-So, do you think how natural it has been will help your longevity in the end?
Yeah, definitely - and because it's not happened over night, we really appreciate it more. Those sweeter moments will feel so sweet. Nothing's been handed to us, we've really had to grasp. It is nice to be seeing little differences being made - even down to being the second most-requested video on Starz TV. To be in front of Jessie J and Dappy in the chart, it's crazy to know that we've built up a fan-base to get us to number 2 in that requested chart.

-It's all starting to pay off, but what were the big challenges you had to overcome towards the beginning of your career?
Mainly knock-backs from, I guess, labels and trying to get that major deal, it's been hard to come by. We had a few near-misses where we were scouted by people like Sony, Universal, had a showcase, then another, the main person coming to see us and tell us everything was fantastic and let's work together.

Then, for whatever reason, next thing you know, that guy had been fired - that kinda thing. We never really seemed to stumble on the kind of luck that we felt our hard work deserved.

Even with 'Afraid', there was a problem with the way it was registered for the charts. Even though we'd done really well and amassed a lot of pre-orders - we were the number one pre-order on Play.com, a lot of people were expecting big things from us.

But, due to a problem with the distribution it was messed up, and none of the sales we made that week counted towards the chart.

That was disheartening, so we've had a lot of bad luck and we're praying for a turnaround. In the last couple of week's we've just secured a deal with Universal in Canada. In January we'll go over there.

-You've also got the school tours. Could you tell us a bit more about that?
Yeah, we've actually just finished the last leg of it. The response was just unbelievable. The teachers were comparing it, which sounds insane, but to Beatlemania, where the whole school would run across the school legging it towards us.

Last week in a performance a girl lost a tooth cos they were going that crazy and jumping up and down, getting involved. There were girls chasing after the car as we were leaving.

It's kinda like a backwards horror movie, all these zombies banging on the windows outside, yelling Frixion and trying to get in, but obviously they didn't wanna kill us! It was really surreal.

The good thing was it wasn't just the girls, even the boys relate to us, the way we dressed and acted on stage. That was really cool, to see the young teenage lads of today not hating on us, and actually supporting us.

We are just three normal lads, fairly down to earth and in touch with everything that's going on.

-Looking into the future, you've got a couple of singles planned for next year. What can you tell us about those?
After 'Under The Influence' comes out, within a couple of weeks we've got the next video, 'Falling In Love'. That'll be released around the first or second of December - it's just a huge, big vocal ballad.

People are hearing it, and weren't expecting it from three guys from the Midlands. 'Under The Influence' is that kind of commercial, up-beat, toe-tapping track. The tracks that we've got are really powerful, more mature.

After that, around January or February, we have the third one, which is more of an R n' B club track.

-Looking past those and the Canadian tour, what else can we expect from FriXion?
We have the album to drop. We're really excited about that. With the amount of tracks we've recorded over the years, our first album will almost feel like the Greatest Hits album.

We're going to be really proud of every track, we've carefully selected and recorded every track so that they really bring something to the album.

I think people will hear it, and know soon enough, that they can say "that's FriXion", and recognise the sound of it. It will be different, people will realise the differences between us and other groups.

Female First - Alistair McGeorge