Son of Dork

Fronted by Busted's James Bourne, five-piece guitar band Son of Dork briefly found success with their brand of blink-182-influenced punk-pop. Named after a line in Problem Child, the band formed just months after Busted's shocking split in 2005, when Bourne recruited lead guitarist Chris Leonard, a former member of BBC Kids TV house band Stamford Amp, rhythm guitarist David Williams, bassist Steven Rushton, and drummer Danny Hall through adverts placed in NME and The Stage. The band soon signed a deal with Mercury Records and released its first single, the Top Three hit "Ticket Outta Loserville," and the Gil Norton-produced debut album of the same name in 2005. A year later they scored another Top Ten hit with "Eddie's Song," wrote the theme tune to the Ant & Dec film Alien Autopsy, and toured with Wheatus and Bowling for Soup on the U.K. leg of the Get Happy tour. In 2007, various members left the band due to inactivity, eventually resulting in the group officially disbanding. In 2009, Bourne teamed up with playwright Elliot Davies to produce a musical based on their album, which proved so successful on its short run that a transfer to the West End was planned for 2011. ~ Jon O'Brien