Autobiography
By the time I was 10, I'd broken 28 bones in my body. The doctors recognised that I was quite brittle-boned when I was a kid, but they could never pinpoint whether I actually had brittle bone disease. I think with hindsight I’d probably put it down more to the fact that I was being an idiot: I spent most of my early years jumping out of trees, climbing up walls and competing with myself to see how high I could get, or how near to the edge I could push myself. In some ways I haven't changed - I still push myself to my limits. My mum (Linda) and my dad (Kevin) met down at a workingmen's club in the 1980's. At that point my mum was fourteen and my dad was nineteen, which was a bit scandalous in those days, and everyone told them that the relationship wouldn't last. In fact they were happy together for over a decade, during which time they had two kids. First was my older brother, Darren, who's now in a band called The Undecided. And then, two years later, I came along. I was born in Tooting, south London, but while I was still baby-sized we moved to Molesy, a suburban area of Surrey. Hampton Court is nearby and I remember that sometimes me and my mates would sneak into the Hampton Court maze at night and get totally lost. I don't think we ever figured that maze out. Some of Molesy is really posh, with massive houses all owned by millionaires. That's East Molesy, which is separated from the West, which is a really working class area, by a little alleyway. And right on that little alleyway is the house where I grew up. My mum used to call me Fidget. I was never allowed E numbers in things like orange squash, because they'd send me mental - and I was always the kid who got lost when we went shopping, running off and getting up to mischief. I was quite independent as a child and I didn't like being told what to do. I was never indoors, either: there's a park just across from where I live where I’d be all the time. One of my earliest memories is of being round at my auntie and uncle's house. They're the biggest Elvis fans I've ever met. When we used to go round for Christmas and birthdays they'd always have his performances on the video, and they'd sit me down in front of the telly. It was almost as if they were trying to teach me to be a pop star, even at a really young age. Needless to say, I was captivated. He had this aura around him - he was cool, and legendary, and, regardless of what the music was like, he just was pop. He was everything a pop star should have been, I guess.
When I was three, my parents split up. It wasn't too difficult for me; after all, I was probably too young to understand what was going on. But I do remember my dad suddenly not being there in the house any more. It was weird, but I’d still see him almost every day, and he was always around when I needed him. When I got to school age, my dad would pick me up in the morning and take me to the sweet shop before school. It was something I'd always look forward to - he'd always have a joke for me in the morning, and I'd go into school and tell the joke and everyone would laugh. I remember that there was never much spare cash around. Infact, it was sometimes a bit of a struggle - my mum worked in pubs and my dad worked in a factory neither of those jobs pay fantastically, but we were happy and it was a really loving environment. Around that time my mum met Brian, my stepfather, and shortly afterwards they gave me my first sister. Amanda is fifteen now, and as I write this is preparing for her GCSEs. I hope she ends up doing better than I did!
At school I was mischievous rather than naughty - but I didn't find that I was inspired by lessons. It was something I did because I had to. My teachers were giving me hassle - once I was pigeon holed as being a troublemaker I'd often find myself blamed for things I hadn't even done. I literally couldn't do anything right, and it was a total pain in the arse. I'd get so frustrated. I'd come home and my mum would be on the phone to the school, and she'd go, 'Matt, what the hell have you been doing now?' Fortunately my mum believed my side of the story, and because my GCSE's were coming up she suggested that I moved schools to start anew. Bizarrely, the school I ended up at was the school my little sister was already at! I enjoyed that school a lot more and got involved in the school plays, even though stuff like drama was desperately uncool for a Molesy boy. As it happened, though, I was only at that school for a year.
The change came one evening, when I was at a pub in Hastings with my family. It was a karaoke night and my mum made this big deal out of the fact that she'd never heard me sing, and made such a fuss that I agreed to go onstage. She wanted me to sing 'Love Is All Around' by Wet Wet Wet, but I thought, 'Bugger that', and went for 'Don't Look Back In Anger' by Oasis instead. I did my whole Noel Gallagher thing, finished the song and sat back down with my mum. Almost immediately I was accosted by some bloke who'd been in the audience, who explained that he was entering one of his songs for something called the Vivian Ellis Award, which I later found out was the annual prize for songwriters. He explained that he needed someone to sing on his track and that I'd be perfect.
So I went over to his studio a week later. When I arrived I thought the studio was amazing, firstly because it had carpet actually on the walls, and secondly, more importantly, because I’d never been in a studio before! (When I look back now, I can see that the studio was actually a bit crappy). I did the track for him and thought nothing of it - but a week later he phoned me up and said, 'I hope you don't mind, but I've heard that there's a scholarship going at Sylvia Young theatre school, and I've put your name forward for it.' To be honest I thought the idea of stage school was a bit poncey, and nobody in my family had ever done anything like that before, so it was all strange territory. I said, 'Well, that's very nice of you, but I can't afford it', because I didn't understand anything about scholarships. But my mum insisted that I took the chance, so I went along to the audition, which involved a bit of acting and singing a song. I came out of the audition thinking I'd done OK, but after a week had passed I thought I'd had my chance and blown it. Just when I was beginning to forget about going to Sylvia Young's, Sylvia actually phoned my house. She said that she loved what I had done - but that the scholarship had already been given away. Then she offered me a deal - she said that if I went on her agency books for ads and TV programmes and things, I could pay off my fees using the money I earned. I'm still really indebted to Sylvia for taking me on.
I remember my first day at Sylvia's really clearly. My first reaction was, 'There are so many fit birds in my class. This is awesome.' There were about 24 girls in my class, and only 5 boys, which is the kind of ratio I like. But it was a total culture shock to go from my old school, where there'd be fights breaking out all over the place, to Sylvia's where the most dangerous thing in the corridors was someone pirouetting wildly by a window. I got a few acting jobs while I was with Sylvia, but I wasn't too enthusiastic for three reasons. Firstly because when I did things like The Bill and Casualty I'd always end up being cast as a drug dealer! Secondly because I preferred the idea of immersing myself in a part, rather than just flicking into it and out of it for 30 seconds on the screen. And thirdly, most importantly, because by that point I was really getting into my music.
There had always been music around me when I was young. My dad, for example, had been a huge fan of Madness, a band I still love today - I think they've probably been a big influence on Busted, because they always wrote really well about what it was like to be young, with a sense of humour and a real talent for pop song writing.
My brother, being a couple of years older than me, had got me into some of his favourite bands, too - bands like Green Day, and the whole pop punk movement that was coming over from America. When I was thirteen I entered a competition on TV to win a drum kit and somehow won it, so this huge top-of-the-range kit arrived through the front door one morning. Bad news for my parents but good news for me and my mates Peter and Chris - before long I'd formed a band with them and my brother. We called ourselves Sabotage. We were actually bloody awful, performed nothing but Green Day covers, and never played a single gig, but it was a really good laugh.
While I was still at Sylvia's I went into the recording studio for a second time, to help out a mate - Miles Slater - who was putting together a garage track. We recorded two songs - 'Sunshine Lover', which was rubbish, and 'Make You Mine', which I still really love. When that track went down really well in the clubs, I knew I wanted to pursue music. It was just a question of what style. I knew I didn't want to be in a rock band because I've always had a really commercial ear, but at the same time I hated the pop music that was around at the time. But when I first heard Blink-182 I heard 'All The Small Things' on the radio, then saw the video a week later, and fell in love with them. It really excited me, and it was just what I was after. Not long after that, I met James.....
In a way I sometimes feel fake living this life now when my mates are still back home, working hard to do well for themselves. I've had to grow up fast, and it's been weird having to establish my priorities so early in life...In a way I feel like I've escaped where I was, but at the same time I know that I never want to leave behind my working class roots. It's just that I always knew I had something to do with me life. I still think I've got something to prove, and something to do. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I know I'm on the right path.
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Я года два назад ваще так по нему сохла......он мне чуть ли не каждую ночь снился...............)
