Power To Play is the new and 7th studio album from British pop rockers McFly. It’s important that people understand from the outset that this is a seriously rocking album. After 20 years together Power To Play seems to be a conscious effort to shake off the pop leanings of their earlier records. At the very least this is a band showing enormous growth in their music and one clearly targeted at a more adult market. This is evident from the hard and powerful guitars that crunch throughout this whole record and the fact that the album’s cover now contains a ‘parental advisory’ sticker. Let’s just say that the band drop the F bomb on more than one occasion. But it’s no surprise that McFly would take this harder rock direction given that the teenage fans who bought their debut album Room On The 3rd Floor will now all be approaching their 40s. What’s also enormously satisfying is that Power To Play seems to be something of a campaign to bring guitar-based music to the fore, supported by the flag-waving messages within tracks such as Where Did All The Guitars Go? and God of Rock & Roll. Given this strong new direction, we asked drummer Harry Judd how important it  is for McFly to be seen as a ‘rock’ band:

Harry Judd: It’s not important actually! Just for us to be seen as a good band - that’s what’s important. I think people write us off.

One hilarious aspect from the Power To Play sessions is the fact that producer Jason Perry when being presented with the band material directly and clearly articulated to McFly that the songs were boring and that they needed to be a reset before moving forward. We asked guitarists and front men Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones how it felt to hear such feedback:

Tom Fletcher: That’s right!

Danny Jones: It’s so funny isn’t it! Well, we trusted him because he likes to push us. So we trusted his opinion. If it was someone on the street we’d be like “Alright, mate!?” (Laughs!)

For the final word, we asked bass-player Dougie Poynter what it means to be releasing such an incredible album after 20 years together:

Dougie Poynter: Dude, honestly I’m blown away that people like it! It’s absolutely amazing and I’m blown away! It’s kind of incredible!

Power To Play is available now. For more information head over to www.mcfly.com and in the meantime enjoy the video to Honey I’m Home below.