It’s 11:00 in the morning, but Phoebe Lau – one part of aptly-named X Factor act GirlBand – is buzzing, despite being up since 6:00am…

GirlBand were ejected from the competition on Saturday night after being in the bottom two for the second week running. When we catch up with Phoebe, she’s just come off the Lorraine Kelly slot on GMTV and the girls are gearing up for an interview on This Morning.

She tells us “It still hasn’t sunk in yet that we’re out of the show. We’re just happy to have got this far and have the opportunity to sing in front of so many people.”

Polar Bears and overblown productions

Simon commented after their performance that he “almost expected to see you come out with polar bears.” Believe it or not, it was almost that bad:

“They wanted us to come out with a school choir and all the kids to be holding hamsters and gerbils. We texted Louis and pleaded with him not to let it happen. After the comments last week about our dresses, we wanted the performance this week to focus on our voices,” says Phoebe.

Unreality: We were amazed at the number of ballads this week – isn’t Michael Jackson better known for his disco stuff?

Phoebe: Well, we’d done an up-tempo song last week, so we wanted to choose a slower song to show a different side to us. I think the solo singers were a bit afraid of being compared to Michael Jackson because he’s so famous for his dancing.

There’s been so much speculation about Louis Walsh abandoning the girl groups….

Louis supported us, and he supported all the groups equally. He’s a lovely guy, and he’s got such great Irish charm. All the mentors are really involved with their acts, especially Cheryl with the girls.

What was your favourite song from Saturday night?

We loved doing I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing by Aerosmith – that’s more of our kind of thing.

What do you think of the talent this year compared with last year?

Oh, the quality of talent this year is much higher, but I loved Rhydian last year. I think there’s loads of people who would love it if he brought out an album. And I met Leon the other day as well – he’s the loveliest guy ever, he takes time to say hello to everybody and he knew who we all were.

Let’s talk about GirlBand – how long have you been together?

The first time we sang was one week before the first audition (there are three rounds of auditions before you get in front of the judges), so we’ve been together since about March.

We’ve been working hard, but it’s been difficult because Layla lives in Birmingham, so it was constant commuting just to practise. Obviously Tita and I are sisters, but we realised that we had a distinctive sound and wanted to work on that.

We spent time working on harmonies – Tita worked out all the harmonies for us, but it was difficult because the four of us are all used to singing as soloists, so we didn’t have to think about things like harmonies before. That was the main thing for us to learn.

There were high expectations for the groups category this year…

Yeah, I think they really want a group to win it for once. We thought we’d have a great chance because we’re four girls, good friends and we love singing. But the soloists this year are out of this world. They’re some really nice girls.

Yeah, although I heard a rumour last week that Diana Vickers is a bit of a diva.

Really? NO, she’s loveleee! She’s a bit like Joss Stone – she’s quirky and does her own thing, which is cool. She’s got a really distinctive style.

The guys this year are quite a strong group too…

And they’re all quite young too, aren’t they? Eoghan’s got the biggest crazed girl fanbase ever – they’ve already found out where the house is and every day there are girl fans waiting for him!

What’s next for GirlBand?

Well we’ve spoken to Louis, and were going back on next week for the charity single, and we’ll speak to him again then. He’s going to help us out and  has said that he’s always on the other end of a phone. He’s suggest that we should think about getting a fifth member, and I think we’re gonna do that, and hopefully try and get noticed, because it’s what we really want to do.

Right now, we’re going to take a few days to chill and when we meet up on Saturday for the show, we’re going to have a long chat about it.

How long have you been in the X Factor house?

Three weeks! But we’ve left now – it was horrible packing and saying goodbye to everybody! There were 25 of us in the house from the start – there was never a quiet moment, always something going on. It was just like a big, huge family, all watching X Factor together.

Do you have to watch your X Factor performance the next day?

Well, no, you don’t have to, but we chose to. We were all watching ourselves on TV. We all sort of analysed ourselves and what we could have improved here and there.

When you watched yourselves back, could you see any reason why you got voted out?

I think we did the best we could, and maybe it was a bit gimmicky with all the petals and backing dancers and stuff. We just wished people had focused more on us singing that what was going on behind us with the big spinning world and all that.

With two groups voted out in the first two weeks, should JLS be worried that they’ll be next?

I don’t think JLS will be going for a long time, they’ve been together for years. They’ve got so much experience behind them – they know exactly what they’re doing, they’ve got loads of girl fans. They’ve got a huge fanbase and they’re lovely boys.

Who do you think will be next to be voted off?

I don’t know. It could be anybody – one of the frontrunners could easily get a theme they’re not comfortable with and lose out.

And who do you predict will win X Factor this year?

I got on with Laura so well in the house – she’s got her own thing going on and I just love her voice. It’s so jazzy. I think jazz isn’t a big thing anymore, and I think Laura could get people back into jazz, and I think X Factor is a show which makes things happen, so I’d love it if she won.

A lot of people are predicting a three-way all-female final…

Yeah, I could be. But the boys are good as well.

Do you think Simon’s giving Ruth Lorenzo the right advice, telling her to sing in Spanish?

Well, Simon’s like the biggest guy in the industry, and I think it’s really important to listen to everything he tells you. She doesn’t have to sing every song in Spanish, maybe just a little bit, but there are a lot of Spanish people living here who might vote for her.

I’m really glad that I met Simon and had the guts to sing in front of him, because I hadn’t sang in a long time before going on X Factor. It’s scarier singing in front of Simon Cowell than it is singing in front of millions of people.

And next week is Big Band week, isn’t it?

Yeah, I’m so annoyed, because that’s my favourite type of music, I’m so annoyed that I won’t get a chance to do it. Yeah, we had it all planned out, because as soon as you finish on Saturday and Sunday you’re in rehearsals, and because we’re a group, we needed time to sort out harmonies.

Back at the house, everybody’s already practicing for next week.