GREG West from boyband District 3 has been awake for almost 24 hours, when I manage to grab a chat with him.

“I did have a little half hour nap,” he confesses, “but basically we just pulled an all nighter in the recording studio so we could make some changes to one of our new songs, and now we’re back in rehearsals for this week’s tour.”

As one third of District 3, along with Dan Ferrari-Lane and Micky Parsons, Greg has already had a taste of the limelight with the group’s successful run in the last series of the X Factor.

When they got voted out in week 6, like many other acts of the show, they vowed to carry on with their dreams and have been true to their word.

Greg adds: “By no means did we think that was going to be the end for us. It was always the beginning – it was a great platform and we performed in front of millions of people. We also played the X Factor tour to thousands of people, so we loved everything about that. It was great to get into some songwriting, though, and we have a lot more to give.”

“This will be the first time anyone has heard our original music, so it’s going to be interesting to see everyone’s reactions. There’s nothing online yet, we’ve done well keeping it all under wraps. There’s a song we wrote ages ago that’s on YouTube, but that’s it.

“At the moment we don’t know exactly when the EP is coming out,” he continues, “but it’s looking like mid-June. We can’t wait to release it. I'd say people are going to be surprised by it if they've just seen us on X Factor. It’s a more mature sound, still RnB-influenced, but covers lots of different sounds. Some mellow songs, some upbeat summer tunes and even a bit of dubstep.

“We wrote most of the EP ourselves and with co-writers, but it was all in the UK. We were going to go to the US, but we’re going to save that for another time. We are working with an American producer called Brian Kennedy, who has worked with Chris Brown and Rihanna. We’ve worked with some really great people.”

Greg, whose family live in Clacton, went to school in Dovercourt and Manningtree, before joining Clacton’s Tiffany Stage School.

After that, he landed a place at the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School, in London, where he met his bandmates.

He said: “I’ve lived with Micky and Dan for years, but the intense atmosphere of the X Factor has brought us closer.

“Going from sitting in our bedroom to being in front of millions of people was incredible and it has given us the opportunity to do this.”

Since uploading their first song on-line, they have racked up an impressive 7 million YouTube views, have nearly a million combined Twitter followers and a manic following of ‘3eeks’ who have them continuously topping the UK and worldwide Twitter trends.

Now they’re about to embark on their debut UK tour this Friday. Starting off at the Sheffield O2 Academy, with shows including the O2 Academies in London, Newcastle and Birmingham.

“They’re big venues for us to be headlining,” Greg says, “but we’re not daunted by that at all. We’ve also got some great acts supporting us like another Essex singer/songwriter Sam Callahan (from Great Totham); Tara Berwin who was in Waterloo Road; and Room 94. It’s going to be brilliant.”

But after that it’s back on the road once again.

“Yeah,” he laughs, “doing more gigs, getting the songs out there. It’s kind of lucky we get on so well because two weeks on the road in a sleeper bus can be a little intense.

“But we’ve known each other for six years now and been in a band for three, so although we have our disagreements we get over them pretty quickly.

“It’s kind of in our nature to go with the flow so whatever’s going on around us we just concentrate on the music. There is a rough plan which with any luck will include us having an album out by the end of the year but we’ll just have to see what happens.

“We kind of knew it would be hard work but that’s not going to put us off. It’s going to be a 36-hour day for us today but if that’s what it takes, that’s fine by us.”