James Bourne tells The Daily Star that it was probably fortunate that he and his Busted bandmates broke up before putting out a third album. “That third Busted album – if we’d made it, it would have been awful anyway,” Bourne said. “Our heads were all in so many different places. Matt really wanted to bang mine and Charlie’s together when we were trying to work on it.”

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.”

Fightstar frontman Charlie Simpson tells Attitude magazine that he nearly walked out on Busted as long ago as Christmas 2003 after being forced to pose for a festive “Three Kings” picture for the cover of BBC pre-teen mag It’s Hot. “It’s been really confusing. Before Busted I was in bands with my mates back home, then the next thing I was living in London and dressing up as a king,” Simpson said. “It’s not that I haven’t enjoyed Busted, but Busted is a piss around and the aim of being in bands, ultimately, is to be in your ‘favourite’ band. That’s the idea with Fightstar. Not to sell records.”

Aaron Buckingham from V shared his thoughts on the breakup of Busted last week, and revealed that he was offered to try out for the band when they first formed but turned it down. “Whether you were a fan or not you only have to look at the pop acts to be launched in the last year or the pop acts due to be launched in the next year (go Faders!) to see that Charlie, James and Matt have changed the face of pop music, although for the sake of my boy band career I hope they haven’t changed it for good,” Aaron wrote. “Having supported the guys on their two sell-out arena tours last year I can hand on heart say they’re all really cool guys – and genuine also, which is rare in this industry.”