Alien Uncovered first appeared on our TV screens on the 2015 series of the X Factor. The group were hugely successful, making it to the live shows and being dubbed by Simon Cowell as the female One Direction.
Since the show, Yaz, Shae, Natalie, Madison and Temple have been working on new music and are set to release their new single ‘Handle It’. CelebMix sat down for an in-depth chat with the girls as they discussed new music, female empowerment and their time spent on the X Factor.
You’re about to release your new single, ‘Handle It’. What can we expect?
Shae: It’s very risky. It’s very uplifting. It’s about female empowerment and how its okay to express your sexuality and embrace who you are.
Did you go straight into the studio after the X Factor?
Natalie: Pretty much, yeah. As soon as we came off the show, gigging, gaining more fanbase, building our platform. Straight after that, literally, studio.
Is your EP coming out soon?
Shae: EP, we’re looking at end of the year, but we’re all about ‘Handle It’ for now.
You’ve been keeping your fans in suspense on Twitter with ‘Handle It’. Is it nice to have that fanbase online?
Madison: They’re really loyal to us as well which is lovely, and they’ve kind of been there since the beginning. So it’s nice to give back to them.
One song you’ve got out already is ‘Starboy’, a cover of The Weeknd. Is there anybody else you’d like to cover?
Yaz: We’d do The Weeknd again.
Madison: Even duet with The Weeknd.
Shae: He’s at the O2 so if he needs a support act, tell him to give us a call.
Who would you like to support on tour?
Natalie: Kanye would be so sick.
Shae: Kanye would be ultimate.
Madison: Rihanna.
Have you got any plans to tour yourself?
Madison: We’re gonna do a little school/uni tour to promo this song, mini radio tour to promo the song and then hopefully later in the year we might have our own Alien tour.
Are there any festivals you’d like to perform at?
Shae: We’ve got a couple lined up. We can’t give too much away yet. If we could do main stage of something like Wireless, that’d be pretty cool, or like Lovebox.
It’s been a year since you were on X Factor. How do you look back at your time on the show?
Natalie: Now the most recent X Factor’s just gone it makes you reminisce like, “that was us”.
Temple: It was a good experience though. We did learn a lot.
Madison: I think it made us stronger as a unit as well. Girl power.
Shae: It made us more independent too.
Are you still in touch with Cheryl?
Shae: Here and there. We always talk via social media.
What about any of the other contestants?
Yaz: Everyone, really. I think our year was a tight year. We were quite lucky that everyone got on.
Shae: Everyone’s super supportive of each other as well. It’s like a family.
How long were you together before X Factor?
Madison: A year and a half before we went on the show.
Shae: As Alien it must be three [years] then.
How did you get together?
Shae: Originally we were in a group before which was myself, Temple, Yaz and two other girls. One day we were like, let’s do what we want and make it more alien and make it more urban, and we held some auditions and found these guys [Madison and Natalie] and that was basically when Alien was born.
X Factor bands have been extremely successful. Are you hoping to follow in their footsteps?
Shae: Of course. ‘The female 1D’, I think we were referred to once.
Natalie: As Simon Cowell said.
Yaz: The Spice Girls from Mars.
Do you have a Spice Girl each?
Shae: Temple was Superhero Spice.
Natalie: I’m a bit like Posh Spice, chilled out.
Shae: We’d be superheroes [instead].
When you were eliminated from X Factor, Yaz said ‘everything happens for a reason’. Do you think it did?
Yaz: I’m a strong believer in that and I think it does. We came out on This is Me week so it’s perfect. If we’d stayed longer, I feel like maybe the themes could have been harder for us to be us. It worked out perfect[ly] really.
You’re all about girl power and female empowerment. What do you think about the Women’s Marches?
Madison: I wanted to go to one but I was sad because I didn’t get the memo.
Shae: It’s cool to see women around the world coming together as a unit and standing up for what they believe in, and obviously that’s something we really support.
Do you want to be a role model to your younger fans?
All: Definitely.
Yaz: I think it’s good because there are five of us, each girl can be like ‘I love Temple, she’s like me’.
Natalie: They can relate to each and every one of us.
Shae: We’ve already inspired quite a lot of our fans, which is cool. We get really lovely emails, from people from Mexico to Brazil, and they’re always saying ‘you changed my life’. We were recently part of a campaign with the Diana awards about bullying. When you’re in this position you have that opportunity to speak out and empower people.
Yaz: It can make them be who they are.
We’ve got some questions from fans on Twitter.
What's your favourite thing about being an Alien and what has been your favourite moment so far? #CMAlienUncovered
— Daniel ? (@Ldn_212) January 26, 2017
Natalie: I think one thing about being an Alien is knowing that you can be different, not afraid to express yourself. Just knowing that you’re different from everyone else, hence why we’re called Alien.
Shae: I think favourite moment for me was the first live show of X Factor. Just standing in that tunnel, ready to come out.
Natalie: It’s that moment when it’s like [X Factor man voice] ‘Alien Uncovered’.
#CMAlienUncovered fave song of 2017 so far
— Ben (@PhreshOutFenty) January 25, 2017
Shae: ‘Shape of You’ is a bomb, I give that to Ed. It’s a different vibe for him so it’s very risky, but it’s really pulled off.
Would you ever consider changing hair colours for a bit? ? Love how it normanlly is btw ?? #CMAlienUncovered
— Soheila Clifford Fan (@FanSoheila) January 25, 2017
Temple: I wouldn’t. I’ve done other colours, I’ve done everything else before so I’m happy with my red.
Natalie: I think I’d happily change colour because I’m sick and tired of just black.
Shae: I’ve experimented too much. This is the first colour I’ve had where I’ve thought this is the one.
Madison: I’d like to go Kylie Jenner teal.
Shae: I’d like to have rainbow hair just for one day.
What ideas do you get for when you make your original songs and what's it like to make them? ???#CMAlienUncovered
— Soheila Clifford Fan (@FanSoheila) January 25, 2017
Temple: It’s just the vibe really. What does the music sound like? What do you feel when you listen to it?
Madison: We take our life experiences sometimes, and you’re like ‘how are you feeling today Temps’ and Temps is like ‘I’m angry’ – okay, let’s write with that.
Shae: ‘Squad Goals’ was an angry song.
What about ‘Handle It’?
Yaz: Oh, that’s another kind of mood.
Temple: You’ll get it when you listen to it.
Shae: It’s about embracing who you are as a female. It could be taken however you wanna take it.
When will we hear it?
Shae: Preorder is on Sunday [29 Jan]. We’ll give sneak previews away but you’ll have to wait until 10 Feb to hear the whole track.
Natalie: Video will be a couple of weeks later.
Is everyone ready to hear it?
Shae: That’s why we waited so long, because we wanted people to be ready. We didn’t want to do it too prematurely. Now, they’re eager, they’re waiting for it and we can deliver. It’s like our reward to the fans, to say thank you.
Do you have any more plans for the future?
Madison: So hopefully an EP, a few more singles this year maybe.
Natalie: Possibly an album.
Yaz: A trip to Mars…
We’re excited for the year ahead.
Shae: This is our year, keep a look out. January, we start as we mean to go on.
CelebMix fans can follow you on Twitter…
Natalie: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, everything all under ‘Alien Uncovered’.
You can preorder Alien Uncovered’s new single ‘Handle It’ now on iTunes. Are you excited about what the girls have in store? Let us know with a tweet @CelebMix.