Celebrity Karaoke Club | Interview with Sonny Jay

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO TAKE PART IN CELEBRITY KARAOKE CLUB? DID YOU WATCH THE FIRST SERIES OF THE SHOW?

A very easy answer to that question is that I work with Roman everyday who was on the last series and he told me that when he did it, it was genuinely the best fun he’s ever had doing a show. Then when the opportunity came about to actually do the show, it was an easy yes! I thought surely I can do a little bit better than he did. I loved it.

ARE YOU ONE TO TAKE TO THE STAGE AND PICK UP THE MIC? DID YOU HAVE ANY NERVES AT ALL?

A lot of people seem to think I’m that person that would go a night out and pick up a microphone and be like ‘oh I’m going to sing’. And actually now I know that I’ve done this show, a lot of people are going to go oh you’re not that person, are you? We all thought you were but you’re not. I do love a bit of karaoke but I’m one of those people that wants to do a duet with someone. If I could do an Eminem and Dido, I would just feel a bit more confident up on stage with someone else. When I was doing this show and I had to sing by myself, I was really nervous.

WHAT CAN VIEWERS EXPECT FROM THE SERIES? ARE THE STAKES HIGHER FOR SERIES 2?

The stakes are definitely high, you know the first series if that’s anything to go by, it was really good and I’m so pleased it’s back for another series. It’s absolute carnage. I just remember, the best bit for me was just seeing each other for the first time and realising who is actually in it with you. One of my favourite parts was I know Olivia Attwood quite well, I’ve interviewed her plenty of times. We were both standing together at the beginning and Max and Harvey walked into the room singing and Olivia turned around to me and went ‘oh my god, it’s Jedward’. It was one of the funniest moments of the show because I just couldn’t believe firstly how excited she was that it was Jedward and secondly how wrong she was and I had to literally go and tell Max and Harvey. I was like ‘guys I’m so sorry but she thought you were Jedward. Ha ha ha!’

HAVE YOU EVER DONE KARAOKE BEFORE? DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY MEMORIES?

Believe it or not, the last time I actually did karaoke was on a night out when Roman got back from the jungle and we all went to Mahiki and we stayed there until about three in the morning and they’ve got like a little karaoke room downstairs. We were all so drunk singing McFly. Roman was singing Spandau Ballet obviously because his Dad was in Spandau Ballet.

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO BRING TO YOUR PERFORMANCES?

I’m learning as I go, I’ve never sung solo before on stage. When I was in a band back in the day, I had two other boys with me that I could sort of look around and feel more comfortable with. This will be the first time really that I’ve firstly done singing since and secondly just by myself doing it but I tried to do songs that I feel like everyone would love. I know at one point, I did pick a song that I thought I knew and I didn’t know as well as I thought I did. Two Become One – Spice Girls. You look at it and you go ‘I know that song’ but I don’t know what the verses are. I don’t know how the verses go so I messed it up really. So I had to get Brian to bloody sing the whole verse. Poor boy!

WHEN YOU SAW YOUR COMPETITORS/FELLOW JUDGES FOR THE FIRST TIME, WHO DID YOU THINK YOUR BIGGEST COMPETITION WAS?

The biggest competition I thought for me personally was Max and Harvey, I’ve seen how massive they are on Youtube. I’ve seen them when they did Celebrity X-Factor and I just know they are quite good singers. I thought these boys are really going to know how to put on a performance and then I saw Brian Dowling and I thought ah! He’s a sweetheart and I know a lot of people love him. I was a bit starstruck!

WHEN JUDGING YOUR OTHER COMPETITORS, WHAT WERE YOU LOOKING FOR FROM THEIR PERFORMANCES?

To be honest, I was looking for someone that looked like they’ve never done this sort of thing before and plucked up the courage to be able to do it. There’s a lot of different people that come on to this show and some of them are natural performers and some of them aren’t. So it was quite nice to see, someone even like Tanya [Bardsley] from Housewives on there and you know for a fact that she hasn’t done anything like it before but it was so nice to see her pluck up courage and get on with it. So I was looking for things like that. Then I was just looking for the performance because when it comes to karaoke, no one really cares about singing. It’s more just about entertaining people isn’t it? Just getting everyone to sing along!

WHO DID YOU GET ON WITH BEST IN THE COMPETITION?

Weirdly enough, I did get on with Tanya [Bardsley], we just met and started talking and it was like ‘what do you do’? And she was like ‘I’m a housewife’. And I was like ‘does that mean that you’ve got a Range Rover and loads of dogs?’ And she was like ‘well I’ve got a Range Rover but one dog’. Then she was like ‘well what do you do’? And I was like ‘well you know, I’m a Presenter, I did Dancing On Ice and stuff’ and she was like ‘oh that’s amazing’. It was the first time we met each other but we just hit it off! It was really nice. And then Olivia [Attwood] as well. Even AJ [Odudu] she’s lovely and I’ve known her for a couple of years now, I’ve done a Brit night out with her and all sorts. To be honest, I think it was easier that I did know people, however I think going on a show like this, whether you do or don’t know people, you’ve just got to get stuck in! If you don’t get stuck in then that’s it. Go on to a show like that and just have fun.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUNNY MOMENTS FROM FILMING THE SHOW?

Oh god! Okay so me being sort of a natural mickey taker, Max and Harvey can do backflips. There was a moment they were performing on stage and they were harmonising with each other and then there was one moment, whether it was Max or Harvey I don’t know but he sort of moved everyone out of the way in the audience and was like ‘move, move, move’ and we were like ‘what’s going on?’ and then one of them backflipped off the stage and I was like ‘oh well that’s pretty cool’. I don’t know how we beat that and then when I did my performance on stage, I was like everyone ‘move, move, move’ and I did a roly poly and then I was like beat that! Have some of that! You think you’re big doing backflips, I can do a roly poly! Then I think I milked it for a while, did a few too many. But it doesn’t matter, you know!

CAN YOU SUM UP THE SERIES FOR US IN 3 WORDS?

Fun, exciting, interesting! It’s quite interesting to see a few different people on their singing.