Embrace think the music industry needs Lily Allen.
The band’s frontman Danny McNamara – who is joined in the group by his brother Richard McNamara, Steve Firth, Mickey Dale and Mike Heaton – has praised the outspoken ‘Air Balloon’ singer for her attitude and acerbic pop songs and believes the charts are a better place now she’s back and releasing her first new album in five years, ‘Sheezus’.
Danny exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "She’s great, the world is better with Lily in it. She writes great pop music and she’s not afraid to say what she thinks.
"Her personality is great, people like Lily just speak from the heart about whatever and bugger the consequences. Music is fresher as a result of people like that."
Although he loves Lily, Danny insists he and his Embrace bandmates aren’t as eager to attend celebrity parties as she seems to be and aren’t bothered about having famous friends.
Danny – who is close pals with Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who wrote the song ‘Gravity’ for Embrace – explained: "We’ve always stayed clear of that. When we first got signed we got invited to a record company party and there were loads of big names there.
"I remember Steve our bass player was like, ‘God, I’m trying to get to the loo and there’s a half an hour queue.’ Then we sort of realised that actually everyone was queuing up to do cocaine and it just felt really cheap. It’s not for us."
The band, who have not released an album since ‘This New Day’ in 2006, will drop their sixth self-titled record on April 28 and admit they don’t even get invited to celebrity bashes any more.
Danny added: "We went to that one party and after that we just said ‘no’ to everything and people have stopped asking. It’s not about that for us, it’s about the music."