Christmas came early for up-and-coming girl group Neon Jungle who performed for their biggest ever crowd at last night’s Key 103 Jingle Ball at Manchester’s Phones4u Arena.
The girls will release new single Braveheart on January 19 as the second cut to be lifted from their forthcoming debut album and they admitted how excited they were to be singing in front of thousands.
The four-piece band made up of Jess, Asami, Sheeren and Amira took some time out from their vocal warm up to speak to MM before their performance.
“This arena was only the second one we’d ever done a show at so to come back here with our second single it’s huge for us, this is the biggest place we’ve ever performed in,” Asami said.
The new single will be the follow-up to Neon Jungle’s debut single Trouble, which peaked at number 10 in the UK earlier this year and the band explained how fans can expect to hear a different sound.
“We wanted something to show the different side of us,” Shereen said.
“Obviously we are a girl band but we see ourselves as four solo artists who continue to collaborate with each other so we thought it was important Braveheart should be our second single to show that different side to us.”
Even though none of the girls are from Manchester, they revealed their huge love for the city and were over the moon when asked to perform alongside X Factor winner James Arthur and The Vamps at the city’s Christmas lights switch on last month.
“The crowd was insane for that; there were so many people there,” Shereen exclaimed.
“It was really nice because in the summer the crowd were trying to sing along but the only word they knew was trouble but at the concert they were proper like singing all the words.”
Neon Jungle’s music has been described as ‘chaotic’ and ‘full of mayhem’, and the girls were in a playful mood when discussing Christmas, all except Jessica who seemed downcast.
“I just think it’s an unnecessary fuss you go out to shopping centres and everyone is there. People start it too early, they finish it too late. I spend time with my family normally you know,” the Londoner said.
“Although it was funny when we all did a secret Santa in the band but a day after we did it we ended up telling each other. We are so bad, we just can’t keep secrets.
“I don’t have a problem with people celebrating Christmas around me but don’t put tinsel on me or anything because I will freak out.”
The girls regularly tweet to their growing number of followers but they revealed that one of their New Year’s resolutions will be to sorting out their spelling on the social media network.
Shreen said: “We need to start proof reading our tweets, especially me and Amira.
“We cannot spell and our punctuation is terrible! You know the day we announced Braveheart as our first single Amira calls it Braveheat… oh dear.”
Neon Jungle admitted they wanted to see Robbie Williams and Jason Derulo on the night but also took time out to sign pictures and CD’s for Mission Christmas, a Manchester charity which helps thousands of children in poverty.
“We find it a massive privilege that we have been asked to do that and we’ve signed some stuff for it, it really is the least we can do,” Amira said.
“It nice because something so small will mean the world to someone and hopefully in the future if we’re richer we can give more money.”
For more information about Mission Christmas click here.
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