Interviews with Triple 8

You all live together in a house in London. It must take ages if you're all getting ready at the same time for a night out!
Jamie: I need about half an hour.
Sparx: I take no time at all.
Jamie: thats cos you haven't washed for the past year!

And who spends the longest time preening their barnet?
Jamie: Josh spends ages tweaking his spikes.
Josh: No way! I'm in the shower and ready dead quick. I don't take as long as David! He takes ages on his hair!

And which of you has weird habits in the bathroom?
Justin: Josh has a very weird aftershave ritual - face, legs, back, bum!
David: Justin brushes his teeth for half an hour if he's going out.
Justin: yeah, I have to do every tooth really carefully.
Sparx: I jump out of my shower and run around naked to dry off

What do you like about girls?
David: I love every single part of a girls body.
Sparx: A nice bum is a winner
Josh: I like boobs!
Justin: i'm an arse man - I'd definitely go for J Los over Kylie's!

Which part of your body are you proud of?
Josh: (thinking) Welll, I could say I'm proud of my ...
Jamie: (laughing) You definitely can't say your willy Josh!
David: People say I've got a good eyes and I reckon Justin's got a really nice smile. (pauses) Oh, but that doesn't mean i'm gay, Ok?

What's the nicest thing a girl's said about your body?
Sparx: I've had a few compliments about my willy!
Jamie: What are you like?
David: I've been told by a girl I have a nice body!
Justin: Yeah, but she saw it when the lights were off!

Who pulls the girls?
Justin: Dave. When he's out and he's dancing, girls swarm around him.
Jamie: Yeah, he's very confident when talking to the ladies.
David: Girls like lads who enjoy themselves. So we all get lucky.

What attracts you to a lady?
Justin: I love girls who love a dance and enjoy a good night out.
Josh: I like confident girls who aren't afraid to be different.
David: And i like girls with style.

So, which one of you is least lucky with the ladies?
David: It's Sparx!
Sparx: Yeah, it is me, because I haven't been out in aghes. If i'm going out, you'll know it.

What should a girl say to you to chat you up?
Jamie: She should say, I'm an arsenal season ticket holder!
Sparx: I reckon actions speak louder than words...
David: The best thing a girl can do for me is make eye contact.

Do you like it when a girl makes the first move?
Jamie: Yeah, its nice when a girl comes up to you.
Justin: It comes across as being confident and that's attractive in a girl. I don't like playing games.

What was it like the first time you got saucy with a girl?
Sparx: My first time was horrible. I did it to look good in front of my friends and I wish I'd waited until I'd found a girl who was really special to me.
Justin: Mine was in a tent, and her mate and another lad were in the same tent too!
Josh: It was with a girl two years older than me. I was shitting myself because she was much more experienced.
Sparx: It's much better with an older woman.
Jamie: My first time was in Norway with a girl ten years older than me.

How many girls have you got jiggy with?
Josh: I haven't slept with loads. I prefer to have a good snog.

Do girls come round to your house?
Sparx: We do bump into a few strangers on the stairs, yeah!

What's the sauciest dream you've had?
Josh: About Britney!
Sparx: Jamie dreams about Arsenal and Thierry Henry.
Jamie: I do not!

What's the best way of ending a relationship with a girl?
David: I say, Sorry love, you're dumped! Only joking!
Sparx: I used to ignore them until they gave up.
Justin: Thank God for text messages, eh?!

So, what's the most cowardly way you've dumped a girl?
Josh: I once took another girl to a place where I knew my girlfriend would be, so that she'd see us and dump me.
David: I dumped my girlfriend on Valentine's Day once. I was 15 and I wanted to go out with the lads instead. I ended up phoning her and dumping her.

How romantic are you?
Sparx: I was brought up by my mum and two sisters so I treat women with respect.
David: If I love a girl, then I'm romantic. I took a girl to Paris for the weekend on her birthday.
Justin: I haven't fulfilled my romantic potential. Yet...

Popworld magazine, June 2003
Boy bands are all the same, right? Wrong. You’ll never see these five lads perched on stools, crooning soppy ballads. Ladies and gents (but mostly ladies), prepare to be shaken up by…Triple 8

Oh my God, check this out. High up on the fourth floor of the Conrad Hotel at London’s Chelsea Harbour, David Wilcox, one fifth on new boy band Triple 8, is blown away by the view. Band mates Iain Sparx Farquharson, Josh Barnett, Jamie Bell and Justin Scott join him on the balcony of suite 210 to admire the scene. He’s right, the view is amazing and the hotel room is on the plush side. But these fancy surroundings could be a taste of things to come for Triple 8. If we’re to believe the biography provided by their record company Polydor, these five fellas have the songs, the looks and the attitude to grab the charts by the throat. ‘Balladeering boy bands beware,’ reads the blurb. This’ll knock you right off your stools.

Triple 8’s debut single ‘Knockout’ gives a taste of that stool-clearing power; it’s a tough pop tune that comes across like Five mixed with Limp Bizkit, plus a dash of Nsync. An odd mixture, but it certainly works. On the surface of it, we’re a stereotypical boy band, says Sparx. There are five of us and we all do sing. But we want to give people more. There aren’t a lot of acts in the UK that give their performances 120%. They just settle for sitting on stools and wearing nice clothes. Hmm, who could they be talking about? We don’t want to be another shit boy band, adds Jamie. That’s why the charts at the moment aren’t great, because you can see how little effort goes into it. They know how the song goes and they know they’ve got to look into a camera. It’s just a bit nothingy – nothing sticks out and is just in your face.

Number crunching
Triple 8 are managed by two of pop’s heavyweights: Chris Herbert (ex Hear’say and Five) and Craig Logan (former member of 80’s boy band Bros and now European manager of Pink). We really couldn’t be in a better position, says Sparx. It’s good now, but it’s going to be better when we’re out on the road and it gets too much, cos we’ve got managers who’ve already been through it.

But what about the obvious comparisons? After all, here are five good-looking bad boys with rocky pop tunes, managed by the same man behind Abs and co… Well, says Sparx, there are five of us, and we are managed by the same man, but it’s the other thing we’ll let people make comparisons about. The whole Triple 8 thing will come when you see the performances. We’ll do our own thing.

The group’s name came from the most unlikely of sources – an airport billboard. We went out for dinner one night, recalls Josh, ‘and everybody had paper and pens to write down names. We wanted a name with a number in it cos it looks strong. Then we saw ‘888’ on this billboard, and after that we started seeing it everywhere we went.

You won’t believe this, but when we got back from the airport, adds David, there was a car outside our house that had a triple eight in its registration. It sounds like bullshit but I swear we’d never seen the car before! I like it because it means good luck in Chinese, explains Sparx.

Breaking through
As a group, Triple 8 have been hidden away from the public for the last 12 months, but the five lads have been trying for the last six years to make their mark in music. Sparx (the daddy of the band, one of the most sensible members, and rumour has it, the best singer) and Justin (the coolest and the mover) grew up together in Bristol and formed a group named Jelayju with Josh (the business manager and the one who, according to Sparx, always looks the part). Jamie – the baby of the band and probably the most normal (he still plays football with his mates on a Saturday afternoon) – comes from a stage school background.

Fifth member and group joker David had tried and failed with a group named Hiwayz, and was once in a band named Hymn with none other than Kym Marsh. The David Beckham lookalike was drafted in at the last minute to join the other four in a recording studio in Norway. The first night, it seemed like David had been there for weeks rather than 12 hours,’ remembers Jamie. ‘It was really weird: he just fitted straight in. Then there are David’s other talents. He really impressed me with the way he drank his tequilas, admits Justin. He gets the salt and snorts it up his nose, then drinks the tequila and then squeezes the lemon into his eye! He was our kind of guy!

Hey ladies
Like several other boy bands, Triple 8 live together, in what David describes as our chintz-ridden palace! It came with brown couches, and the wallpaper looks like you’ve just entered an Indian restaurant. And the carpets ming! Not a lady-puller, we imagine. And these boys like their ladies; the Knockout video features loads of scantily clad females. It was damn hard work, Josh grins.

They look at us as if to say ‘You’re just another boy band, and then they drag us through tunnels and into cages,’ adds Sparx. It was awful – 15 sexy women!

Stupid question time:
are Triple 8 looking forward to all the female attention?
Yes, I am! pipes up Justin.
Josh agrees: Any attention is wicked, even when you’re out and a girl’s looking at you. There’s no greater feeling than thinking someone likes you. Though I guess it can be a bit false with groupies – if we get them! Groupies, we want you!

So there are no girlfriends, then?
That’s the standard boy band answer. No, you won’t get the standard answer, pipes up Sparx. I have a girlfriend and David has one too. I’ve been with my girlfriend on and off for three years! It will be difficult, but I think the only problem is going away. We’re so passionate about our work, I think it takes over from most things!
But, interrupts Justin, the rest of us are footloose and fancy free. Can’t be having a girlfriend at the moment – I don’t think I could hold it down!

Not white (but it’s OK)
One of the most interesting things about Triple 8 is that the fellas don’t have pretensions about being creative types. They are what they are: a hot new boy band.

I don’t think any one of us would say we’re songwriters, because that comes with practice, Sparx admits. ‘It’s the writers job to write and it’s our job to sing and dance. We’ve written songs and thought That was crap. For now we’ll just concentrate on the vocals and the performance!

And the performance is just as important as the music for you?
Well, ponders David, I think people like to see great performances. I’d rather go to see *Nsync than Blue. I mean, Lee from Blue is a real talent and their success has come from having some great songs. They’re a good band, but not necessarily a great one.

So Justin Timberlake is more of your kind of entertainer?
He’s the biggest talent in the world for me, admits David. When you come out of the world’s biggest boy band, you either explode as a solo artist or you bomb, and he’s the biggest thing around.

Sparx nods: I think it’s all about talent. If you’ve got that, you can make the transition quite easily. He’s the whole package, he looks good, he sings well, he can dance, he writes, he produces, and he’s worked hard for that!

A good role model, then?
Definitely, says Justin. *Nsync worked their butts off to get where they are. We’re typical artists in the fact that it’s never good enough. No one in this group will ever get slack! We’re the kind of individuals who’d tell each other when we had to pick up a bit. We’d kick each other’s arses!

Talk of kicking each other’s bums has the boys falling about. Are scraps a part of the Triple 8 lifestyle?
We’d never start a fight for the sake of it, says David, but we can look after ourselves. You could put us in a pub with other lads and we wouldn’t stand out in any way. I still go out for a beer with my mates. Like most lads, we play football, smoke, drink, shag birds…we just sing and dance too!

Summed up
OK, lads, sell Triple 8 in one line…
Josh: I’d say we’re world dominating.
David: We bring realness to the table.
Justin: We’re more exciting than your average boy band. We’ll entertain you. David: And there’s a few things we’ll be doing that will shock people.
Sparx: We’ll always be striving to be one step ahead.
David: Yeah, that’s right. We’ll be throwing away the rule book!

So, for anyone in any doubt, is 'Knockout' really about fisticuffs?

Justin: Nah. It's called 'Knockout' because it's about knocking someone out of a relationship. A bit of a statement song if you like. And we've got a nice little video to go with it and we're very proud.

Glad we cleared that up. So are you the knockees in the relationship, or the er, knockers

Sparx: Oh we're the knockers, definitely!

Justin: Yeah we're definitely the ones doing the knocking. As the track goes, someone has been cheating on one of us, and so we're telling her to get on her bike.

David: Yeah! And knock off, so to speak.

Aww! Which one of you was cheated on?

Justin: Well er, it's just a common thing that happens in relationships really. It's not about one of us specifically.

Josh: No. There was a girl and she cheated on all of us. She wasn't very selective [laughs].

OK. There's more than a few five-piece boy bands, do you see any of them as your main competitors?

Justin: [sarcasm] What...has there been other boy bands with five members in them? Get outta here!

Sparx: I thought we were the first. Someone should have told us about that.

Justin: I don't think there's any one group who we see as competition really. The way we look at it is that when we release a single, the people who are releasing that week is who we're up against.

You said that you're taking the embarrassment out of being a boyband, whoever did you mean?

David: I just think most boybands that come out of the UK aren't bad, but they're just not great. I think if you look at bands like B2K, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. They're great bands. Great music and great singers. I just think that noone from here has really put on a great show like that, since Take That.

You've been together for a while, but were any of you tempted to audition for Fame Academy or the Popstars shows?

Sparx: Actually we were thinking of going in as a group.
David: Yeah, turn up and say: "Hey. Forget the auditions. Cut it short there. Here we are."
Justin: Personally I wouldn't have gone for something like that. Because it seems like it's all determined which way it's gonna go with the music and the image and I'm not into that. I think we're all very happy to be in a band where we can be ourselves and we don't have to pretend to dress in a certain way and do things we wouldn't normally do. We're just five normal guys in a group.

OK, how many names did you get through before you decided on Triple 8?

Justin: Loads! We came up with some rubbish names. The worst one was probably Rookies. Rest in peace, Rookites!

Josh: Rookies was one of the better ones I thought. What about Midas Touch [embarrassed laughing]?
Sparx: We basically got together in a restaurant and threw out names. We ended up killing ourselves laughing 'cos we just couldn't think of a decent name. We were just known as the boys, or the band, for ages, until we settled on Triple 8.

If you had to think up Triple 8 names for yourselves, what would they be and why?

David: Sparx has to be Daddy 8.
Justin: No Granpa 8. Josh is Tidy 8 or cautious 8. [Laughs] I think I'm Sporty 8.
David: Yeah Justin's got a girlfriend in the Spice Girls that no one knows about.
Justin: I would have to be naughty 8, but I dunno... but maybe...

David: TWENTY ONE cos that’s me age. Mum and Dad threw me a huge superheroes party in the pub we own in Blackpool – I was Spiderman.

R IS FOR – Josh: RELEASE DATE. We’ve just done the video for our first single, where we try to win over some attitude – y girls. It was wicked having 50 girls dancing around. It’s not work really, is it?

Justin: RAVING! I like going out to this club called Click, they play R’n’B, hip-hop and stuff. I’m not talking about raving with white gloves and glow sticks.

I IS FOR – Sparx: I love Haagen-Dazs ICE CREAM.. Pralines & cream is the best. I can easily eat a tub on my own but I’m not feeling the price!

Jamie: IDIOT! That’s David! ha ha!you’ll speak to him and find out! And he never wears underwear!

David: I want to live in an IGLOO! There’s this hotel made of ice in Sweden. Apparently, you sit on ice chairs but it’s warm!

P IS FOR – David: PINK because she is my favourite female artist at the moment. I shared a few Pina Coladas at the bar with her at the Brit Awards – she was great.

Jamie: PLASTIC SURGERY. I’d make everyone not have feet – that’s my idea! You could walk on stumps or maybe there’d be a massive cover over them like a foot tent – or a toe marquee!

L IS FOR – Josh: LADIES! I like girls with a different look. Sarah Whatmore is as sexy as hell.

Justin: I’m happiest when I go home and see my LITTLE GIRL. She’s four – I had her very early.she’s called Chloe and I always call her when I’m away. Being a Dad has brought something to my life.

Sparx: LUCK… but I’m unlucky! I’ve never won a thing in my entire life.

E IS FOR – Josh: I’ve three EARINGS. Sparx has two and a belly ring and Justin has two aswell. David had his belly button pierced but he took it out when it went spectic! Jamie’s got his private parts pierced aswell – please print that! Ha ha!

Jamie: EASTENDERS is my favourite programme and my favourtie character’s Barry. He’s a lovable fool.

E IS FOR – David: I’ll put my kids through as much EDUCATION as possible because I was kicked out out of four schools. I was bad in those days and use to fight a lot and stuff.

Justin: EURGH! I had this lime green see – through Firtrap jacket. Actually, it was good at the time…but it sounds terrible now!

I IS FOR – Sparx: My real name is IAIN. My mum and my girlfriend still call me that but to everyone else – I’m Sparx.

Josh: INJURIES. We tend to pick up quite a few of them with our really high – tempo dance rountines. We’ve had all sorts of ligament troubles, torn muscles… and there’s a lot of cramp aswell!

G IS FOR – Sparx: My Dad used to love GROUNDING me but it never really worked. The worst trouble I got in was when I stole his car. He had a smart Rover 620 and I decided to take it out in the middle of the night with my mate for a drive around Bristol – I got into abit of trouble for that!

H IS FOR – Josh: Thierry HENRY, Jamie’s favourite Arsenal player. I’m a West Ham supporter so I actually think Henry’s a (Bleep)! If Arsenal lose you can’t talk to Jamie for about a month!

Sparx: HIGH KICK! I went with Justin to do jujitsu. I literally got beaten up by the teacher who used me as the guinea pig.

T IS FOR – Jamie: I hate TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR! I can’t stand them. Mostly, I hate Teddy Sheringham because he slates Arsenal. Even when he went over to Manchester United he still slated Arsenal. Sheringham is just rubbish, and I hate his bowl haircut as well!

888 are the latest boy band to hit the pop world. They have more attitude than some bands and are hoping to be Britain's answer to N'Sync. CBBC Newsround Online caught up with them to find out more.

Newsround: How did you get together to form the band?

Sparx: Yes Justin, how did we get together?
Justin: How did we get together? Me and Sparx grew up with each other, we've known each other since we were 11 and it's something that we've always wanted to do. Singing, we always used to do that kicking around in the park and stuff, we actually wanted to make it into something rather than just a hobby. We didn't want to go as a duet because we couldn't, we wanted to make it essentially into a five piece so we found Josh through a producer, it wasn't like an audition, we just hung out with him for a while, we got on and so he joined. He knew Jamie through a football team which is Wingate and Finchley, that old classic!
Jamie: Hello to everyone there!

Justin: Yeah, and we finally found David through our management. We've all been together for just over a year now.

Newsround: How did you get the name 888?
Jamie: We were coming back from Sweden where we'd been recording most of the album and in Heathrow Airport on a billboard there was 888 and it's a Chinese lucky symbol and it looks good as well - we need a bit of luck!

Newsround: Your debut single Knockout is out on 21st April, how do you think it will do in the charts?
Sparx: We're hoping for the best, that's all you can do really - be positive. We're just working as hard as possible trying to promote the single and ourselves and hopefully, touch wood it will do very well!

Newsround: Have you had any feedback yet - how's it doing on radio play lists?
Sparx: Yeah, everybody seems to be feeling it. What we've done, with the video as well, we've taken it to another level, you can hear the song but it's quite a visual song as well. Lots of people have been giving us feedback on the video and the song.

Newsround: There are a lot of cool singing?dance moves in the video, do you think that performance is more important than the song you're singing?
Sparx: It's definitely something that we want to incorporate in the whole 888 vibe. We definitely want to bring something to the fans and to the public that hasn't been done before. With performance, just raising the game and making people sit up and watch and listen and hopefully give them some entertainment rather than just sitting behind the microphone singing a song. A lot of fans and especially teenage girls, want to be entertained and that's what we want to do.

Newsround: What can people expect from the rest of the album?
Justin: Knockout is probably the rockiest song that is on the album. It's got a lot of different flavours, and tracks. We've got slow ballads, R'n'B tracks. It's quite diverse, it's not just one sound but even though it is diverse, when you hear the album, hopefully it will sound like an 888 sound. It will all come together when you hear it - it's quite a different sound.

Newsround: What are your main musical influences?
Sparx: There's so many. Individually we've all grown up listening to our own styles of music. We all love R'n'B music and that's one thing that brought us all together as mates, but as a group on the whole, we definitely like people who do things a little bit differently, like when N'Sync was about, their stage shows were fantastic, I remember people like New Kids on the Block and Take That who really put on a performance. But also we like groups like Linkin Park and people like that - people who aren't afraid to do something not by the rule book.

Newsround: Are there any boy bands that you admire in particular?
Jamie: I think N'Sync because of the performance, but we're just trying to focus on ourselves and trying to make our own thing. But you've got to look up to people like Backstreet and N'Sync but I definitely think it's better to focus on ourselves really.
Justin: I personally think that N'Sync are the benchmark - they are the best boy band in recent years so that's definitely where we're aiming and above that. There's no point aiming below that because I don't think any of us would be happy with that.

Newsround: You were one of the first bands in a long time, if ever, to open CD:UK when you were unknown - what was that like?
Justin: It was brilliant, it was wicked. To be on CD:UK at all whether it be first or last would have been wicked, but to actually open it! Just being on the show, you wake up on a Saturday morning and you watch it - to actually be on it!
Jamie: When you hear the CD:UK voice at the end of the song you're like 'what?!'. It was very good.
Justin: TOTP will be the next thing! For me, I've been wanting to do this, I've wanted to be on a Saturday morning TV show, I've wanted to be on TOTP and I've wanted to shoot a video and I've done two out of three now - TOTP is the next!

Newsround: What are your ambitions for the next 12 months? Jamie: One of the biggest ambitions probably at all is to go on tour. That's a massive group ambition to do a UK or world tour. For me, because I'm from North London, Wembley is where I want to be! It'll probably be later this year or earlier next year. We're doing lots of summer road shows though.
Justin: They'll be really good for us because there'll be big crowds there - it'll be good for us to get out and perform. That's at the top of we all want to do.

Newsround: There are a lot of boy bands around - they don't all succeed - what's different about you that will make you succeed?
Sparx: Having pursued this for nearly five years, we've had a lot of doors shut in our face so it's not like this has happened overnight for us. We've had to work very hard for it and we're still working very hard for it so maybe there's something a bit more underlying there with us because we've already been through a lot anyway. I think that's makes us even more determined to get our sound and our whole thing across. Also our music, I think we all think that our music is a little bit different to anything that's out there at the moment.

Newsround: I know that some of you have girlfriends, but those of you who don't, who would be your ideal girlfriend?
Sparx: I've got a girlfriend.
Justin: I'm still looking for the perfect woman, but recently we met Natalie Umbruglia and she is beautiful.
Jamie: For me, my ideal woman would be Angelina Jolie.

We put your killer questions to Triple Eight…

Did you feel the love when you were backing singers for Darius?Louise Hatterstone, Glasgow

The Prize: How would you like this fake Darius ponytail, Louise?

Do you realise that Triple Eight (888) is the page number for subtitles on ceefax?Kim Earls, Fife

Sparx: We only realised after we chose the name. My girlfriend’s half – Chinese, and her mum says 888 in Chinese numerology is good luck. It’s also similar to the Irish shamrock.

The prize: Kim can have this bingo card.

Sparx, did you really buy the Cheeky Girls single, Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum)?Helga Bergman, Germany

Sparx: Yes, I bought it to give the rest of the guys a laugh. We did a gig with the Cheeky Girls. They do scare me, but good on them. That mother of theirs, apart from being a devil woman, is very, very clever.

The prize: Helga can have Take Your Shoes Off but not Touch My Bum. I’m keeping that!

David, what’s Pink like?Charleene, Greenwich

David: I met Pink at a club. She bought me a drink and, when she’s drunk, she talks about blokey stuff.

The prize: Have these Pink wristbands, Charleene.

Sparx, what kind of a surname is Farquharson?Abby Dawson, Manchester

Sparx: It’s Scottish. Everyone says it makes me sound posh. I’ve got a book on the Farquharsons at home, and we’ve even got our tartan.

The prize: Abby, I’m going to give you some of the famous Farquharson tartan.

How old were you when you got your first tattoo?James Peters, Sheffield

Josh: I was 14. I got a Chinese dimple on my thigh, which means good luck. I had it done by this dodgy Mexican guy in London. I didn’t tell my Mum and Dad for a long time.

The prize: Have these fake tattoos.

Do any of you still sleep with teddy bears?Fiona Godfrey, Newcastle

The prize: Fiona can have this teddy, donated to me by a fan.

David, you’re a bit of a shorty really, aren’t you?Gareth Evans, Cardiff

David: Come round my house and say that! Gareth is probably a lanky so and so. I’m 5’9” – that’s not short all.

The prize: Gareth can have a ruler so he knows how to measure people properly.

Jamie, what was it like being a ballet dancer in Billy Elliott?Debbie Mitchell

Jamie: People confuse me with the actor Jamie Bell. At drama school I got sent scripts meant for him, but it wasn’t me!

The prize: Have my old Billy Elliott video