Busted on playing Download 2024: “It was the perfect time for us to do it – we wouldn’t have done it 20 years ago”
Busted have said playing Download Festival this summer was “perfect” timing, adding that they “wouldn’t have done it 20 years ago”.
The pop group played the rock-centric festival for the first time in June, and in a new interview with Rock Sound, Charlie Simpson, Matt Willis and James Bourne have reflected on their debut set in Donington.
“Download is now THE festival for me”, Simpson said. “It’s migrated into the home of rock music, you know? And I think that’s really cool, man. It’s become the UK’s bastion of, not just metal, but a whole cross section of rock music, which is brilliant for everyone involved.”
“Before, there was maybe two per cent doubt and we had the conversation of ‘Is that the right thing to do for us?’ But that lasted maybe two minutes. We wouldn’t have done it 20 years ago. I think that would have been wrong. But now, obviously, the band has come so far, and the community has come so far. I just think it was the perfect time for us to do it, and it ended up being exactly what we all hoped it would be.”
Assessing where the set will rank in the band’s history, Simpson added: “We have markers across our career. The BRIT Awards would have been one. Splitting up would be one. Playing Glastonbury was one. I think that Download was such an important one for us.”
Download organiser Andy Copping recently spoke to NME about the need for the festival to evolve in order to survive, admitting “the festival will die if we don’t move with the times, so we have to be innovative”.
“The festival has to evolve because people’s tastes and people’s expectations evolve all the time,” he added. “We have to see what’s going on across social media and analyse the way people are consuming music in the TikTok age. All of that is super important.”
“Luckily, we’ve put together a very wide and varied young team who are giving input into what they feel the festival should be. We also talk to the fans all the time and ask them what they want to see. We seek out feedback on what we’re doing right and what we’re doing wrong. From that, we’ve found a formula that’s been working for us.”
NME attended Download 2024 and in a four-star review, wrote: “At first glance, Download 2024 seemed to be marred by a range of factors that could have signalled its downfall – even festival boss Andy Copping admitted that it was the “hardest year” to secure a line-up and the team approached over “21 bands” to find headliners. Pair that with the threat of boycott in retaliation against the Barclays sponsorship and news that this year could be the wettest in a century, and the hopes of it coming out smoothly began to waver.”
“Yet, against the odds the festival delivers one of its most promising editions in recent memory, and proves that it is one of the main events leading the way when it comes to creating opportunities for the next generation of headliners.”
Earlier this month, the festival announced its first wave of artists for 2025, including headliners Sleep Token, Green Day and KoRn. The event will run from June 13 to 15. Find all ticket information here.
In other Busted news, they recently added extra dates to their co-headline tour with McFly, which will travel around the UK and Ireland in September and October 2025. See the full list of dates here and find any remaining tickets here.
Earlier this year, they hinted to fans that they have more in the pipeline too, telling Rolling Stone UK that they have been working on new music with former Bring Me the Horizon musician Jordan Fish.
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Max Pilley
NME
