X Factor’s Yes Lad gear up to release first single: ‘We want to bring a bit of fun to the charts’

A boy band put together by the mastermind behind Take That say they want to put the fun back into music, after criticising the charts for being too “doom and gloom”.

Yes Lad, five singers from the North-West, have been put together by Nigel Martin-Smith, who believes they can be as big as Gary Barlow and his bandmates.

They already have a dedicated fanbase, with many camping outside Martin-Smith’s office for a glimpse of the boys — Cian Gleeson, 20, Joel Healey, 19, Sonny Hardman, 20, from Manchester, Lewis Maxwell, 17, from Liverpool, and Jake Donlan, 20.

Maxwell said: “All our lives have changed dramatically. We are all working-class lads and were all in college or working — places like Subway, Tesco, the Co-op.

Then this guy came along and said, ‘I’m going to make you massive!’ It’s all a bit of a dream. He had so much success before we were even born. He’s done it all before. We see Nigel more than our parents.”

Hardman added: “We want to bring a bit of fun to the charts because it’s all a bit doom and gloom at the moment. Songs about people’s dead dogs, and stuff like that.

"As well as singing, we can dance too, so we can bring a lot of fun to the stage.” Healey believes there “is a massive gap in the industry for a boy band like us” and added: “ We don’t take ourselves too seriously.

"A lot of people in the charts are taking themselves too seriously and we’re like, ‘Let’s just write pop songs and make people happy!’”

A slightly different line-up of the band appeared on last year’s X Factor but were eliminated before the live finals.

Donlan thinks this was a blessing in disguise. He said: “We are more free to do what we want — we can write the songs we want, have the style we want. We’ve got more control.”

Martin-Smith said fans from as far away as Germany have camped outside his office, “like in the Take That days”.

The band’s first single, Walk Away, is due out next month.