Busted apologise for worst McFly song ‘on behalf’ of band

The Busted vs McFly tour is around the corner in 2025, and the bands are gearing up to go head-to-head in an epic WWE-inspired on-stage battle.

It’s unclear how this band-off will play out on stage – not because it’s a secret, but because neither McFly nor Busted have the foggiest idea. All they do know is that the audience will crown the winner.

Perhaps Coldplay-esque LED wristbands are a possibility, and audience members will wear a colour according to whether they are team McFly or Busted. Maybe the loser will have to do a Game of Thrones-style walk of shame through the crowd? Or they might burn the loser alive on stage. Who knows?

These are all ideas that were floated around when chatted to Busted’s Matt Willis and James Bourne, and McFly’s Dougie Poynter and Harry Judd about the big UK tour, kicking off on September 16, 2025.

Many fans will remember McFly supporting Busted on tour in 2004, as they entered into the mainstream – and on Nickelodeon a lot – as the latter’s best mates, but also their biggest pop rivals.

While Busted head-banged part way to the Year 3000 and went to school for hot teachers, McFly bounced in with a more bubblegum pop sound with Five Colours in Her Hair, Obviously, and All About You. Then they formed a supergroup aptly called McBusted in 2014, to the delight of joint fans.

But those days are long gone. Now, it’s time for battle.

Despite their tongue-in-cheek rivalry, there is one song both McFly and Busted have agreed is their collective worst: that’s Party Girl by McFly. Sorry McFly, sorry Party Girl fans. But it is known.

‘The truth is it wasn’t the band’s fault, it was the management’s fault,’ explains James, as Harry and Dougie chime in, joking: ‘We take no responsibility for Party Girl.’

‘We apologise for Party Girl on behalf of McFly,’ Matt adds. Ding, ding, ding.

‘The thing was, we played it at the O2 and it went down really well,’ added Harry, before Dougie concedes: ‘I think it was just the sound of people laughing.’

Released as the lead single on their 2010 album Above The Noise, the band previously admitted they didn’t want to release it, with the admittedly cringe lyrics – ‘I love this little party girl’ – and an eye-roll chorus.

What’s refreshing about Busted and McFly in a world of music industry cool cats and posers is that they don’t tend to take themselves too seriously.

It seems self-deprecating humour runs through the veins of these noughties legends, as none of the four guys think they would ever beat Oasis, The Rolling Stones, Spice Girls, Destiny’s Child, or Slipknot in a battle of the bands, if in some weird parallel universe that would happen.

Speaking of parallel universes, one of the most memorable songs from the Busted era was Year 3000, which imagined a world in which everyone lived underwater.

‘I don’t think anyone should put them in charge of creating the Year 3000,’ Dougie says. ‘They’ve let global warming just happen.’

‘They’ve adapted to be fair,’ allows Harry, as Matt reflects: ”We were f***ing prophets.’

Dougie retorts: ‘They’re profiting from global warming.’

‘It would be very PG,’ said Matt, wondering what the Year 3000 would look like if McFly were in charge. (Busted are in their 40s, while McFly teeter on the fringes in their late 30s.)

‘It would be a bit like the film Up,’ Matt continues with a cheeky grin, leaving the room imagining a saccharine Disney world, where everyone has, er, five colours in their hair and sing songs literally called Happiness.

It’s clear Busted and McFly suitably rip into one another on and off stage, but will the feuding Gallagher brothers on their Oasis 2025 tour or this battle of the bands incite more onstage bickering…?

‘I’ve got to be honest I think Oasis are going to be gnarly,’ says James, in one of the first serious moments in our chat.

‘You have no idea what’s going to happen. Look at the history. They go back way longer than us, and you never know what Liam’s going to say. So yeah, Oasis.’

Looking uneasy, Matt interjects, ‘I know what that feels like!’ and the atmosphere erupts into laughter once more.

Although Oasis go back to the 1990s, Busted and McFly are arguably just as enduring among their fanbase, who hark back to the days of listening to CDs in the first portable player, busying themselves with scoobies, and chatting on MSN Messenger after school.

But who would be the most likely to fade into insignificance, and have a happy life doing it?

‘I’d fade into insignificance without the happy life,’ quips Dougie, while James confesses being a popstar isn’t everything.

‘I’ve had enough fun to do that now,’ he says. ‘Busted was gone for 10 years, so that’s quite a long time to live life thinking it’s never going to come back.

‘There’s more to life than being in a band, but if you have to be in a band then Busted or McFly are the best, because we’re having so much fun.’

If Dougie hadn’t been in McFly, he would be a zoologist, he reckons. ‘It’s my calling,’ he states.

Harry would have found it challenging to find something he loved if it wasn’t for McFly, he thinks. If James wasn’t one third of Busted, he’d have continued writing musicals. Matt thinks he would be dead.

Sensing the seriousness of his answer, Matt pumps his fist in their air cheesily and adds: ‘Busted saved my life!’

Matt also gets swayed by things easily, he confesses, revealing he’s even been sucked into a few cults in his time.

‘I love getting really into something,’ he explains. ‘Not necessarily a cult,’ Matt adds, then admits under his breath: ‘Although I have been in one of those…’

There’s a cult-like fever about the noughties at the moment, with low-rise jeans, disc belts, and Ugg boots all seeing sunlight once again.

‘You know what would be a nice noughties cultural thing to come back?’ muses James. ‘Record sales.’

Oh, and in true 00s TV style, they are considering gunging the losing band. That’s something we’d like to see.

‘We’ll just let the music and the playing do the talking,’ concludes Dougie, before his bandmates go off on an extreme tangent about using him as a human sacrifice on tour.

Tickets for Busted vs Mcfly are on sale now on Ticketmaster. the McFly website and the Busted website.