How Charlie Simpson came round to a Busted reunion

Ten years after their split all three members of Busted are getting back together, including Charlie Simpson.

That's the same Charlie who once told Newsbeat that "not in a million years would we reform".

He's getting back together with James Bourne and Matt Willis to reform the band who had eight top 10 hits in the 2000s.

The band will now tour arenas across the UK in 2016.

Speaking to Newsbeat at today's launch, Simpson said: "I wholeheartedly never believed that I would be sat here talking about the Busted reunion."

See the video of the band talking about getting back together.

Since he left the group in 2005, Charlie Simpson has repeatedly said that he would never get the band back together.

- The Guardian, 2006 - On being in Busted: "I didn't want to go out, because I didn't want to be recognised for what I was being recognised for."

- Yorkshire Evening Post, 2009 - On Fightstar: "Busted was just a fun job at the time, it was pop music, but it wasn't satisfying my musical hunger."

- Newsbeat, 2011 - "For me Busted is a lifetime ago, it has no relevance to my life right now."

- Digital Spy, 2014 - Admits he hasn't played a Busted song since the band split up.

In an interview with This Morning in 2014, the stance softened.

He told Phil and Holly that he'd been back in touch with James and Matt and seemed less bitter about the Busted days.

Busted in the glamorous surroundings of a lift at the BBC in 2003

On all that Newsbeat interview where he said he would never get back with Busted, Simpson said: "I reckon I said it 20 more times than that, privately and publicly, and I meant it every single time.

"But as I say I have changed my mind and that has been down to the circumstances changing. I never thought we would get to a point where we were in a studio writing music we all got behind creatively and that was a huge shock to me.

Listen to the group talk about why they got back together again.

"You've got to remember I was 18-years old. I was very, very young. There was a lot that was going on around us, a lot of pressure, I found that quite difficult.

"So when I say I hated it, a lot of it was to do with that.

"Creatively, obviously I had a burning desire to go and do something else. And at the time I had to do that and it was right that I did that. And as I say, 11 years on, I've had a lot of time to look back and I'm a different person now."

The theme song to the 2004 Thunderbirds movie was the band's final number one

Charlie Simpson in Fightstar in 2009

Charlie Simpson recently wrote a song with a tribe in Namibia

After Busted came Fightstar, then a solo career with two albums.

In 2013, Matt and James teamed up with their mates McFly to create McBusted, although there was no sign of Charlie.

In an interview, Simpson admitted that he hadn't had the chance to see the band as he was recording his second album.

On the band's reunion, Simpson said: "It really has been 10 years since we hung out; we'd talked on the phone a few times, and met a couple of times.

"But there was this huge void of time where we just didn't speak.

"Not because he had any issues but I was off doing my own thing, and he was busy, so we just drifted apart."

See Charlie Simpson's tweet about Busted reforming.

See James Bourne's Instagram picture of the band back together.

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