They haven’t even left The X Factor house and already we have brought you an interview with The X Factor’s most recent evictees, The MacDonald Brothers.

We spoke to Craig (the blonde brother) and true to form he was friendly and personable, a man I wouldn’t mind having a pint with it has to be said.

As the interview was cut short we will be speaking to the boys again on Wednesday of this week. If you have any questions you would like us to put to Brian or Craig, leave a comment here or drop us a line.

Brad: How Does It Feel To Be Out Of The X Factor?

Craig: It’s mixed feelings. I mean obviously on the night we did go out I was absolutely gutted and it just feels like the end of everything, but now that we’re doing all the press stuff, it seems as though it’s just the beginning of something so it’s a good feeling. It’s a really good feeling and we hope that its the start of something good.

Brad: As the weeks went on you seemed to build confidence and the two of you were getting much more stage presence toward the end. How does it feel to go out after coming so far?

Craig: I would totally agree with that. I think we were unsure of ourselves at the start of this and the criticism, because we were getting it from Simon, did get us really really down. But I think we learned how to deal with it and just tried to deflect it and take it in a positive way, which made us work harder and it made us more determined. I think for some people if they got that sort of criticism they would give up, whereas, it made us more determined. We just thought ‘I’m gonna prove him wrong.

We feel we improved towards the later stages of the show

Brad: You really did

Craig: It would have been nice to have peaked in the final but again thats another matter.

Brad: The performance you did when you sang the show out on Saturday night was fantastic.

Craig: We just enjoyed it. Thanks very much for saying that man. I felt like we totally enjoyed that one and it was like we’d nothing to lose. It was the last performance and all the nerves were gone, the pressure was off, we just really enjoyed ourselves. It went a bit over the top with the shouting and all that I thought but it just shows a bit of personality and thats what we were criticised for the most in the show. So I hope we finally got that across just before it was too late.

Brad: The show you did the previous week was very good as well

Craig: The Proclaimers one? We had a good laugh doing that. I think that was what we were trying to achieve towards the end, to have a good laugh and show people that we can entertain as well as just sing well.

Brad: Who chose The Proclaimers track?

Craig: It was actually Louis and a few people. Theres a funny story with that. Everybody was expecting us to do it. Louis, our manager and Brian McFadden they all came up with it separately. But we originally refused the song. We thought we did not want to go down that road and we were actually going to do the song ‘Pretty Woman’. A day later I thought, ‘look, we’re at the stage now where if we play it safe we’re not going to get anywhere, we need to start enjoying ourselves’ and that was it. So we just went along that line and it kinda worked.

Brad: What about the big Scottish vote. How important do you think it was in keeping you in The X Factor?

Craig: Everybody kept going on about the Scottish vote and it did help to keep us in, it was an amazing thing to have. The only thing is, I felt like sometimes it could have been played on a bit too much. People forget that we are Scottish but we do have a lot of English fans and a lot of Welsh and Irish fans.

Brad: What I would have countered with was that it didn’t keep Kerry or Nikitta in.

Craig: Exactly, that was our argument as well.

When we get fan mail, it’s been from places all over England and from lots of different places. We have a big Irish fan club and my dad got a lot of Irish fan mail back home. Obviously Ireland is quite close to Scotland….

Brad: Well we’re over here in Northern Ireland ourselves….

Craig Oh good good man. I mean all the Irish and Scottish stick together and it was good to have Louis as a mentor.

Brad: Did you see the playback of your performance on Saturday Night?

Craig: I’ve seen bits of it.

Brad: There was a part with you guys on the walkway and between the two of you, we could see Sharon Osbourne checking both of you out.

Craig: Is that right? You’re joking man.

Brad: She had a real leer on her face!

Craig: I never noticed that. I might watch it back a bit closer now and see if that is the case.

Brad: I think she had a wee thing for you boys.

Craig: I don’t know man…thats always a positive as well, it doesn’t do you any harm to have a bit of that does it?

Brad: Now that we’re talking about Sharon, when she asked people to vote for you, just to annoy Simon, how did you feel about that?

Craig: That wasn’t the reason that we wanted to have people voting for us. What people forget about this show is that they are doing it for ratings. When they are fighting amongst themselves it makes a good show. I just feel that all the contestants opinions kinda get lost in the show, because it becomes a battle between the judges. When she said that I thought ‘that’s a bad comment, we don’t want to be remembered as the people that were annoying Simon.’ ‘We wanted people to vote for us because they liked us, not to annoy Simon.’

Brad: Were you surprised to go on Saturday?

Craig: If I’m honest, we were surprised to go. We hadn’t been in the bottom two whatsoever, there was just ourselves and Leona that hadn’t been in the bottom two. You start getting used to the whole idea of going through and you just think that the vote is always there. But for whatever reason we just didn’t pull in enough votes. I think we lost by just one percent to the next person up. It was a bit gutting to hear that. But it shows that we did have the support there, there was just a lot more voting this week.

Brad: When did you guys start performing together?

Craig We started learning music when we were 5 and 6, my dad started taking us round all these old folks homes with our accordion and violin. Just to get us used to playing in public and we were never nervous doing that sort of stuff. That then came as second nature and we were never nervous about going up and playing an instrument in front of anybody. The singing is kind of new to us, the singing has only came in the last couple of years.

We haven’t always been singers and I think thats what the interesting thing is. We have got a lot to develop yet. You haven’t seen the best of us yet.

Brad: Well there’s no better experience that a live national show on a Saturday night.

Craig: You’re flung in at the deep end and you either deal with or you run away!

Brad: Did you always play as a two piece or did you play with other band members?

Craig: No, we used backing tracks and played the guitars and sang over the top of them. My wee brother is quite talented where music is concerned. He can make up the tracks, put in drums and bass and all that kinda stuff. It was good to have that behind us without having to pay other band members.

Brad: I saw some pictures of you guys performing in earlier days. It seemed to be a very traditional thing you had going on.

Craig: It was. We were brought up playing accordion and violins. We done the traditional stuff and we were getting a lot of work doing that. One night my dad got me up to sing and I was pure nervous and embarrassed, and he forced me into it just to see how I would feel. That got my confidence up….

Brad: It would have been quite a departure then when you went on X Factor and had to sing more mainstream stuff.

Craig: Exactly exactly…..

The boys then ran out of time and their car arrived to whisk them away……We will continue the interview on Wednesday, so pop over on Thursday and see what the MacDonald Brothers have planned for the future.

In the meantime drop us a line, if you have any questions you would like us to ask…….