the second I got the demo sort of roughed out, I sent it to James immediately. I was like ‘dude, what do you think of this?’ and he came back with a great response. It’s usually pretty obvious if James likes a song or not; he doesn’t mess around. He’ll tell me the truth always which is great.”
You used to be in a band called Hollywood Ending. Do you feel more pressure now that you’re releasing music as a solo artist?
Chris: “I never really think of it as pressure when it comes to putting out music. You have some people who put out music and they plan these kind of huge campaigns around their releases and usually with labels that’s what you’d do. With my own stuff, I want it to be successful obviously but everything that I make is from the passion of doing it. I’m completely independent; I fund and write and record everything myself. It’s a good journey man. If people buy into it and engage with it online then that’s all just a bonus. For me, it’s just about recording and putting out music that I want to put out for the fun of it.”
CelebMix: “As an independent artist, I imagine you have full creative control. Would you say it’s also maybe more rewarding too?”
Chris: “I think so man. We had some amazing people involved in the mixing and mastering process; I’m super grateful for all of that. But in terms of a budget, there’s not really a budget for the song. We just make the music. We go out and we get a GoPro, which costs a couple of hundred bucks, and you go film a music video. (laughs) It’s care-free. Like I said, we went out for a day of filming and we just kind of came back and put it in an edit. It’s real; it’s a good depiction of what we did.”
Do you still get chance to keep in touch with the Hollywood Ending guys much?
“Of course man; Danny and Tyler live out here. I’m in California at the moment and I’ve seen them every other day; we jam songs together and we still write together. They’ve just put out an awesome new project too so it’s exciting times.”
Over the years, you’ve worked with some big names in the industry. How have you founding working with Will Brierre on your new tracks?
“Dude, I mean Will’s an incredible mixer. My producer Jarvis is a really talented dude too. Like I said, there wasn’t really much of a budget at the time. We sent Will some tracks and they came back sounding amazing. I was like ‘this is it, this is the dude.’ There’s a lot more music that I’ve been working on and everything is kind of going through the same creative process which is awesome.”
You previously wrote a song called ‘Daylight’ which 5 Seconds of Summer recorded and released – how did that come about?
“Yes, ‘Daylight’ was a song I wrote a while ago. I wrote it before my band with the intention of using it in a band of my own. My band never got around to releasing it or recording it but I always believed in the song and I wrote it actually after I saw this movie with Megan Fox in it called ‘Jennifer’s Body’ where she’s like a vampire and shit. She just goes around killing people and I was like: ‘that’s amazing!’ Megan Fox is so hot. If I was a vampire and I saw her in the street, I’d be like ‘yo, let’s go!’ (laughs) The song has got that kind of message in it. James was writing with I think Steve Robson, who did some stuff on the early Busted material, and Steve was working with 5 Seconds of Summer. It was on the ‘Amnesia’ EP when it came out. I think they were writing some songs for a few days and one day, James just took my song into the session and said ‘hey, Chris has this song’ and I think everyone just wanted to go with it. It’s cool you know.”
What are some of your career highlights to date?
“The last few years have been amazing man. I kind of left school and started with college. Then I went surfing for a couple of months and joined this band. My band; we toured. We kind of just went around in a van together for about four years; we did the US and Canada like 10 times. We went to UK and toured there like three times; including arenas with McBusted. Then we played some awesome arenas with the Janoskians all around Europe. We ended up in Japan and Japan was tight; a real culture shock but one of the coolest and craziest places I’ve ever been. I definitely want to go back. The 5SOS song is an amazing triumph of mine and I’m stoked about that. I think this next journey is just as important mate. I’m full steam ahead. This is just getting started you know.”
What does the rest of 2016 have in store for Chris Bourne?
“Dude, definitely more music and definitely more music videos. There’s some awesome visuals that we’re putting together; I’m working with this really awesome dude out here and we’re kind of putting together these kind of visual connotations of everything. For everything that we put out, there’s this kind of story for the fans that are paying attention. They’ll understand that there’s this kind of recurring theme going on. So look out for that. And live shows for sure at some point; towards the end of the summer I believe.”
If you could leave a message for your fans, what would you say?
“I’d just say thanks you know. I haven’t really put any music out for the past year so I’m stoked for everybody still online and still paying attention. I’m stoked that you guys get to hear something this week. It’s pretty exciting; I can only hope that everyone digs it. If you dig it, show your friends and crank it as loud as possible. Go crazy!”
‘MFT80s’ will be released on iTunes tomorrow so make sure you download a copy; we certainly will be doing. Chris is currently busy at work in an LA recording studio so we can expect further musical masterpieces from him very soon. We can’t wait to hear more of his original material.
You can keep up to date with Chris Bourne’s latest projects by following @ChrisBourne on Twitter; everything from personal updates to concert and single announcements will be posted on there.
The future is looking very bright for Chris Bourne; his incredible talent and fantastic personality will take him a long way in the music industry. As Chris said, this is only just the beginning!
What do you think of Chris Bourne’s new single and music video? Let us know over on Twitter @CelebMix or leave a message in the comments section below!