Hollyoaks Music Show

If you're Mr Hudson what's your dad called?

Dad... or father. I wasn't born Mr Hudson, I was born a Ben. Can you imagine if it said on my birth certificate Mr? Maybe I should change it by deed pole?

Mr Hudson, you've got fetching blonde hair. How long have you had this for?

It's just getting blonder and blonder. I am blonde, I just have a little help from my friends. And the sun. Getting dragged off to record in Hawaii with Jay-Z and Kanye helped.

You used to be called Mr Hudson and The Library. Did your library close down due to lack of public funding?

Correct! No, a couple of librarians left. Two of the original Library are still here, but with half The Library gone with two or three years separating my two albums and Kanye taking me off to do other things it felt like a different project. I'm focusing on different elements now. Who knows, with my next album I might just do an instrumental album with me just playing sax.

Can you play sax?

As a kid I got grade one, so I've got my foot in the door. I can get a sound out of it. I quite impressed Rihanna the other day with my saxophone skills. She was like, "You're so funny!" It wasn't meant to be funny! It was me seriously playing an instrument, but she wouldn't stop laughing.

In a chart catastrophe most comparable to Joe Dolce keeping Ultavox's 'Vienna' from the number one spot in 1981, your number two smash 'Supernova' was kept from the top of the charts by JLS. What's your message to JLS, the Joe Dolces of the 21st century?

That was a great bit of trivia! 'Beat Again' is a good song. In fact, I was singing it this morning. [Editor's note: Mr Hudson then sings a quite delightful rendition of the number one single to show that he's not bitter whatever you doubter think!] I don't resent them being number one for a minute. They put in a lot of graft to get there, so it's all good. Some might say they were on a TV programme, but I had Kanye West on my record, so we all have a little help from our friends. If you want to get the statistics out, we were still in the top 20 eight weeks later and they weren't, so I don't give a monkeys. One of JLS used to be on my street team. It's all good.

Featuring on 'Supernova' was Kanye West. Believe it or not, Kanye once blogged about his love of a character from Hollyoaks called Mercedes (Jenny Metcalfe). Did you and he ever watch Hollyoaks together when you were recording?

No, we were too busy watching 80s action-adventure things like Die Hard and Robocop. Not sure you can get Hollyoaks in Hawaii. Maybe you should introduce me to this Jenny, but then again Kanye's taken at the moment. He has a lovely girlfriend called Amber.

How about you Mr Hudson? Are you taken at the moment?

Just by my work and music!

And finally, have you interrupted anyone at an awards ceremony recently?

I did jump the catering queue at the MOBOs for a spag bol!

See how Mr Hudson served up a plate of Il Gnosh pop in our Episode One Gallery

Exclusive interview with episode one's Hollyoaks mentor, Hollie-Jay Bowes available on the Matalan microsite...