James Bourne

For the 19th century painter, see James Bourne (artist).

James Elliot Bourne
Birth name	James Elliot Bourne
Also known as	Future Boy, JB
Born	13 September 1983 (1983-09-13) Rochford, Essex, England
Genres	Pop, pop rock, pop punk, powerpop, electronica
Occupations	Musician, singer, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano drums, bass, piano
Years active	2001–present
Labels	Mercury, Sic Puppy
Associated acts	Busted, Son of Dork, McFly, Call Me When I'm 18
Website	www.jamesbourne.com

James Elliot Bourne (born 13 September 1983 in Rochford, Essex, England) is an English singer-songwriter and co-founder of pop bands Son of Dork and Busted. He is currently pursuing a solo career while simultaneously working on the Future Boy project. His albums have sold over six million copies.

Biography

Bourne was born in Rochford, Essex to Peter and Maria Bourne and moved to Southend-on-Sea at age ten months. He has a sister called Melissa and two brothers called Nick and Chris. Chris, his youngest brother, appeared in the music video for Busted's song "Year 3000" as the neighbour who builds the time machine. Nick appeared in a few Busted videos such as "Who's David" and "You Said No". Bourne attended the independent fee-paying Thorpe Hall School in Southend-On-Sea. Bourne plays electric guitar most often, but he has stated that his best instrument is piano. He also plays the drums and bass guitar. Bourne claims that he is still good friends with Matt Willis and Charlie Simpson (the other members of Busted) and McFly. Bourne is the owner of a De Lorean DMC-12 and drives a Volkswagen Golf. He also owns an American skating and apparel company called SicPuppy, named after a band he was once a member of. Bourne paid over £16,000 for his own record company, Sicpuppy Records, which, in 2007, gave unsigned UK bands a chance to play on the Sic Tour 2007 in Shepherd's Bush Empire. The event was hosted by David Gest and Matt Willis.

Bourne started to get into music at the age of 6, when he discovered his main idol, Michael Jackson through the Simpsons after Bart Simpson. He was intrigued by the line "dancing like Michael Jackson" and was eager to find out who it was – When he did, and started listening to his music, he was amazed. After seeing Jackson live a year later, Bourne soon decided that his new aim in life would be being able to play his songs. James attended Morgan Academy of Performing Arts, based in Essex, and the head being Vanda Morgan. James dated Kara Tointon when he was there (Dawn, Eastenders).

By the time he was twelve, he decided to form a band called Sic Puppy with his friends, Nick and Jeremy. They started off without a bassist and had band practice in his friend's bedroom. As time passed by they found themselves a bigger rehearsal space and a bassist called Stewart, but as they got older, they lost interest in rehearsing and Sic Puppy eventually fizzled out. Sic Puppy is now used for James' Clothing range and Record label.

Music career

Busted

At the age of 17, Bourne dropped out of the South East Essex college course in Music Technology to pursue his music career. He eventually met Matt Willis through Busted's manager Matthew Fletcher, who told him he had found someone with the same ideas as him and Matt and James soon started writing songs together at Bourne's house in Southend. Willis and Bourne soon decided that they couldn't form a band with just two members, so they decided to place an ad for a third member in NME magazine. They soon held auditions and after listening to a few songs the two had written together, Charlie Simpson joined the band. After singing to Universal in 2002, Busted released their first single, "What I Go To School For", from their self-titled debut album in September that year, which quickly became #3 in the UK charts. "Year 3000" soon followed and became a hit as well reaching #2 in the charts, their third single "You Said No" was a #1 hit.

By the end of the band's career, they had managed eight top 10 singles and four number ones - "You Said No", "Crashed the Wedding", "Who's David?" and "Thunderbirds Are Go". Despite their success, Busted split on 14 January 2005 after just three years, following Simpson's decision to leave the band to concentrate on his side project Fightstar.

Mcfly

Mcfly really began when Bourne invited Fletcher to a songwriting session one evening at Princess park manor at the Busted house. After a successful evening's work Bourne and Fletcher went on to form a successful writing relationship penning the majority of Mcfly's debut album before the rest of the band was even in place. It was this unique writing relationship that inspired the whole idea of the band. Bourne has had cuts on all of Mcfly's albums except "Above the Noise". Bourne introduced Mcfly to the country on their first ever TV performance on CDUK and played a significant role in their rise to success.

Son of Dork

After Busted split in January 2005, Bourne formed a new pop rock band the following summer, named Son of Dork. They released their first single, "Ticket Outta Loserville" in November 2005, followed by their debut album, Welcome to Loserville, two weeks later. Son of Dork split up in the later half of 2007, after David Williams, Chris Leonard and Steve Rushton left the band.

Call Me When I'm 18

In February 2009, Bourne announced that he was starting a new band, Call Me When I'm 18,featuring himself on guitar and vocals and Ollie Kinski on bass and vocals. They stopped writing and recording because of family and relationship troubles. Leaked demo's have surfaced the internet on YouTube Demo's include Go Home Monday, Dumbstruck and Break It.

Future Boy

Following the split of Son of Dork, Bourne is now pursuing a musical career as a solo artist under the name of Future Boy inspired by Bournes favourite Movie Back to the Future. In June 2009, Bourne announced that he had began recording his debut solo album; "not a rock album. It is 100% electronic." Future Boy will be bringing out a new "Volume" album of new songs every six months, every release will be on the 3rd of every month with Future Boys motto as "Always the 3rd"^{[citation needed]}.

Volume 1

Volume 1 was produced and mixed by Tommy Henriksen and James Bourne at Henriksen's Anarchy Studio's in Nashville and Los Angeles.

Side A of Volume 1 was released on 3 May 2010; the album was released via his official website and not a record label. Side A featured five songs.

Side B would be released on 3 June. Despite this, Bourne released the album two days earlier. Side B featured a further five songs, including a ballad with his girlfriend Gabriela Arciero. As part of Valentine's Day, Future Boy posted a new track on Facebook called "Dangerous" for Valentines; the song didn't make the final cut for Volume 1.

Volume 2 - Space Travellers

Volume 2 was originally set to be released in Summer 2011 within a Facebook game called "Space Travellers", users would be able to unlock songs by progressing though the game. However, as of February 2012 the side-scrolling game has yet to be released for unknown reasons.

Volume 3

Bourne announced via his Twitter that he was beginning writing Volume 3 despite the delays behind Space Travellers.

Solo project

Alongside his alter ego act Future Boy, James revealed on Kali FM live on air that he would be releasing a solo EP and aired some songs on the radio show. The EP is set to be released in the summer. James promised to go back to a Busted kind of sound with guitars instead of the synth based Future Boy songs. Rumours circulated that the EP might be self titled. Songs including "Gone" & "One of A Kind", were played on air. On his Facebook, Bourne revealed it would in fact be a solo album and will include the track 'Beautiful Girls are the Loneliest'.

Live

In June 2010, Bourne did his debut live show as Future Boy as he opened for Allstar Weekend debut Album Release Party show at Roxy in West Hollywood, California.

In October 2010, Future Boy toured with Twenty Twenty on their 'FanTTastic' across the UK promoting Volume 1.

Future Boy's live band members currently consist of Bourne (vocals), Brandon Patton (bass) or Riccardo Scirè (bass) and Timmy Wright (drums).

Songwriting

Bourne wrote the majority of Busted's two albums with Matt Willis, Charlie Simpson and Tom Fletcher (McFly). Busted's style of music can also be identified in songs with his next band Son of Dork’s poppier tracks.

Bourne has helped write at least one song on every McFly album Room on the 3rd Floor, Wonderland and Motion in the Ocean. He also helped write several songs on their fourth album, Radio:Active. He takes a lot of writing credits for artists such as Melanie C for which he wrote "Immune" for her fourth studio album "This Time". Other artists include MC Lars, with whom he wrote the song "Twenty-three" on the "This Gigantic Robot Kills" album, and Pat Monahan, with whom he co-wrote "Great Escape" on the album "Last Of Seven". Bourne has recently been writing with his girlfriend's band The Lunabelles and JC Chasez as well as unknown artists as a part of Metrophonic. He has also helped write songs for the British Drama Brittania High. He also wrote Eoghan Quigg's debut solo single "28,000 Friends", which was originally performed by Bourne at The Living Room, New York on 11 October 2007. He also co-wrote The Saturdays song, "Forever Is Over", which was released on the 2 October and reached number two in the charts. In November 2009, Bourne collaborated with Leon G. Thomas III to write the song 'Please Don't Change Your Mind.'

Bourne's music often includes references to films. For example Busted's song, Year 3000 contains several references to Back to the Future as well as Son of Dork's song Ticket Outta Loserville containing the lyrics 'Wake up to "I Got You Babe", Like the guy from Groundhog Day -'.

Theatre

Loserville: The Musical

In February 2009, Youth Music Theatre: UK commissioned Bourne, along with his friend Elliot Davis, to write a musical based on the Son of Dork album, Welcome to Loserville. The tickets for the 20 August premier went up for sale on 7 May. The slogan used for the musical is 'I guess it really pays to be a slacker...', and is centred around 17 year-old Michael Dork, who is called a nerd, geek and slacker by others. Socially marginalised by the entire school and constantly picked on by Eddie, the coolest boy in school, Michael is desperate to find his ticket outta Loserville. But when stunning new girl Holly arrives, Michael is introduced to a whole new world of cool. It is presented by Youth Music Theatre: UK in Association with South Hill Park Arts Centre. James has since signed a deal to take the show to the West End. James has since tweeted that the musical will be hitting London's West End in 2011 Information can be found about the musical on the official website.

Out There

In 2011, Youth Music Theatre once again commissioned Bourne and Davis to write a new, original musical called Out There. First presented as a workshop presentation in a small theatre west of London, the musical is set in the fictional town of Hope, Texas, and follows the story of Logan Carter, who is on the run from his home town near Detroit after committing a minor felony. Hope is a dead-end, one-horse town (even the horse has died) and its inhabitants are searching for ways to rescue the town from obscurity and financial ruin. Meanwhile a few miles away in the desert an old man is building something weird in his outhouse... Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, London had requested the musical be shown there and the project is currently trying to raise $15,000 in order to cover the cost of the theatre and improve production. If successful, the show is set to open at the Riverside Studios on 25 July, 2012.

Discography

Main article: James Bourne discography

Studio albums

• 2002: Busted Busted
• 2003: A Present for Everyone Busted
• 2004: Busted (US) Busted
• 2005: Welcome To Loserville Son Of Dork
• 2010: Volume 1 Future Boy
• 2011: Volume 2 Future Boy
• 2012: Untitled Solo Album James Bourne

External links

• Official website