The Playlist

It Takes A Fool To Remain Sane

To seem strange
To seem insane
To gain weight, to seem gay
I'll tell you this:

That it takes a fool to remain sane
Oh, it takes a fool to remain sane
Oh, it takes a fool to remain sane
Oh, in this world all covered up in shame

I'll take it to the stage!

It takes a fool to remain sane
-The Ark

I don't think any of us was prepared for how crazy it would be. Screaming fans throwing themselves at us whenever we try to go somewhere. Pulling us, scratching us, touching us.

Sometimes it just becomes too overwhelming but then I have you by my side. You're my rock. The one that keeps me grounded. The one who makes sure my sanity is intact.

I think we're all grateful to have each other. That we're experiencing this as a band. We have each other's backs and we try to make life on tour as normal as possible. We play football and ping pong and watch movies to relax. The guys are great. We've become such good friends. It would be really weird if we weren't.

We're under a lot of pressure. Our workload is insane and I'm surprised that we don't break. No one prepared us for this. When we stepped out of The X-factor we already had fans worldwide and after we recorded our first record that number increased drastically.

I didn't know that I'm a brand. I have people styling me, telling me how to act, reprimanding me when I'm 'too gay'. They're trying to rectify that by having the papers connect me with different girls. I'm the womanizer and I don't know how that happened? Did we agree to this? Simon says it's all in the contracts we signed and I feel utterly stupid.

You on the other hand have a fake girlfriend. I lost it when the news was brought to us. You tried to protest but there's no use. They owe us. We're a money-making product.

I don't know how long we can do this. Don't get me wrong. Being up on that stage is amazing. I've overcome a lot of my stage fright and it's such an adrenaline rush and we always have fun on stage. It's our playground.

Making music is fun too. Thanks to you we get the opportunity to write our own songs for our third album. I want to write songs that mean something.

Making music videos is also a lot of fun. Meeting fans can be fun under the right circumstances. Usually, we're all so tired that we don't know half the things we say. Thank God they media trained us.

The closeting was okay at first but now it feels like a cage. I never thought that they would put so much effort into making sure that the public thinks we're straight. It's not even working! Loads of fans are convinced that we are in love and they have even given us a name, Larry Stylinson. Why can't our label and management see that as something positive?

No, we had no idea what we actually signed up for and I'm worried about us all. It takes a fool to remain sane and we're not fools. Maybe we were too naive in the beginning but not anymore.