I was a 90s boyband star who sold out Wembley but I hung up the mic to write history books
Upside Down star Giles Kristian once sold out arenas like Wembley when he was one-fourth of the 90s boyband.
But these days, he writes history books after hanging up his microphone for good.
In 1996, the group peaked at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart with their debut single, Change Your Mind.
Four tracks later, though, their label World Records declared themselves bankrupt.
Upside Down, also comprised of Chris Leng, Jamie Browne and Richard Micallef, soon re-grouped as Orange Orange with no further success.
Giles has since forged a career for himself as a Sunday Times bestselling and international prize-winning author.
Beginning in 2010, he’s penned the Vikings-inspired Raven saga, as well as the Civil War series and Arthurian Tales.
Giles’ latest title – Where Blood Runs Cold – was released in 2022 and, before that, he collaborated with Wilbur Smith on Golden Lion.
He told Spells & Spaceships two years ago, “I blame two things for my interest in Vikings.
“The first being that I’m half Norwegian on my mother’s side, and so when boating around the fjords on Norway’s west coast I grew up imagining longships beating their oars, and smoke-wreathed houses along the shore, and children jumping across the rocks waving to adventurers heading out or coming home.
“It was all too easy to picture it in a landscape that has changed little in a thousand years. The second thing I blame is the epic 1958 movie ‘The Vikings’ directed by Richard Fleischer and starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis.”