Little Mix star Jade Thirlwall has said her fellow bandmates are “raring to get back”.
The band’s Perrie Edwards and Leigh-Anne Pinnock both had babies this year, with Edwards welcoming son Axel with her partner, Liverpool footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Pinnock giving birth to twins with partner Andre Gray, also a footballer for Queens Park Rangers.
The trio recently released new album Between Us to mark the 10-year anniversary of the band’s formation.
Speaking to Rebecca Judd on Apple Music 1, Thirlwall said: “No, they’re good, they’re good. They’re actually raring to get back as well to be honest, we message every day, call each other just about every day. And I think they’re getting major FOMO seeing me out and about doing bits.”
Between Us is out now 🤍 This album is incredibly special to us. It represents ten years of music, friendship and our wonderful fans 🖤 Thank you to every single one of you for supporting us across the decade – we hope you love this album. The girls x https://t.co/cmmCeodqSO pic.twitter.com/Xiro6aMoAJ
— Little Mix (@LittleMix) November 12, 2021
The band were a foursome until Jesy Nelson announced her exit in December last year, saying the high-profile role had “taken a toll” on her mental health.
Formed on The X Factor in 2011, they became the first group to win the competition and earlier this year made history as the first female group to win the best British group gong at the Brit Awards.
Thirlwall, 28, said Between Us, which features their biggest hits and new songs, feels “a bit different”.
She told Judd: “I think because obviously, yeah, a lot of the hits are on there as well as new songs as well. But I think we have got so used to that pop band cycle where every year you churn out an album, you spent ages working on it, writing it, recording it. So this one was obviously a little bit easier.
“It was like, right, throw that one on, that’s a hit, throw that on. So there’s five tracks, we did do a lot of writing for it. But yeah, I think obviously this year as well, both the girls have had babies. So it was more about finding the best way to celebrate the decade together and getting new stuff as well for the fans.”
Previous hits such as Wings, Black Magic and Shout Out To My Ex feature on the new album.
The singer also voiced the band’s fears from early in their careers that they would be dropped by their record label.
She explained: “There was in the middle period of Little Mix, the Black Magic era, we were constantly on edge that we were going to get dropped because I think sometimes, and I know this happens for a lot of artists, when you first start off, you have a huge album or a huge hit, it’s almost like, ‘Well, what happens now?’.
“Because now you’ve got to maintain that or get better. And if you don’t, you’re weirdly seen as a failure in the public eye.
“So we were very super conscious as well of that weird stigma of like, ‘Oh, expect those to have one hit and then they disappear off the face of the earth’. So yeah, we always had that underdog mentality and it’s got us here.”
Little Mix are due to embark on their Confetti Tour in 2022.