Tag Archives: Tom Parker

Who’s The Wanted’s ‘Bound And Gagged’ Woman In ‘I Found You’?

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The Wanted get down and dirty in their latest music video for their sultry new track, “I Found You,” the first single off their upcoming third studio album. The British-Irish boy band show off their dark side in the gangster-inspired clip, directed by Chris Marrs Piliero.

MTV News recently caught up with The Wanted to break down the concept of the video, which already has over 5 million views on YouTube since last week’s release, and they told us some secrets from the set.

“It was very fun. We got to fend a lot of frustrations with some stunt guys,” Tom Parker said. “I think it’s very British. There’s another side to London. It’s got its grimy parts. I think we wanted to show a dirtier side to The Wanted and a little bit of a dirty side to London and I think we achieved it.”

The clip kicks off with a parental advisory warning, but Jay McGuiness said the video could have been “much worse” and that they had to actually tone down the content. Yet, the group still managed to shock fans as they open the video with a shot of a woman who is bound and gagged. Fun fact about the damsel-in-distress: she is actually Nathan Sykes‘ friend’s girlfriend.

“You notice how she’s the first shot,” McGuiness said. “So it keeps the other lads watching.”

The video continues with The Wanted walking through the streets of London, which they revealed they had to reshoot “at least one hundred times,” but they didn’t seem to mind, since they had a special canine friend with them, Boris the dog.

“Boris was the greatest actor in the entire video,” McGuiness said.

Max George added, “Boris is the closest I’ve gotten to a date in the past four months.”

The Wanted then move on to have a boy-band showdown as they are throwing punches against alleged kidnappers. The boys do all their own stunts in the video, and luckily no one got hurt, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

“Tom’s guy had a bit of padding in his ribs because he was taking serious rib shots,” McGuiness said. “But Tom got way too excited, he lost control and punched him in the face, but because he’s little, I don’t think it hurt him that much.”

After taking down the bad guys, Nathan appears to be freeing the girl, but instead, steals a key from her pocket to unlock a safe of diamonds and leaves her with a kiss and her hands still tied.

“I Found You” will be available on iTunes November 4.

What do you think of The Wanted’s video for “I Found You”? Let us know in the comments!

The Wanted Find The Dark Side In ‘I Found You’ Video

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At long last, the Wanted have dropped the new video for their single “I Found You,” a wait that seemed unbearable according to the frantic tweets from fans, but the video was officially delivered to the masses Monday (October 15) via the band’s Vevo channel.

The clip shows the very sharply dressed British boys in a very different light, via an almost film-noir-style video directed by Chris Marrs Piliero (the maestro responsible for Britney Spears’ “I Wanna Go” and Ke$ha’s “Blow” vids).

If you thought the vampire story line in their “Chasing the Sun” video was dark, their work in “I Found You” — the first single from their upcoming sophomore album, Battleground — is on a whole other level. At first, we think we’re watching the guys on a rescue mission to find a pretty lady who Nathan Sykes became acquainted with in a flashback party scene. We see the guys take down all the lady’s captors in a well-choreographed fight sequence, and just when we think the boy and girl will meet again and live happily ever after, the boys throw us a twist we did not see coming during Nathan’s powerful and sensual bridge. He enters the room where his lady friend is being held with a gag on her mouth and tape on her ankles and we think we’re going to watch him be the hero and save the damsel in distress but no, instead he steals a small key from her, gives her a goodbye kiss and leaves the room.

As it turns out, the key opens a metal box — which the boys retrieve from its hiding spot at the bottom of a lake — full of diamonds or some other expensive jewels. The final shot shows us five very satisfied faces … of jewel thieves. Perhaps the band really is trying to push the envelope and maintain the party-boy image, but with an edge.

“This song is a little bit different for us, it’s a little bit retro,” Jay McGuinness told MTV News of the new single. “But we obviously still have the Wanted party feel [like we're] at a club.”

“The chorus is a bit Cee Lo Green-esque, a bit Bee Gees as well,” Tom Parker explained of their decidedly higher-pitched singing. “There’s a falsetto in the chorus, but in the verse, it’s still got that swagger that the Wanted usually have.”

“It’s about finding someone, whether it be in the rain, in the darkness,” Siva Kaneswaren added. “It’s about being lost, but found.”

Battleground is due November 4.

The Wanted Tease ‘Insane’ LMFAO Collabos

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The Wanted burst onto the scene earlier this year with two massive singles, “Glad you Came” and “Chasing the Sun.” Now, the U.K. boy band is gearing up to hit the road with those songs and more from their self-titled EP when they join Justin Bieber on his upcoming Believe Tour.

“We are doing a few gigs with him on his tour,” Max George confirmed to MTV News when we caught up with the guys at the MixTape Festival in Hershey, Pennsylvania, over the weekend. “We would have liked to have done more [dates], but we have our own shows in South America and stuff like that, so we can’t do all of them.”

But one thing the British-Irish boy band — nominated for their first Video Music Award in the Best New Artist category this year — has yet to do is release a full-length album in the States. When we asked for an update, the guys told us they’re still working on it.

“We’ve been working on it for, like, the last six months, but it’s still not ready yet,” Max said. “We’re still working away on that and we’ve got plenty more traveling to do yet, so I’m not actually sure when the album is going to be ready.”

And though they know fans want to see the album to hit stores before the year closes out, it seems highly unlikely, according to Tom Parker. “Everyone’s talking about like November-ish, but then we were like, ‘If the album’s not ready for November, then we’re going to do it in, like, the first quarter of the New Year,’ ” he said. “And I think the first single off the new album will come before the New Year.”

The Wanted have expressed interest in getting Justin Bieber and Chris Brown on their album, and while those names have not yet been confirmed, the group has been in the studio collaborating with several other artists, including LMFAO.

“Real, real, cool guys, and their production on tracks is just insane,” Nathan Sykes said. “They’ve just been off to Brazil and they came back with all these new fresh sounds; it was cool working with them. I’m not sure if the sounds are a bit too wild to go on this album, but it was a great experience.”

For now, fans can look forward to another single off their EP, though they wouldn’t say which one. “The new single is coming in a few weeks’ time. It should be going to radio and stuff like that,” Sykes revealed. “We’re doing a video for it in a couple weeks as well in L.A., which is really exciting. We are just trying to lock down all the ideas for it now.”

Are you excited for the Wanted’s upcoming album? Let us know in the comments!

The Wanted Move On From Christina And Take Aim At Britney Spears

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If you’re having trouble keeping the latest wave of British boy bands straight, just remember this one simple trick: The Wanted are the ones who talk tons of smack.

After tearing into “The Voice” coach
 Christina Aguilera by calling her a “total bitch” last week, and then kind of apologizing
, the boys turned their verbal cannons on another ex-Mouseketeer.

Sitting down for another radio interview in New York on Monday (their people should really consider keeping the boys off N.Y. radio, just sayin’), the lads opened up about a rather unpleasant interaction with Britney Spears‘ security team in November.

They said they were personally invited to open Brit’s show in Manchester and by all accounts the hook-up went swimmingly, with a cute photo op and a follow-up tweet from Spears in which she wrote, “So the boys from @thewantedmusic came to my Wembley show we hung out backstage! Love them!”

But member Tom Parker revealed that, “We signed a confidentiality thing that we should never say anything about what happened, but let’s tell it anyway.” That prompted Siva Kaneswaran to open up the legal Pandora’s box and spill, “I was in the hallway with me tour manager. Basically we were looking with a laptop, trying to get WiFi … facing the middle of the hallway. [Britney's] bouncers came down with her and told us to face the wall.”

“As Miss Spears is walking through,” added Parker. “We’re like come on!” But, since they are nice boys, Kaneswaran said, “We turned around and I faced a wall for about 10 seconds until she got really far away.”

They didn’t wait long to walk this one back a bit, though. Jay McGuiness quickly followed-up with another patented Wanted semi-apology, explaining, “But honestly when we actually met her person to person, she was so down to earth. You can tell she’s a total Southern girl and Nathan [Sykes], when he was a kid, won a singing competition. She was one of the judges or something. And she gave him a kiss, it was one of his first kisses as a kid. So he got to meet her again and support her.”

Last week, when MTV News’ Sway spoke to the boys they were in a similarly feisty mood, with Parker claiming that Justin Bieber had smacked Kaneswaran in his crown jewels when they performed with “Boyfriend” singer. “He [Kaneswaran] came up to me in the dressing room and said, ‘Why’s he picking on me?’” Parker joked.

As for Spears, at the time, Sykes said, “She’s lovely as well. We haven’t really met people who aren’t very nice and Britney was just very, very nice. She was kind of what you’d expect her to be, very happy and American.” And, Parker said, even though her bodyguards were kind of scary, Britney, he said, had “lovely teeth.”

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The Wanted Apologize To Christina Aguilera, Sort Of

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Sometimes, sorry is the hardest word to say. That’s the tough new celebrity lesson learned by The Wanted member Tom Parker, who got hit pretty hard by Christina Aguilera‘s fans last week after he went on a New York radio station and tore into
 “The Voice” coach Christina Aguilera, calling her a “total bitch.”

After dropping the b-bomb several more times and claiming that the singer-turned-reality competition judge refused to look at or speak to the British lad band, fellow member Siva Kaneswaran added, “she was quite rude.”

Well, Xtina’s fans were not impressed and started flaming the group, and two days after dissing her, Parker walked the comments back a bit, according to TMZ. Caught by the gossip site’s cameras outside Hollywood’s Mondrian hotel on Sunday, Parker said, “We shouldn’t have said it, to be honest with you. We just think manners cost nothing, you know what I mean? The rest of the judges were really nice, and she didn’t even walk over to us and talk to us. We apologize for the comment.”

Told that the original dis was all over Google when The Wanted’s name was searched, Parker shook his head and lamented, “I know!”
During the original radio appearance, The Wanted were also asked to compare their interactions with Aguilera on “The Voice” with an earlier meeting with “American Idol” judge Jennifer Lopez, when Max George planted a kiss on J.Lo and then the boys openly pined for her hand in marriage backstage. And, as you can probably expect, they definitely preferred one experience to the other.
“[Aguilera] was a bit scary, to be honest,” George said. Then, when asked about smooching Lopez, he laughed: “Yeah, well J.Lo’s hot, Christina’s nothing special.”

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The Wanted Take Shots At ‘Scary’ Christina Aguilera

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Any diehard fan of the Wanted can surely list innumerable reasons why the rippling, randy group is totally different from any of their Boy Band predecessors — they are British-Irish, they sing about booze, etc — but here’s one we’ve just become aware of: They are totally unafraid of speaking their mind.

That’s because, in an interview with New York radio station Now FM, they went off on “The Voice” chair-sitter Christina Aguilera after she gave them a less-than-friendly reception during their appearance on the show last week. And we mean they really went off.

“She’s a total bitch,” Tom Parker spat. “She might not be a bitch in real life, but to us, she was a total bitch. She just sat there and didn’t speak to us. Wouldn’t even look at us.”

“She was quite rude,” Siva Kaneswaran added. “Who does that?”

The Wanted were also asked to compare their interactions with Aguilera on “The Voice” with an earlier meeting with “American Idol” judge Jennifer Lopez, when Max George planted a kiss on J.Lo and then the boys openly pined for her hand in marriage backstage. And, as you can probably expect, they definitely preferred one experience to the other.

“[Aguilera] was a bit scary, to be honest,” George said.

Then, when asked about smooching Lopez, he laughed: “Yeah, well J.Lo’s hot, Christina’s nothing special.”

Snaps all around. It bears mention that perhaps Aguilera was just having a bad night, because following the show, she also caught heat for . At press time, reps for the Wanted (and Aguilera) had yet to respond to MTV News’ request for comment on the burgeoning beef, but we suspect we’re going to be hearing plenty more from both camps in the days ahead.

Were the Wanted’s comments out of line or justified? Leave your comment below!

The Wanted Out To Prove Boy Bands ‘Make Good Music’

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It’s not always easy being in a boy band. There are a lot of preconceptions for the five guys who choose to sing catchy pop tunes and dance in formation for a living.

Given that boy bands have come in and out of fashion once every decade for the last few years, it should come as no surprise that we are knee-deep in a brand-new boy-band bonanza. This one is being led by this generation’s ‘NSYNC and Backstreet Boys: One Direction and the Wanted.

When MTV News sat down with the Wanted to premiere their “Chasing the Sun” video, they chatted a bit about being labeled a “boy band.”

“Eventually, we were, like, over it,” Jay McGuiness explained. “If you like us despite it or because of it, then we’re happy.”

Well, something is working for the guys. Their lead U.S. single, “Glad You Came,” has topped the charts, and they are once again getting people dancing with “Chasing the Sun,” from their just-released debut U.S. EP. It’s a good time to be in a boy band, thanks to all the love out there for them. And it’s an even better time to be in the Wanted.

It seems that their success might have a lot to do with the way they’ve approached their boy-band career thus far. “We went out there and we’re like, ‘You know what? I think we can change people’s perspectives of the ’90s boy bands,’ ” Tom Parker explained. “And that was our aim: just to make good music.”

Voting in round two of MTV’s Battle of the Boy Bands runs until noon ET on Monday, April 30. Winners are determined by fan votes, so if your favorite band made the cut, make sure you keep voting. Tune in to AMTV and MTV Hits for their boy-band video takeovers each day and make sure to spread the word on Twitter using the hashtag #BBB and like us on Facebook for updates!

ce2ae 420x420 The Wanted Out To Prove Boy Bands Make Good Music
Vote for your favorite band, discuss and share on Facebook and Twitter in the MTV Battle of the Boy Bands interactive bracket!

The Wanted Chug Milk And Wiggle Dance With Fans

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The Wanted sat down with MTV News during their “MTV First” Tuesday night to open up about their just-released U.S. debut EP, as well as their brand-new music video for “Chasing the Sun.”

In between more serious chatter about the vampire-themed clip and wanting to work with pals Justin Bieber and Chris Brown on new music, they also got into some shenanigans and made some unusual confessions. So here are their five silliest moments from “MTV First.” Be warned, one includes milk chugging — like the actual chugging of milk.

Jay McGuiness Loves Milk … A Lot
During the interview, one young lady was wondering if Jay could break his personal best milk-chugging time of 4.2 seconds. Well, lucky for the world, Sway had milk on hand. Jay happily obliged, pouring the milk into a pint glass and downing it. Did he break the record? Why yes. He managed to drink it all in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed of 3.7 seconds. How’d Jay feel about it? He just kind of shrugged off the accomplishment.

Welcome to America
The guys are conquering America one girl at a time, so when they were asked to name their favorite state in the union, the guys may have revealed that they don’t know as much about U.S. geography as they thought. “Is New York a state?” Tom Parker wondered. “Like New York, N.Y.?”

Nathan Sykes Gets an Awesome Birthday Present
It’s not always easy being the youngest guy in the band, but Nathan’s bandmates tried to make him feel a little older than his 19 years when he celebrated his birthday. “It’s got its perks. … I think I’m quiet at times, but then the older ones try and mislead me and ruin my life like taking me to the Playboy Mansion for my 19th. I didn’t know we were actually going, and then we pulled in. And then literally it is how it is in the movies. What I meant is it’s like a film set.”

Max George Loves Sharks
When the guys were asked what superpowers they’d like, they had pretty standard-issues answers. But Max revealed that his power would have nothing to do with X-ray vision or mind reading: “I’d be able to breathe underwater so I can swim with sharks … for weeks.”

The Guys Think They Can Dance
“I hate you so much right now,” Jay declared when asked by a young fan to dance. “We were out in the club, and it was quite late and as we only had a few minutes left to get successful with any ladies, Max decided to try dancing to snare one, and this is what he decided to do.” His move? He put his arms out and then wiggled, as displayed by Tom. “It’s quite embarrassing,” Max later confessed. “I’ve retired from doing that.”

Stick with MTV News as we roll out more from our exclusive interview with the Wanted! And don’t forget to vote for them in our Battle of the Boy Bands. Voting is now open and runs until noon ET on Thursday, April 26. Winners are determined by fan votes, so if your favorite band made the cut, make sure you keep voting. Spread the word on Twitter using the hashtag #BBB and like us on Facebook for updates!

The Wanted Perform ‘Glad You Came,’ ‘Chasing The Sun’ On ‘Today’

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NEW YORK — The Wanted made their “Today” show debut on Tuesday (April 24), the day of their debut U.S. EP release.

The fans’ energy was predictably high when the guys stepped outside to the famed Rockefeller Plaza. Before their scheduled performance, the group greeted their devoted legion of female fans, who had made up signs to welcome the guys to the show.

All five fellas happily took the time to pose with fans and sign autographs in the moments leading up to their performance. Then they sang not only their chart-topping track “Glad You Came” but also their new single, “Chasing the Sun.”

“We’ve done two albums, so we’re trying to catch people up in America,” Wanted member Tom Parker told co-host Ann Curry about the EP, their first official Stateside release. They then launched into “Glad,” clad in leather jackets and displaying their boy-band bravado.

After they left the stage, they shared with MTV News that they were thankful to all the people who showed up. “It was average at best,” Jay McGuiness joked about the performance, teasing that “Chasing the Sun” was a “hot mess like Lindsay Lohan.”

The “Today” show was the first of many media appearances the Wanted will make on Tuesday, leading up to their “MTV First” special airing tonight at 7:53 p.m. on MTV. They will sit down with MTV News’ Sway Calloway to debut the “Chasing the Sun” video and chat.

Immediately following the MTV premiere, the fivesome are hanging around for an additional 30-minute live QA session with Sway on MTV.com. Fans can get in on the action by submitting video or text questions via MTV.com or @MTVNews on Twitter, using the hashtags #MTVFirst or #AskTheWanted.

The guys are also one of the 32 hopefuls in MTV‘s Battle of the Boy Bands, which pits some of the greatest boy bands of all time against one another, until fans vote their favorite group to #1. The battle kicked off on Monday at BBB.MTV.com, with the first round ending on Thursday. Fans can weigh in on the matches on Twitter using the hashtag #BBB. The winner of Battle of the Boy Bands will be announced on Monday, May 7, live on “AMTV” on MTV.

The Wanted are taking over the Big Apple! Stick with MTV News for updates and exclusive behind-the-scenes photos all day. We’ll tag along with the guys on stops like the “Today” show and the Empire State Building before “MTV First: The Wanted” kicks off at 7:53 p.m. ET on MTV and MTV.com. Be sure to tune in for the premiere of the “Chasing the Sun” video and a 30-minute interview with the band!

The Wanted Have ‘Perfect’ Songs For Justin Bieber, Chris Brown

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With the Wanted already poised to become internationally acclaimed superstars, it makes sense that they would consider pooling their popularity to make music with some equally potent musical forces, like, say, Justin Bieber and Chris Brown.

When the band stopped by Tuesday for “MTV First: The Wanted,” Sway brought up the band’s onetime tourmate and asked the boys what they thought of the “Boyfriend” singer.

“He was really nice. A really, really nice guy,” Tom Parker said with sincerity, adding that the band and Bieber became so friendly during their joint tour that the Biebs started joking around and ended up playfully smacking bandmate Siva Kaneswaran in a rather — ahem — uncomfortable place.

The natural follow-up to that question was whether the fivesome would consider collaborating with Bieber or if they’d discussed music during the tour. The guys all agreed that a collaboration would be fun and even admitted to having a song in mind for them to work on.

“We talked about it, and we have a song that we think he’d sound great on,” Jay McGuiness teased.

“We’ve talked to Chris Brown as well, which would be really good,” Kaneswaran revealed. “We talked to Chris actually at ‘The Voice,’ and he said he was down as well.”

“It’s all up for discussion,” Parker added, as the rest of the guys chimed in: “You never know.”

“We have got a song we think would be perfect,” Max George said of Brown.

Fingers crossed we can get those guys all in a studio together to crank out their next chart-topper!

Stick with MTV News as we roll out more from our exclusive interview with the Wanted! And don’t forget to vote for them in our Battle of the Boy Bands. Voting is now open and runs until noon ET on Thursday, April 26. Winners are determined by fan votes, so if your favorite band made the cut, make sure you keep voting. Spread the word on Twitter using the hashtag #BBB and like us on Facebook for updates!