Simpson Complains Universal Turned Busted Into Machine

ContactMusic.com reports that former Busted, current Fightstar frontman Charlie Simpson said Universal was to blame for turning “three songwriters” into a boyband “machine”, prompting him to ditch the chart-topping trio. “I was in London and an opportunity came up. At the time, when blink-182 and Green Day broke and the whole pop-punk thing went really big and I just thought, ‘It’s better than being at school,’ so I gave it a go,” Simpson explained of his decision to join Busted. “And it ended up being this massive thing and I was like, ‘Oh sh**!’ When I joined it was three songwriters writing music for a laugh. And then it got put into this machine that was Universal and came out as a big-branded thing. It was a fun three years and it just came to the point where I wanted something that my heart was in.”