The day we meet Little Mix, the girls are in a tizzy. Their upcoming single, Black Magic, the first to be lifted from their third album, has been leaked online. And to say they’re unhappy is an understatement. “Its not fair that after all that hard work our single gets released before it’s meant to be,” Perrie ‘Mrs Zayn Malik’ Edwards says, as Attitude joins her and the rest of the girls in a dimly lit room at Sony in west London. This is my first time meeting the girls and, as most can attest to, meeting a feisty girlband can be rather intimidating. They’re not only already supremely confident popstars but also such a tight unit coming at you like a small high-heeled army. Fortunately, in spite of their sadness at the single’s early leak, the sassy ladies – Perrie, Jade Thirlwall, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, and Jesy Nelson – aren’t as scary as expected but are in fact pleasantly welcoming, which isn’t bad for a group who have been setting the charts alight for the past four years.
It’s hard to believe it was just in 2011 that the girls claimed X Factor victory and kicked off a successful career. Their first two albums, DNA and Salute, sold by the bucketload, and their run of singles – which includes Wings and Move – soared into the top 20 and set them up as the rightful successor to Girls Aloud. To date, Little Mix have sold 7.5 million records worldwide and they are now penning songs for the likes of Britney Spears.