You’ve announced that your tour next year will be celebrating all your greatest hits. What can the audience expect?

With this tour, we really want to bring our most well-loved songs to a live audience. Get ready for all of the biggest songs from your favourite musicals, from Les Misérables to Disney and everything in between! We’re very excited to be bringing back fan favourite songs from our previous albums, some of which we haven’t had the chance to perform live in a very long time.

We know a lot of fans were looking forward to hearing the songs from our fifth studio album Love Like This live for the first time but, sadly, due to the impacts of COVID-19 we weren’t able to tour that album when it was first released. Having said that, this tour will include a good number of songs from Love Like This and we promise to include every song from the album in other live shows in the future!

You’ve just announced your brand-new album Christmas Is Here. How did the new festive album come about and what’s your favourite track?

We’ve ALWAYS wanted to do a Christmas album and with the Love Like This tour not going ahead, we wanted to still give our collaborators something to look forward to. The time of year was perfect, and we leapt at the chance to put our Collabro spin on our favourite Christmas tracks. We of course have to say that our new original song (and title of the album) Christmas Is Here is our favourite track. Being able to have an original Christmas song just as some of our favourite artists and musical friends (here’s looking at you Cliff) have done before us is a very special feeling.

How was the writing process for the title track Christmas Is Here?

Because we were in lockdown when we wrote the song, there were lots of zoom calls and emails with new lyric ideas and harmonies. Michael actually came up with the melody for the chorus and we knew we were onto a good thing. We sent some ideas to Ben Adams (from boyband A1) who co-wrote our only other original song Lighthouse, and he jumped on board to turn the ideas we had into a track. It’s amazing what you can do with technology.

Keeping with the Christmas Spirit, what puts you all in the festive mood and when do you start getting festive with decorations?

Tom: When I think of Christmas and decorations, I always think of my parents’ house. I always feel most festive when I’m back with my family. My own house is normally quite bear with maybe a small tree and ornaments but not much else. I expect this will only change once my immediate family gets bigger!

Michael: For me, it’s definitely the music. Playing Christmas songs non-stop from the start of November, and then dreaming about my mum’s Christmas cooking! Normally we are in pantomime so this year is a little different, but I still cannot wait!

Jamie: I start getting in the Christmas spirit whenever I put up my Christmas tree! I take a whole day to do it and slowly get it all together – and that can be any time in November/ December depending on our schedules.

Matt: I would love to start putting my Christmas decorations up in September to be honest!!! I don’t, because that would be silly, but I did put them up extra early this year and I’m loving it. Having a full day decorating the house with Christmas music on, is one of my favourite things.

It’s been six years since you won Britain’s Got Talent and you’ve achieved some incredible things. How do you feel you’ve grown as a group in this time and what advice would you give to yourselves back then?

We definitely get closer each year. We have a great time together but being closer also means that if we disagree on something we’re able to comfortably voice our opinions or worries to each other and know that we can come to a compromise or conclusion that is the best for the whole group.

As for advice, I don’t think we’d want to say to change anything. Everything that happened from the start of Collabro up to this point has made us who we are today, as Collabro and also as individuals. We are so grateful for it all and can’t wait for the next chapter.

Since March, what has kept you going through lockdown? What shows have you watched? What are you all listening to?

Tom: During lockdown I thought it would be the perfect time to start a 953 (and still going) series called One Piece. I’m 207 episodes in and still deciding whether this was a good idea or not… I’ve also been watching a gritty German sci-fi thriller called Dark on Netflix. If you haven’t seen it check it out!

I’ve been listening to lots of Musical Theatre and Metal. I’ve been re-listening to the musical Fun Home, by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori, and the band Jinjer. Also, since we’ve been making Christmas Is Here I’ve been forced to listen to a lot of myself.

Michael: During lockdown me and my mum watched The Crown and old episodes of Taskmaster. I also watched all the Harry Potter movies back to back! My music taste is current Pop music. I love Little Mix so you’ll always find them in my playlist!

Jamie: I’ve been really into The Crown, Star Trek Discovery and Maggie Rogers! Plus, I’ve really thrown myself into my production work, building a successful streaming service of musical theatre shows so I’ve been enjoying listening to incredible west end talent.

Matt: I’ve watched A LOT of TV series – The Blacklist, The Crown, The Fall and I love listening to the Oscar Peterson Trio right now; especially with the cold weather coming and the dark nights. Perfect listening with a nice whisky!

When the world gets back to normal, where would you like to play that you have not already?

We’ve been so lucky to travel all over the world with Collabro but we’ve never made it to Australia and New Zealand so that is definitely on the cards. In the UK, we’d love to headline a night at The O2 Arena in London. We’d also love to sing in more cathedrals. We’ve sung in a few but would love to do more. The acoustic and general ambiance of singing in the setting of a cathedral is a completely different experience. Maybe the next tour could be a cathedral tour?

Do you have any onstage rituals ahead of a show and what’s the feeling like performing now from when you started as a group?

We all like to relax and warm up before a performance. As hard as it is to believe, even after six years, we still get a little nervous before we go on. When we’re at the side of the stage we always put our hands together then reach up and say “Collabro” in unison. It gives us a feeling of unity before we step out to perform.

As for how it actually feels performing with each other, we know each other so well that we have a lot of trust on stage. It’s how we’re able to stay so close together with timings and harmonies but also it means that if someone is feeling under the weather just a simple look on stage between members is enough to say “please take my part for me”. It’s nice to know that we can depend on each other in that way.

Finally, a message to your amazing fans.

Dear Collaborators, thank you so much for making the past six years incredible for us. Whether you’ve been with us from the start or have only recently began listening to our music, we appreciate you from the bottom of our hearts. We hope that 2021 will give us more of an opportunity to see you face to face and share our passion with you in a live music venue. We love you all.

Jamie, Matt, Michael & Tom xx

Collabro comes to The London Palladium on Wednesday 3 November 2021. Find out more here.