Check out an extended interview with Olly online at www.firsttv.tv

OLLY Murs was the runner-up in 2009’s X Factor after the nation fell in love with his cheeky Essex charm and quirky dance moves. One year on, Olly is about to release his debut single, Please Don’t Let Me Go. We caught up with him to talk hats, X Factor and the Beckhams!

Hi Olly, how’s it going?

Hi, I’m very well thanks, everything’s going really well at the moment actually. I’ve had a very busy few weeks. The single is out and about at the moment. I’m doing a lot of promotion on that and everything seems to be going really well.

The video looks great!

Thanks! The people who did it had this idea of me coming to a party, trying to find the girl who had invited me and pleading her not to let me go. It just worked out really well. We wanted to do something quirky and summery. All the characters were great so we had a great day out. We got to play some tennis and there was a swimming pool, too. And the food was amazing. It was obviously a bit stressful though. We started shooting at 8am and weren’t done until midnight.

And you’re wearing another hat!

Yes! I do like wearing hats but I wear them too much. The only reason I wear them is because I’m really lazy about doing my hair. I’m making a point of not wearing them now, because people say I wear them all

the time.

The song’s about chasing a girl. Is it based on personal experience?

Well, I co-wrote the single and the whole album. I managed to get myself a publishing deal, which has been amazing. So we were sitting there thinking about different relationships and I was kind of talking about a girl who I was kind of involved with for a little bit this year. It was my first experience of doing something like this. It’s amazing how you can sit down, and in the space of two or three hours, you can come from a small idea to a really nice song. So I’m really chuffed about it.

You’ve recorded the album as well?

Yeah, the album is out in November, so we’re just putting the finishing touches to that. But it’s all pretty much there.

What can we expect from that?

We’ve got a couple of songs similar to the first single, we’ve got a couple of really nice ballads on there, some lovey-dovey songs of me pleading my heart out to girls – being hurt by the ladies, as usual. Ha ha ha!

Have you always wanted to be a singer?

No, when I was younger I wanted to be a professional footballer. I was an Essex boy supporting Manchester United and David Beckham was breaking onto the United team, and he was from Essex. I was a massive fan of the blonde Becks hair – all sort of blended in at the back. I was a massive Spice Girls fan as well. I thought Victoria would come and find me instead. But it didn’t quite work out like that…

So, the new series of X Factor has just started. What was that whole experience like for you?

The X Factor experience was like a racecourse in a Ferrari car. It was quick, with so much going on. Different turns and twists – you didn’t know what was going on really. My high point was when I got through to the final three. That always sticks out in my mind because when I was in LA at Simon’s pad, I just thought, “Oh my god, I cannot go home without going through”. I was almost in tears before I got to see Simon – I was that emotional about it. That was probably the highlight.

How did you learn to dance? Because dancing was sort of your trademark on

X Factor…

You know what? Just years of watching James Brown, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Usher, Justin Timberlake. I would just go out clubbing and try to copy them and their style.

The summer holidays are just coming to an end, what kind of things did you get up to during the summer when you were a kid?

When I was a kid, I didn’t go to the local school, I had to travel to my school every day. So I kind of lost my mates during the holidays. Me, my brother and my best mate who lived next door to me used to spend every day playing football together in the field. And when we were even younger, we used to spend summers with my uncle, who was a lorry driver at the time. So we used to drive up and down the country with him. It was quite exciting. We used to get up really early, about 6am and go for drives with him. It was great fun!

The new single, Please Don’t Let Me Go is out on 29 August. Check out an extended interview with Olly online at www.firsttv.tv