Tuesday, December 2, 2014 10:03am ET by  
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Collabro tell Pressparty about receiving Prince William praise at Royal Variety Performance

It seems Collabro have the world at their feet. After winning Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year, the musical theatre inspired quintet shot to No.1 with their debut album ‘Stars’.

Now the vocal group are set to re-release the record with four new songs, including two Christmas tunes.

Pressparty caught up with the group to find out more ahead of the album’s release on December 8.

What made you decide to include Christmas songs on the album re-issue?

Richard Hadfield: It’s that time of the year and all of us love Christmas - it’s massive with our families and we’ve all realised that we love those kind of songs. We love ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’ - they’re two really key songs at this time of the year.

Are those two tracks your favourite Christmas songs or were there other ones in contention?

RH: ’All I Want Christmas Is You’ is another one that was floating about…

Matt Pagan: We did have a few, but those two are the ones we thought sounded really good and we really enjoyed singing them.

Speaking about the album in general, did you ever expect it to get to No.1?

MP: Never. Getting an album with Syco in the first place is a dream come true - it’s incredible. We never, ever thought we’d get this far and we’re really excited. Hopefully we’ll eventually we’ll do another album.

Did you have a benchmark for where you hoped the album might land in the chart?

Michael Auger: I think obviously we found out that we got 26% of the public vote out of the eleven acts from the final of Britain’s Got Talent, so we knew we had a huge following based upon those figures. And I think you always really hope for the top spot, but with such amazing artists at the time…knocking Ed Sheeran off the top spot would never happen in our minds, because we regard him so highly as an artist.

We were all travelling in the van together and we were listening to the radio and they said ‘Collabro are number one’ and we all screamed and shouted. Not everyone gets a No.1 album and we’ve done that already and we’ve gone gold already. It’s absolutely fantastic and we really want to share more music and keep reaching these landmarks. Winning Britain’s Got Talent, getting a number one album, going gold - but I want to do more. We want to tour the world.

So going global is firmly in your minds?

MA: We were in Hong Kong recently doing a showcase for Sony Asia. They absolutely loved it and we loved being there and performing. And there’s talk of us going to Australia next year, and America’s the ultimate music industry. I think it’d be great to be over there and everywhere really. If you can make yourself a global artist then you really have cracked it.

 

 

 

Are you thinking of recording any original music on your next album?

RH: Not quite yet. We’ve had a think about doing some original stuff and some of us have ideas and want to collaborate on a few things, but I think right now we want to do the musical theatre songs - they’re great songs that everyone knows and loves.

Some people say they’re covers, but with musical theatre, because of the genre, the songs get done differently by quite a lot of people. All we’re doing is freshening it up - it’s five guys singing it in a way that’s never been sung before. It’s a whole new take on some great songs that people want to hear.

Do you feel like you’re bringing musical theatre and classical to the mainstream?

MA: Absolutely. I think that was kind of our goal from the outset. When we went on Britain’s Got Talent we weren’t really sure how we’d be received. We were just five young guys that loved musical theatre and we just wanted to share that with Britain. It really took off and obviously now we want to share that with the world. Everyone seems to be resonating with it and everyone at the moment seems to be saying musical theatre has been brought into their lives more than they even knew it was around. Obviously there was the Les Mis film and there’s the Into the Woods film coming out…and you’ve got Frozen with all those fantastic songs - we’ve covered ‘Let It Go’.

Everything is really music-based and I think people can really get into the music side of it because it’s telling a story through the songs. When you don’t have any more words and speaking then you have to break out into song to get that emotion across and that’s something that we love doing when we sing. It’s showing that emotion and sharing it and trying to relate a story from our past into those lyrics. I think that’s why songs like ‘Bring Him Home’ really hit home.

Are you happy with the boyband tag that’s placed upon you?

MP: We are a boyband - we’re just five lads and we like to have a laugh and do lad things. I think we are a boyband, but we’ve just got that different element which is the genre.

You did the Royal Variety Performance recently - how was it?

Thomas Redgrave: It was absolutely incredible. I remember one moment where we were all stood on stage waiting for the Royals to come around. We just looked around at the amount of people there and the amount of people that we look up to as artists. Like Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Shirley Bassey, Bette Midler. People who are huge in the music industry - and we’re standing on stage alongside them. It was absolutely unbelievable at the time.

The performance itself was incredibly nerve-wracking and performing in front of royals isn’t something you get to do every day. But it was more nerve wracking to then meet them. You don’t want to say the wrong thing or anything like that, but they were all really nice people and they asked us what we’re doing now and what are plans for the future are.

MA: Prince William asked us what we’re up to and what we want to achieve with this band. We said we want to go global, that we’re doing our tour next year and got a book coming out and that we really just want to get across the globe. And he said with voices like that, I’m really sure you will. He didn’t need to say that and shows that he is confident in us and hopefully other people felt that too that night.

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Watch Collabro perform below: