Fightstar

As Busted's lead vocalist Charlie Simpson's side project, Fightstar was formed during a party at Simpson's home. He initially hooked up with Al Westaway and Omar Abidi to pen songs for the group and spend as much time as possible rehearsing outside of the Busted schedule. The group added Dan Haigh as bassist, and in 2005 Simpson announced he was quitting Busted to focus on the new band. Fightstar released a debut EP They Liked You Better When You Were Dead (that had been recorded the previous year and featured the track Palahniuk's Laughter), and subsequently signed to Universal's Island Records. They started work on their first album towards the end of 2005, in the meantime releasing single Paint Your Target which hit Number 9 in the UK chart and Grand Unification Part 1, which reached Number 20. When their album, Grand Unification, arrived it debuted at Number 28 in the UK charts. The band then split from Island and signed with indie label Institute for their second album One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours. A B-sides album followed, Alternate Endings, before their third album Be Human was released in 2008. The band then went on hiatus until 2011.