The X Factor

Many anti-reality TV critics contend that the genre exploits wannabes in order to make good TV, but Tony Lundon is far more pragmatic about his appearance on ITV’s Popstars, the show that eventually made winners – albeit fleetingly – of Hear’Say, and inadvertently made even bigger stars of Tony’s band, Liberty X.

“I got into this game because I wanted to write songs and have people listen to them,” he says. “It was the first thing I asked the people behind the show, and their answer was ‘maybe’. I then thought, ‘well if I didn’t win, it wouldn’t be too bad anyway’.
And if you did win?
“I thought to myself, ‘ah fuck them, I’d write the songs anyway’.”
Popstars unleashed a host of pop talent (or lack thereof) onto an unsuspecting audience, yet it is underdogs Liberty X who are lasting the distance. Not only are they about to release their sophomore album, Being Somebody – a record that many thought would never see the light of day – but recent collaborations with the likes of electro maverick Richard X have also seen the band’s stock soar.
The one unlikely star of the show was Darius Denesh, with whom Tony has remained in contact.
“I thought Darius would go off and set up a cult or something, he’d grow a beard and preach, or he’d be a politician,” he reflects. “Actually, I have to give him credit for having the balls to get up there a second time and combat the ‘most hated man in Britain’ title, and credit for the fact that he’s doing what he wanted to do, writing songs.
“I see him from time to time. In fact, we went to some debate a while ago and Darius was there. He kipped in my gaff. I had interviews to do in my flat that day, but when I returned from the shower, he had all his business, his phones, his paperwork all over the flat. Once he got wind of the cameras coming, he was setting up shop, I had to laugh at the time. From then on, I knew he was going places.”
Tony remains philosophical about the demise of ‘rivals’ Hear’say.
“I feel relieved that I didn’t make the band in the end. I don’t know if they went downhill so quickly because they weren’t tight as a band, they weren’t honest with each other, or whether there was so much pressure, or that most people didn’t respect their songs. When they were in the eye of the storm, they had certain personae that pissed people off, but that’s because they were caught up in the craziness of it.”
As fate would have it, while in the eye of their own label interest storm, the band kept a cool head and ended up signing to V2 Records… the rest, as they say, is history.
“He (Richard Branson) first saw us on the show. When we finished it, we decided to try a bit of songwriting, and the ITV took us to Virgin. They asked us what we would like to do as a band, and we said, ‘we’d like to write our own songs, we’d like to believe in our music, we want to do stuff that we’d like to hear’. They loved it because they were an indie label, and they liked the fact that we had our own ideas. The first song we wrote was ‘Thinking It Over’, which became our first Top 5 single.”
Liberty X may look like pristine players in the pop game, but underneath their shiny, perma-tanned exterior lurks a non-conformist streak. Tony, clad in a vintage Cure T-Shirt, certainly displays an inner indie child.
“My favourite album right now is Elbow’s Cast Of Thousands. They’re the kind of band who you see live and when they finish a song on stage, there is nothing but total silence. It’s incredible.”
While living in London, Tony is, mercifully, not letting the side down.
“I must admit, we’re a drinking band, we do enjoy our alcohol,” he notes, heartily downing a pint of Guinness. “At times, this job is just like a holiday, and when I’m on my holidays, I drink!”