BOY OH BOY! After getting chucked off the X-Factor, Avenue are set to become the latest boy band sensation - and Swinton will be made up!
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his band is already all over the internet and kids’ tv, yet Avenue’s first single is only just about to be released. The hype’s gone into overdrive but 19 year old singer Max George, sitting in the kitchen at his family’s home in Swinton, is totally unfazed. Talk about screaming girls and Max just shrugs “I’m alright with that…” Avenue has been waiting for two years to be unleashed. Formed out of auditions two years ago, the five piece band first hit the headlines when they were disqualified from the X-Factor after reaching the finals for failing to disclose they had a manager. It didn’t do them too much harm.
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“Off the back of all that we got a deal with Global Records and spent the next six months recording with them in Sweden” Max recalls “We parted company with them and got signed by Island Records who also have U2 and Amy Winehouse and we’ve got the same management as the Sugarbabes.” Not bad. And Avenue also have BRIT Award winning American rock band, Orson, writing the tunes. “I’m happy with that because they’ve written some great songs and have had chart success, says Max “We wanted something a bit different, a bit instrumental based so that when we
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perform live we can actually play the instruments. I mean, I’ve played guitar for about eight years, Ross plays piano and guitar, Scott can play amazing piano and guitar…we can all do a bit.” Even so, Avenue are branded as a `boy band’…”Well yeah, we are” Max says “we can’t get away from it”…And with the rocky poppy first single, Last Goodbye, looming, chart success seems around the corner. But it could have all been so different. Max played football for England Schoolboys and was on the books at Man City, Blackburn, Oldham and Preston.