Busted (2002–2005; 2015–present) Simpson first gained fame with pop rock/pop punk act
Busted as a result of responding to an advertisement placed by
Matt Willis and
James Bourne in
NME magazine in 2001. Busted consisted of Simpson on lead guitar and occasionally drums, Willis on bass guitar and Bourne on rhythm guitar and piano; all three members provided vocals. Over a period of two years, the trio had major success and sold over 5 million records, won two
BRIT Awards, and also won
The Record of the Year in 2004. Simpson left Busted in 2005 to concentrate on post-hardcore band Fightstar. On 10 November 2015 Busted announced they would be reforming with Simpson back in the original line-up and would embark on an 18 date arena tour around the UK and Ireland. The band sold 100,000 tickets in the first hour of the tour going on sale. Busted's third studio album
Night Driver was released in November 2016. In 2018, Busted announced their fourth album
Half Way There, along with arena tour dates in March 2019. After another four year hiatus, whilst the band focused on other projects, in May 2023 Busted announced they would be returning for a 20 Year Anniversary Greatest Hits tour, which went on to become the biggest selling UK arena tour of 2023. They also released a Greatest Hits album which went to number 1 in the UK album charts.
Fightstar (2003–present) Despite the huge success of Busted, Simpson began to grow increasingly discontented with the pop star lifestyle and the music he was performing. As an avid fan of rock music, he felt unfulfilled by the commercial pop songs of Busted. The EP was recorded during November with Mark Williams in London. Fightstar went on to record their debut full-length
studio album with
rock producer
Colin Richardson.
Grand Unification was released on 13 March 2006, and further proved the initial cynics wrong by receiving widespread positive reviews. In particular, Paul Brannigan of
Kerrang! magazine stated the album was "one of the best British rock albums of the past decade". Scottish music publication
The Fly also lauded the album as "one of the 21st Century's ultimate rock debuts". Shortly afterwards, the band went on to receive nominations at the
Kerrang! Awards for "Best British Newcomer" and "Best British Band". After leaving
Island Records due to a disagreement over the band's artistic direction, the band signed to an
independent label called Institute Records which was a division of
Gut Records to release their second album.
One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (2007), peaked at No. 27 on the
UK Album Chart, before releasing a
B-sides compilation album titled
Alternate Endings (2008). The four-piece then funded and co-produced their third album,
Be Human (2009). Fightstar released their fourth full-length album
Behind The Devils Back (2015), which would be their most critically acclaimed album, making Rock Sound magazine's Top 50 Albums list for 2015. On 6 November 2023, Fightstar announced they would be returning for a headline show at Wembley Arena to mark the band's twenty year anniversary.
Solo career (2010–present) On 29 July 2009, he made a Myspace page for his
acoustic solo work. There were three songs on the page, "Dead Man Walking", "Empty Guns (Demo)", and "Carry Her". "Carry Her" was previously available on
The Suffolk Explosion. Fightstar announced a hiatus at the beginning of 2010, stating that they were "taking some time off" for the remainder of 2010–11 to work on separate projects before regrouping in 2012 to begin working a new record. Simpson has started working on a solo acoustic album, while Westaway and Haigh will be completing
post-production on the bands film and working on some
music videos. Simpson went into the studio in June 2010 to start recording his full-length debut album with producer Danton Supple, whose previous work includes Coldplay and The Cure. The album was funded through
PledgeMusic and as one of the main incentives for the campaign, fans received an EP called
When We Were Lions on Christmas Day 2010. The full-length album was finally finished in February 2011 and was mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios in London. The first single to be taken from the album was called "Down Down Down" and it had its first radio airplay on 11 April, as Radio 1 DJ Fearne Cotton's Record of the Week. The single was officially released on 16 May, though it was made available to buy on iTunes straight away. The album, titled
Young Pilgrim was released on 15 August 2011. It went straight into the UK album chart at number 6, having been at number 5 in the midweeks. Simpson signed to PIAS Records in Germany and the album was released in Europe in August 2012. On 2 February 2013, it was reported that Simpson had finished writing the follow-up to his 2011 solo debut 'Young Pilgrim' and he would be heading into the studio with producer Steve Osbourne (
U2/
Placebo) to start recording in early March. Simpson spent the summer of 2013 playing on the
Vans Warped Tour in the US, which was the first time he has played live as a solo artist in America. During October 2013, Charlie went on a tour of the UK supporting rock band,
Deaf Havana. He previewed two new tracks from the forthcoming album "Winter Hymns" and "Ten More Days". In 2014, he undertook a small run of solo shows in the UK in the lead up to the release of his second solo album. Simpson announced on 28 April 2014 that his second solo album is to be called
Long Road Home and will be released later that year, since revealing the release date would be 4 August 2014. In October 2014, Simpson announced that he would play a 13 date UK solo acoustic tour in January/February of the following year. On 5 May 2016, Simpson released his third solo album,
Little Hands, a compilation of rare tracks from 2010 though 2016. The first single was a stripped-down version of "Emily". The album also included the track from the
Watch UKTV series
Singing In the Rainforest, "Walking With the San", which first aired in 2015. The song was recorded as part of the show in which Charlie travelled to Namibia to spend time living and playing music with the
San people. After the show aired, an edit was made to act as a music video for the song and was uploaded to Facebook, the track has since gone viral and has been viewed over 14,000,000 times. On 23 October 2020, Simpson released the first track from his upcoming album
I See You, which peaked at 39 on the iTunes chart in its first week. In late 2021, Simpson announced his upcoming fourth studio album
Hope Is a Drug, scheduled for release in March 2022. He also revealed the dates of the accompanying promotional tour. The tour was later postponed, citing delays to album supply chains and shipping caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Other works In 2016, Simpson released an EP with a side project called
Once Upon a Dead Man alongside his two brothers Will and Edd Simpson, and friend Simon Britcliff. Once Upon a Dead Man had been in the works since at least 2012, when the three Simpson brothers performed together to cover
Bon Iver. In 2016, after
Fightstar has completed touring in support of their album ''
Behind the Devil's Back'' and ahead of
Busted's reunion tour, the band released their first single "The Canopy" and announced a 1 April digital release of their debut EP,
Concepts and Phenomena. In March they released their second single, "Give Up", before streaming the whole EP on 31 March. On 2 April, they released a music video for the song "Threads". Outside of his main musical activities, Simpson also has frequently collaborated with other musicians, which include
This Is Menace,
Gunship (the side project of his Fightstar bandmates, Alex Westaway and Dan Haigh), alternative rock band Two Year Break, as well as indie band, The Travis Waltons. With Gunship, he co-wrote and lent his voice for their highly critical acclaimed single, "Tech Noir", of Gunship's debut album. In 2018, he contributed to
Bullet for My Valentine's sixth album
Gravity, receiving a songwriting credit on the track "Breathe Underwater". He also co-wrote the song Can't Escape The Waves on Bullet For My Valentine's 2022 self titled album. Charlie has also been involved in film scoring, stating in an interview that this was something he was keen to pursue later in his career. He wrote the score for an independent British film '
Everyone's Going To Die', which debuted at the SXSW Film Festival in March 2013. In 2023, Simpson won the
fourth series of
The Masked Singer as "Rhino", making him the first male winner in the UK. After his victory, he released the EP
Kifaru containing songs he performed on
The Masked Singer. In 2023, Simpson appeared on Gunship's third album "Unicorn", lending his voice to "Tech Noir 2", the sequel to "Tech Noir" from the first album. with film director John Carpenter and Tim Cappello from
Tina Turner (1939–2023) and the film
The Lost Boys (1987) on Saxophone. In 2024, Simpson was cast as The Sung Thoughts of the Journalist in The Spirit of Man tour of ''
Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds''. In 2025, multiple reports stated Simpson was behind the anonymous metal band
President. ==Personal life==