With Busted finished, we conduct the first ever post-split interview with Charlie's new band, Fightstar

It was a pretty fortuitous coincidence that saw Busted officially split up, to the despair of trillions of young girls everywhere, and then Charlie (I won't explain which one, or even who he is - it seems unnecessary) and his new band play their first gig at our union the very same day. It also seemed unlikely that they'd be talking to anyone about it. The BBC covered the split on the 6 o'clock news, and even the NME - who prides itself on being at the cutting edge of what's hot and what's not - reported the split of Britain's best loved pop-punk-guitar-beat-combo (well they were until McFly swooped in and grabbed the hearts of the same trillions of young girls) on its website.

Everyone wants a piece of the action: as far as the Pop world is concerned, this is the biggest piece of hot gossip since Bryan/ Brian McFadden left Westlife - and that was months ago. And yet there we are, talking to Alex Westaway, who sings vocals and plays guitar in Fightstar (Charlie also sings and plays guitar - it's a democracy thing). Mr Simpson, formerly of Busted, is not present for our chat. But to be honest, we're not surprised or disappointed because, frankly, who could blame him? The 19 year old is, presumably, chained and handcuffed to a legal ball and chain restricting his every thought, movement, and word about his former band and his new venture.

To begin with, it's a bit like something out of Harry Potter. However, instead of being scared about saying Voldemort's name in case a Dementor mysteriously appears and sucks the very soul from underneath our shirts, we delicately shy away from mentioning the B-word for fear of angering the Tour Manager. Fortunately, he and Alex couldn't be more helpful, although Alex does look a bit frightened of us. (Why on earth would this be, we wonder? He's the one who's best mates with Charlie from Busted, not us) With press conferences, media hounding, and young fans understandably upset, we ask if the day has been stressful. "No. It's been fairly chilled out." Alex says before hesitating "Actually no, with what's been going on it's been fairly hectic."

Ice firmly broken, we get down to business. The band has been playing together, as a side project to Busted. But now they've finally been let out of their London cage and are on tour: "it's something we've all been wanting to do for ages and ages," explains Alex. But the time management and waiting around involved in sharing the stage with an award-winning teen heart-throb is as difficult as you would think. "Yeah. It's hard. We've had so much time on our hands, because we had to try and be free when Charlie was free, so it's been hard to get a job and things because we had to be around when Charlie had a day off," However, Alex doesn't reveal an ounce of resentment, it's just a matter of fact in the day to day life of Fightstar. But, despite all the waiting, they've been keeping busy creating the aesthetic elements of the band. Alex designed the artwork for the E.P (released 28th February) and Dan (Haigh, bass) has made the video for the new single, making use of earlier career as a video game designer.

The involvement in this side of the music business is something very important to them: "We're all so creative it would be a waste to get someone else to do o it." Fightstar have been gigging in London for about a year and, looking on their website, a core fan base of girls is evident: "It's cool sometimes," laughs Alex. The female interest in the band is clearly a spin off of the Busted contingent. But as Alex intuitively points out: "You'd be surprised. If you go to a Taking Back Sunday show then there's lots of young girls there. We're probably just labelled with it a bit more." The band could probably sit back, cross their fingers and hope that Busted's fans pick up the tab. But 'easy' and 'way' are two words that are not included in Fightstar's vocabulary. For a start, they are purposefully releasing their material on their own indie label "we want about more grass roots to it, and to make it harder for ourselves. For obvious reasons," explains Alex.

Their music has been described as Nirvana-esque but their influences as a collective are broad. Alex prefers "more singer/ songwriters" like Jeff Buckley, while "Charlie's more focussed on emo and underground records." Alex and Omar once played in a funk band and they also cite Rage Against the Machine, Silverchair and particularly the "Deftones sort of sound," as important in their musical style. The Kings of Leon sweatshirt that Alex wears is a decoy in hinting at his taste "This was a freebie; I'm actually not a huge Kings fan," he is not shy to admit. Two of the bands songs refer to films. The first, Lost Like Tears in Rain, quotes Blade Runner. The second, Palahnuik's Laughter (originally titled Out Swimming In The Flood, but changed because of the Asian tsunami atrocities) is in reference to the f ted author of Fight Club. The idea is that canned laughter on comedy shows is sometimes 50 years old "so dead people are laughing." Their music then is taken from a collection of eclectic sources and intelligently put together. But is it political at all? "Not really" admits Alex "we're not a political kind of band. We're more emotive. We don't have a good enough understanding of politics to get involved." Fair play.

The name Fightstar could suggest a veiled snipe at the celebrity-obsessed popular culture that we find ourselves surround by in the 21st century. However, it's actually far more innocent than that: "Charlie came up with 'Time To Fight' at one time. Dan was watching Lord of the Rings and came up with 'Arwen Evenstar'" Alex democratically fused the two together. The band was also formed quite innocently. "Charlie's girlfriend moved in with my sister about 18 months ago" explains Alex. After a dinner party and a jam, Alex eventually relocated to London to do "the music thing", sleeping on Charlie's floor until he "found his feet." Dan and Alex were at school together and so the musical collaborations began.

The conversation is flowing easier now. The boys are on a 30 date tour which will see them support Taking Back Sunday in Amsterdam. When asked if this is just an excuse for a debauched vacation Alex smiles and says "Yeah we're trying to blag an extra day there but our budget won't stretch." Turns out he's just a normal male in his early twenties. We decide not to play a game to get him to finish our sentences with the word Busted, as he's been so forthcoming anyway. But we can't resist one: What's another word for something that is damaged, broken, beyond repair? " Fucked Up." It's not that he doesn't understand the rules. As well as being normal, he's interesting and funny. Who would have thought?

When asked if it's hard starting out in the shadow of a monolithic group such as Busted, Alex gives his most surprising response: We kinda want to stay in the shadow for a while. We didn't want it to happen so soon; we wanted to wait for the album to be ready, but that's the way things go. And you know the other two guys have got their own careers to think about." (This is in reference to Matt Willis and James Bourne, formerly of Busted).

Fightstar are not the commercially driven sell outs you might have first taken them for. Is Alex worried about a backlash from the fans? Naturally. "Yeah I was a bit worried today, that I was going to get knifed or something." Getting up on stage, with everyone there to see 'the guy from Busted," must be pretty difficult. On stage that night, they all look understandably nervous, and technical difficulties after the first song can't have helped. Their music is fairly standard emo - crunching, roaring and angst-ridden, but they also reveal a promising delicacy of melody on Hazy Eyes. They aren't by any means the finished article - they are, after all, a band in their infancy - but when Charlie says "thanks for coming tonight and giving this band a chance, it means a lot," you can't help but respect them all for getting up there in the first place. He may be one of the wealthiest teenagers in the country, and is criticised for selling out but it's easy to suspect that what he wanted when he was 16 (when Busted first entered our lives) and what he wants now are two entirely different things. And, buckets-loads of money aside, why shouldn't the other three members of the band get a shot at the big league as well? They're talented, ambitious and, after all, they've waited long enough.