Before One Direction, there was Blue.
Before What Makes You Beautiful, there was All Rise.
Blue might not have reached the heights of 1D, but Duncan James is hoping to stir up some good memories of their time on top when he and his bandmates — Antony Costa, Lee Ryan and Simon Webbe — play in Dubai at the Emirates Golf Club on November 13.
“Everybody likes to remember that time in their life where songs like All Rise and One Love were big. And it takes you back to that moment in your life and you remember it and it’s nice taking a trip down memory lane,” James told tabloid! ahead of the concert.
Blue certainly have a lot of good memories to look back on. The band’s first taste of fame came with their debut single, All Rise, in 2001 and an album with the same name that shot to the top of the UK charts. Their following two albums, One Love and Guilty, also made it big. Then in 2005, the band decided to go on hiatus and try their hand at solo careers.
After reuniting in 2009, the band have done a bit of everything — reality shows, representing the UK in the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest and touring with other big UK bands. James himself has had a mixed bag of a career. His attempt at going solo never really kicked off, but he tried his hand at acting and now stars in the hit musical Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Things are looking up, but the singer, 37, says he’s not taking his life for granted anymore.
Let’s go back in time a bit. This is not your first concert in Dubai, is it? The band performed here in 2002. What do you remember from that show and from being in Dubai?
I just remember it being gorgeous weather. I remember it just being so hot. And actually there were a lot of British people, which was really surprising. I didn’t realise there was such a big expat community.
Do you think the band will have a similar response to the 2002 concert?
I don’t know really. I mean, we’ll have to see. I’m excited to come back to Dubai to perform with the boys. We haven’t been there as a band for over 10 years, so it’s going to be lovely to perform again. We’re really excited.
When you first started doing music you broke out it a big way in the UK and around the world. What was it like and what do you remember from that time?
I can’t really remember too much. It was such a blur for me back then. So it was so busy, we were in a different country every single day. So much happened so fast. I don’t think we appreciated everything as much because you just take a lot of things for granted. We were always in a lovely hotel, always having lovely food, always flying business class around the world. You don’t appreciate it when you’re younger, but now, I think, [since we’ve been] given the opportunity to do it again we really appreciate it and don’t take things for granted anymore.
Later, things went south for the band, financially and otherwise. What would you say happened? What went wrong?
I don’t think anything went wrong, I think it’s called life. Everybody in life has ups and downs, and it’s just part of the process. I think it makes you stronger. I don’t think anything went wrong … everything happens for a reason.
As a band, have there been any challenges working together?
I don’t think there are any difficulties. I think we really enjoy working together still. I think it’s different now because we all have children, so that is the only thing that can make things difficult.
So would you say you’ll are very close to each other?
Of course, we’re like brothers. They’re my brothers and we’re very much together as a group, and we have a lot of love and support for one another.
Apart from music, you have done a lot of reality shows as well. Going from a major touring band, what was the shift to TV like?
I think it’s quite difficult in this day and age to promote yourself on television because unless you’re from a television show like X Factor, there aren’t any television shows that have musical guests. So I think you have to do reality TV just to get yourself out there nowadays … it is a very different industry now to what it was fifteen years ago. It’s all very social media-based and internet-based.
What can you say you’ve learned from fame and the music industry?
I think I’ve learned a lot about myself actually, because you get to document yourself over the years by being on TV and you get to see your growth. So in a way it’s quite a nice thing because you can just see how you’ve grown physically and mentally, and look back at some of the old interviews and television shows we did back in the day, and I look at how I looked and my hair and the clothes and the stuff that I was saying, and it’s very different now.
As someone who has been in a band for a long time, do you have any advice for bands?
No, I think everybody has to figure out their own stuff. I know my growth and what I’ve learnt from it and I think if I can go back and talk to a younger me, I think I would tell myself to not worry so much and let things go a lot more and try not to let stress get the better of me and just try to be happier and accepting of myself more, that’s what I would have told myself.
What do you think you think you’re going to do as a group going forward? Do you have anything big planned?
It’s fifteen years of Blue next year, so we’ve got a greatest hits album coming out and we got all sorts of things lined up, which is pretty exciting. We have a big concert somewhere, which I am not allowed to talk about, but we’re really excited to be back together. So I’m looking forward to that.
You did a tour, The Big Reunion, with Atomic Kitten and Take 5. How was that?
It was great. It was nostalgic, which is why this concert in Dubai is going to be great, which again is nostalgia. I think that it was really fun doing that show with all those bands and back in the day they were bands I grew up listening to as well.
Do you still have people stop you in the streets and say, “hey, I listened to your music when I was younger”?
Yeah, of course, I get that all the time and it’s nice, you know, when people come up to me and tell me my music helped them though some part of their life.
Do you see yourself performing in that kind of reunion again, with other bands?
No, I don’t know. I think we’ve done that now, ticked another box. I’m just looking forward to continuing to do stuff with Blue and obviously with my own career as well. I do a lot of musical theatre, which I really enjoy, I love acting. So as long as I keep working, I’ll be happy.
So in the next five years, would you be doing more acting?
I’m doing a musical at the moment [Priscilla Queen Of The Desert], which I really enjoy and I love acting. I’d love to be able to do a movie in Hollywood. That would be my dream, my goal.
And with Blue, do you see yourself with the guys down the line?
Of course, I think Blue will always be there. I think we will always have the opportunity to do stuff. I love being with the boys, I love singing together and it’s part of me. Blue is a part of me. So I would always hope that we will always be able to perform … that’s the most important thing.
Don’t miss it
Tickets, priced at Dh240, are available on platinumlist.net.
