A1’s Ben Adam: I was hurt to be featured on ‘Where are they now?’ lists
He became a songwriter and producer when the band split up.
Singer Ben Adams has spoken about the frustration he felt when he appeared on ‘where are they now lists?’ after boyband a1 split up.
The musician found fame in 1999 as the lead singer of the group, topping the UK charts with hit singles Take On Me and Same Old Brand New You, but he began working as a songwriter and producer after the band split.
He told the Press Association: “I’ve always been performing, we do a lot of a1 concerts still and I’ve got a new album coming out soon so there will be a lot more after January, but it’s certainly a return to stage life.
“I think, for me, this first six months of this year has been fantastic and gone really well with the studio stuff, but I get bands in and I do songs for them and they go out and have fun with it.
“I actually had a bit of a wobble halfway through this year because I was sitting there and was close to tears all the time because this is not what I want to do with my life right now, I can do this when I’m 50.
“I still feel like I want to get out there and I want to be in front of the cameras, not sitting behind.
“No-one cares who wrote the songs for stuff. I wrote a musical called Eugenius… and it was an amazing success and people came round and were talking to the actors and they were saying, ‘It’s so brilliant, I loved that song’, and then got to me on the line and said, ‘What are you doing here?’
“Things turn up (online), what are they doing now?
“I’ve done more stuff after a1 than I ever did in a1 but people don’t care, so actually when this came up, I was like, ‘I would quite like a bit of a break from doing all that and do something that is just fun and being on stage’.
He continued: “It was frustrating, they keep coming up on social media – ‘What’s he been doing?’ I get it all the time. People really don’t know.”
In 2012 Adams came second in the Norwegian version of Strictly Come Dancing and said he is looking forward to showing off the skills he learned.
“They did actually sandwich in a bit of dancing at the end, but I actually think it’s a bit weird that I’m dancing at the end because for the whole show I’m not dancing – and I’m supposed to because I’m the polar opposite character to Alex (Clifton’s character) and then all of a sudden I start going, ‘Yeah, yeah, jazz hands’.
“I said to Jo, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, is this right?’ She went, ‘No’.”
Flashdance – The Musical begins at King’s Theatre, Glasgow on August 5 ahead of nationwide tour to cities including Southampton, Liverpool, York and Birmingham.
Tickets are available at flashdanceuktour.co.uk
