Express & Star

Grease is the word: Tom Parker of the Wanted talks ahead of playing Danny on Birmingham stage

We’ll get to Grease in a minute. For The Wanted singer Tom Parker is starring in this week’s big show – Grease, at The Birmingham Hippodrome, from Monday until June 3. The boy band star will be doing nine shows before 15,000 or so fans. Boom.

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Still Wanted – Tom Parker is on the road with Grease

But before we do, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t ask the obvious question.

So, Tom – or, should we say Danny – The Wanted. What happened? Your debut single debuted at number one – and let’s not forget Glad You Came, which also hit the two. There were two platinum albums and a third that earned a silver disc. You broke through in the States and Canada – Glad You Came sold three million copies alone – and there was even a reality series on E!, which documented a colourful stay in Los Angeles.

All that success. All those records. All that opportunity to stay the course. What went wrong?

Tom laughs. “We did six years and we travelled the world and it was amazing. We had a number one radio record in the States. We met Michelle Obama in the White House. We achieved more than a lot of the other UK bands with global success ever achieve. You know, bands before us didn’t really tour or break over there. So we achieved a lot.

“But we just got to the point where we’d been living out of a suitcase for six years. We just wanted to be at home and do our own thing.”

So you still friends with the boys? You still hanging with Max and Siva, Jay and Nathan?

“Of course. Yes. I love the boys, they’re my brothers. But we needed a break. I lost so much weight when I was in the band because we never had time to eat. By the end, it was a machine and everything was running like clockwork.”

You fell out of love with it?

“Well, I think we were complacent. We just decided we had to stop.”

“The time off means we can explore ourselves and find out what makes us tick as individuals.”

So any chance of a reunion? After all, you put the band into the box called ‘hiatus’ rather than the one marked ‘over’.

“When the time’s right, we’ll come back and have another stab in the dark. I loved the creative side of it and being in a studio and writing a record and being around the four guys that I love to pieces. But the one thing I didn’t miss was the promo and talking about the record to death. We could do a press junket from 9am to 9pm and there’d be a different interview every 10 minutes with someone new asking the same questions. Then the next day, we’d be flown to Denmark to do the same thing. It was full on and it got soul destroying in the end.”

Ah yes, Grease. We almost forgot. “Jay and Nat loved it. But they thought it was weird to see me doing an American accent. But they loved it.”

Tom’s leading the line-up in Grease, swopping chart hits for musical theatre classics such as You’re The One That I Want, Grease Is The Word, and Greased Lightnin’.

He’s teamed up with Over The Rainbow winner Danielle Hope as Sandy, EastEnders’ & Strictly Come Dancing’s Louisa Lytton as Rizzo and special guest star Jimmy Osmond as Teen Angel. And he’s having the time of his life. He didn’t expect to land the role – originally, he auditioned for Teen Angel.

“They asked me to go back in and audition for Danny. I went back in. Three auditions later they offered me the part.”

Being in musical theatre, rather than The Wanted, involves a different type of discipline. “I quite like that, at 28. You don’t have the same freedom that you have in a band because it’s contracted work, it’s to the minute and to the hour. It’s been a learning curve. But it’s cool.”

Andy Richardson