To trace the story of Son Of Dork, you'd have to go back to 1991, the summer of grunge. Nirvana had just released 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and were the plaid-clad kings of the world, and the airwaves were noisier than they'd been in years.
It was at this exciting time that a precocious, seven-year-old James Bourne put his hand up in class and asked to learn to play guitar. Developing a voracious appetite for music through Michael Jackson, via The Beatles and the Beach Boys and onto the punkier wares of Green Day, he started to write his own material before being catapulted into the limelight with Busted. You may have heard of them. No-one could have known that they'd go on to become Britain's biggest pop band - the ones responsible for replacing lip-synching boy bands with real instruments and spiky choruses of genuine adolescent experience.
"The first real song I wrote was What I Go To School For," he remembers. "It was the first one where I thought 'this is really it now'. You can't compare your songs to songs you wrote when you were nine. You have to start comparing them to songs on the radio. That was the first one where I thought it was better than songs that were already successful."
Meanwhile, SOD's co-frontman Steve Rushton was growing up in Chertsey near Staines, raised on old school rock 'n' roll by his professional Elvis impersonator stepdad. "Anything he doesn't know about Elvis isn't worth knowing!" he laughs. "He put a guitar in my hand and got me up onstage with him a couple of times. I was just like 'wow, I'm enjoying this, I want to do this!' I've been to Graceland, it was emotional!"
After his sister played him Green Day, Steve's fate as a musician was sealed. He began to worship Billie Joe Armstrong and formed a band of his own - Mr Cheerful - after studying the Californian punk behemoths. "I did everything I could to be like him," he says as he takes a break in the London studio where Son Of Dork are adding the finishing touches to their debut album. "I bought the same guitar as him, bought all the albums and listened to them non-stop. He's my complete idol."
The rest of the line-up are not the most obvious of bandmates, but their wildly varied background makes for a sound that Steve describes as being "as close to rock as pop can get. People consider Simple Plan and Good Charlotte as rock, but these songs are rockier than their songs, and the lyrics are ten times better than their lyrics."
Before answering the adverts James placed everywhere from the NME to The Stage in order to put the band together, drummer Danny Hall had spent ten years pounding away with hardcore metal band Spiral Rock. Guitarist, Chris Leonard has toured the world's arenas with the likes of Bryan McFadden, Busted and Blue, while David "Dai" Williams was in an emo band in South Wales and Steve was a rockabilly dividing his time between Mr Cheerful, college and a job in Sainsbury's.
Clearly it shouldn't work, but the unlikely five-piece sparked off one another from day one. After a gruelling audition process and debut gigs at Oxford and Liverpool's Party In The Park festivals, they're already inseparable. "At the auditions I saw some great players I would have loved for the band, but I could tell they were arseholes," says James. "There was one guy who was one of the best guitarists I've ever seen and he had the biggest attitude problem in the world. Even if he was Jimi Hendrix, if he has an attitude problem he's never going to fit. It's not about individuals, it's about the band. If it was about individuals I'd go solo."
"It's a great environment," agrees Steve. "They're just as much my best mates as anyone I've known for years now. I feel like I've known them for ages cos we're around each other 24/7. You just get to know everyone really quickly. We all bounce off each other really well, we just take the piss out of each other and have a laugh. Touring's going to be great."
Things just kept falling into place. When James played four tracks acoustically to super-producer Gil Norton (the man behind the sound of such rock royalty as Pixies, Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World) he jumped at the chance to work with them. The only thing missing was a name. Which is where James' love of film - particularly movies about geeks - came into play. "I was in Canada on a chair lift and I was just thinking about Charlie leaving Busted and how I'd have to get another band and I didn't know what to call it," he remembers. "A scene from 'Problem Child' was in my head, where he's on a baseball field and he's missing all the balls and the whole team are shouting at him 'son of dork'. I just thought that would be cool because it sounds good when it's chanted. It suited what we're about and it suits our songs down to the ground. It's just a perfect name for the band. I watch a lot of loser movies. "
Picking this largely forgotten, post-'Home Alone' film that he loves so much makes perfect sense - it sums up the youthful, rough-and-tumble fun of the band's music. With this in mind, he says that 2004's ultimate loser movie, 'Napoleon Dynamite', inspired the songwriting to a "ridiculous" extent, so don't be surprised if some nifty, curly-haired dance moves make it into one of Son Of Dork's videos some time soon.
In keeping with the theme, the first single - a spectacularly bouncy affair - is knowingly-titled 'Ticket Outta Loserville'. "Loserville is a state of mind," explains James. "Everyone gets to a stage in their life where they get a ticket out of Loserville. It could be a job that they've got that they always wanted, they've done something that they're proud of and that's good.”
James’ proud that pop music no longer has to mean the insipid, boy bands of the late '90s. Thanks to bands like Son Of Dork, starting with Busted and via the likes of McFly, pop music is going back to its roots - accessible, catchy, unashamedly populist music played by actual musicians. It's no coincidence that in every town, you'll see young kids with guitars strapped to their backs, on their way to rehearse in their very own bands that they've formed with friends at school. "There's so many young kids playing guitar now, it's great," he smiles. I've got a younger brother, he's 12, and he plays guitar now because of Busted. He has a band, and all his friends do. It's just the thing to do now if you're a young kid, which means in ten years time there's going to be some damn good bands around. It's great."
After months of searching for the right band, finely tuning the songs and working out a plan to take over the world, the rollercoaster's about to go hurtling skywards again. And this time, the ambition is to be even better and even bigger. "There's nothing wrong with playing to thousands of people!" laughs James, excited about the months to come. "I love playing live. I'm bored without it. I enjoy playing shows and I can't wait to do it again."
With the guys already writing songs for the next album, the chances of finding the time to be bored have just flown out of the window, and in the next few months, Loserville is the only place Son Of Dork are not likely to be found.
James Bourne - Lead vocals/guitar Steve Rushton - Lead Vocals/Bass Chris Leonard – Vocals/guitar David Williams – Guitar/some vocals Danny Hall - Drums
Source: http://www.ilikemusic.com/features/Son_Of_Dork_Biography-1877
