JAMES Bourne is calling me from London, or more accurately, his PR calls from his record label, and patches him in. He tells me he has just been in a rehearsal for a musical.

I’m intrigued.

Halstead Gazette:

“I’m not IN the musical” he makes it clear, “I am the composer for it”.

The musical he is speaking of is called Murder at the Gates, (Steven Sater books and lyrics, James Bourne composer), which was about to have its first showing (a rehearsed reading) at The Other Palace theatre in Westminster around the time of our conversation.

Working as a songwriter for other artists and projects outside of being in Busted with Charlie Simpson and Matt Willis, is what James Bourne does.

Busted of course, first formed almost two decades ago in 2000, when they were all fresh faced with big toothy grins, and wore emo hairstyles.

Once they released their first single, two years later, they got really big, really quickly. They disbanded at the peak of their fame in 2005 and then reformed in 2015. They have just released their second Busted album since reforming (their fourth album in total) and these days are quite beardy and fairly rugged looking in comparison, which is an interesting contrast given their much talked about recent return to their original Busted sound, which was pure pop-punk boy band. On the latest album however, the song lyrics are more about looking back and nostalgia. Their press release sent out with the album suggests they have attempted to encompass the feeling of "growing up without growing old".

I prod James to tell me a bit more about the musical and his song writing career.

I’m interested to learn about the life of a man who was just a teenager when thrust into the crazy whirlwind of pop, when it was reported the trio didn't even know how to open their own mail at the height of their fame. They'd shot to the top following open auditions held by Warner Music Group to form a new band. The band which went on to make numerous top five records about subjects such as having a crush on a teacher and the Year 3000.

There’s something heartening to learn how James has matured and carved out a life as a composer. I imagine him at the piano in a smoking jacket, tinkling on the ivories to create show tunes at the grand old age of 35. I don’t know if my curiosity about wanting to talk about the musical temporarily confuses him and he is now wondering why exactly this particular journalist out of the many he has to speak to, is calling him and from where - or maybe he just hasn’t the time for chit chat and wants to get straight down to business so he can get back to his rehearsals – but he responds to my question with: “This call is about Village Green isn’t it?”

“It is indeed,” I say, and decide to play ball and get on with the job in hand.

Yes, it’s true folks, it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke. Busted, the multi-BRIT Award-winning band, are truly coming home to play in the middle of Chalkwell Park on July 13, to headline this mammoth family festival which has a diverse multi-arts line up featuring comedy, music, visual arts and more, all for the bargain early bird ticket price of £0-£15, depending on your age and circumstances.

I wonder if James ever catches himself about how his life has turned out, performing on big stages all over the world, and how it might feel to now be looking at doing a big gig in the middle of a park, where presumably he spent time as a kid.

“Yes, I used to run around Chalkwell Park as a kid, when I was at school. I think it will be surreal and really fun” he says.

I tell him I’ve seen lots of excited comments flying about on social media from the local arm of the Busted fan base, and ask what they can expect from the set. Will it be full of the band’s new songs, or will they play some of the old ones which propelled them into the limelight in the first place?

“We always play the hits” he says, “we don’t deny fans the hits. We will play songs from the new album, but we do tend to listen to what the fans want. We ask what they will prefer to hear on social media and we listen to them.”

It’s with this ‘giving the fans what they want’ ethos, that the band’s recent album, Half Way There, was made.

Willis was quoted as saying about it: “the plan was simple: ‘How do we make the ultimate Busted album?’ The result, is the record we would’ve made if we hadn’t split up. It’s in-line with the trajectory of where the band was going.”

James tell me: “Night Driver – which was the first album we made after we got back together – was very different to the kind of music the fans expected from us. When we got back together, the three of us decided we wanted to make music about what we wanted, and forget about how the band was perceived. Once we knew what we wanted to make, we made it very easily.

“It took us a while to then make a ‘Busted’ album.”

The writing process for Half Way There, explains James, took place in the same apartment block in north London, where it all started for Busted. He still owns an apartment there you see.

“I set up some writing sessions there – it was like a modern day version of how the band used to write. We just start using acoustic guitars and a piano and come up with ideas until we hit on a song that everyone is feeling, then it will become four or five songs, and so on. The actual song writing process is very natural really. If one person doesn’t like an idea then we all move on from it.”

Busted’s life growing up under the spotlight, the press around the split where Charlie was reported as saying being in Busted was ‘like torture’ has been well documented, conjuring up ideas that the band were somehow pushed creatively into doing what they didn’t want to do. I wonder how much of that was the truth and how it may have changed today.

James’ take on it seems fairly matter of fact.

“Well, actually, it was Charlie who left because he wasn’t happy with the way things were, but I was very happy in the band” he said. “We were never told by the label to release anything we didn’t want to write, and I wrote all the songs, so I was happy.

“Now even more so we stick together, communicate things... We all write the songs together now, and we have a different kind of record deal meaning we make a lot more decisions. We’re really hands on with the band. We really know much more about the business. The more deals you sign and the longer you are in the business and get experience, the more you understand it.”

Lots of words like ‘manufactured’ were tossed about when Busted first appeared on the cover of Smash Hits in 2002 before they even had their first single released, so it’s with respect to note they have stayed in the game for this long, not to mention the fact they have sold millions of records. Millions. And in the interim of the Busted split, they managed to get their own successful solo projects rolling, such as Fightstar for Charlie Simpson, Son of Dorke and Future Boy for James, and a solo music career followed by TV presenting for Matt Willis. Oh and let’s not forget McBusted, the fusion project between the members of fellow pop band McFly with Bourne and Willis from Busted.

James doesn’t sound like a Southender. He speaks with a Trans-Atlantic twang. He also makes for a very ‘professional’ interviewee – he answers questions politely and elaborates enough to give you material, but then he stops, waiting for the next cue. It’s not so much a rolling, natural conversation where you can often imagine having a good drink with the artist you’re interviewing and start asking questions off course. It’s very slick and polished as if we’re here to get the job done, do the phoner, the promotion, move on, type thing. It’s as if he has this probably least-liked, but necessary side of the job down, having grown up doing it. And of course he has. I wonder what kind of life James lives… how ‘normal’ it is, how he keeps his feet on the ground.

“I suppose I don’t really have a regular life” he admits, “but for me, I do keep my feet on the ground, because what I do as a job has nothing to do with fame or anything like that. But I am always thinking about composing, I live to compose, that’s my normal, feet on the ground state.”

“I’ve lived a lot of the time in London and in L.A, where I can be creative, and I wouldn’t say that was a ‘normal’ existence for someone who has grown up as a regular person in Southend” James adds, “but really, the creating, that’s everything, and that’s all it’s been about my whole life, and that’s what I wanted to do for work, when I was living in a seaside town and going to school.

“I remember my mum driving to school along the seafront, and a song would come on in the car that I loved, and that was such a buzz, listening to it, and that was what made me realise what I wanted to do with my life. The fame thing doesn’t really enter my mind. I guess Busted is a pop band, I guess famous is what they call us, but my lifestyle as a working song writer is a lot more real than the fabrication of fame. Fame can’t be understood or contained in a jar… my passion for creating music, composing far outweighs anything to do with fame.”

I’m thinking about the smoking jacket again, but I don’t mention it.

Another part in helping him keep his feet on the ground is surely coming back to Southend.

“Yes I do visit” he says, “in fact I was back only a couple of nights ago, visiting family. I haven’t lived there since I was 17 when I left to live in a ‘band house’ in north London, but I go back.

“I think playing in Chalkwell Park will be surreal… it will put everything into perspective, seeing people in the crowd that we know. I mean, we’ve played everywhere, all over the world, and then to go back and play in our hometown is just so cool. It’s humbling really. We’re one big planet earth!”

Busted will be headlining at Village Green on Saturday July 13.

Tickets are on sale now from villagegreenfestival.com