Wild Youth musician David Whelan is ready to hit the dancefloor again this weekend on Dancing With The Stars – and says he is "hugely pushing" himself to secure that elusive perfect score and make it into the final.
Despite almost flawless performances throughout the competition, the '30' has evaded the Dublin man – something that has left him frustrated.
"Yeah, of course I am [frustrated]," he says. "100%. I respect the judges' comments and I respect everything they say to me each week [but] it's crazy because I keep getting great compliments - they blow my mind the things they’re saying to me.
"Arthur saying that dance in my DNA... one week he said that I basically come out and give perfect a near perfect performance week in, week out - but I still haven't got the perfect score!"
This week he and pro partner Salome Chachua will dance a salsa to Olly Murs’ Wrapped Up. "I'm working so hard... I can't explain," he continues. "I'm killing myself Monday to Friday in rehearsals, pushing myself so hard – the routines I’m doing are by far the most extreme, hardest ones."
"Am I being critiqued really hard? Maybe. I don't know... it’s week ten and I still haven’t got three 10s."
However, he believes that this has become a source of motivation.
"It burns, it burns," he laughs. "And I’m like, I'm gonna come back harder than ever. So in a way, [the judges] do me a favour, 'cause make me work hard."
When quizzed if he believes he has an advantage in the public voting due to his band Wild Youth’s young fanbase – who may be more likely to vote multiple times – Whelan isn’t convinced.
"I've been finding that I'm getting a lot of people that wouldn't be fans of the band contacting me - that wouldn't be our demographic, let's say it like that - saying how much they're a fan of me on the show and they love my dancing and stuff.
"You never know. Mary from Cavan could be voting for me 50 times!"
As the series rolls towards its final week, focus of course turns to Whelan’s plans for life post-show. Wild Youth are on hiatus, and he’s asked if his new-found popularity from his time on DWTS has him considering a solo career.
"I don't know," he says, carefully. "People have been saying this to me for a while and I've only ever known Wild Youth. It's a weird, scary thought going out to the world on your own - it's like leaving the nest. So I'm not sure about that.
"I'd have to really just see if the lads wanted to do it again, if the lads wanted to keep going.
"I couldn't say yes or no now, that would be very disrespectful to them and I don't know. I’ll come back to you on that one."
Either way, the break from music has been "refreshing," he says, saying he feels "reborn".
"I feel very reborn almost in my attitude and my feeling towards the expression of songwriting and singing, ‘cause it can get stale if you do something too much - you can get writer’s block, you can just get fed up," he says.
"And I felt I was a bit last year, but also perhaps there was an accumulation of a lot of things that I was just like, ‘I don't know if this is worth it anymore - I don't know if I want to do it.’
"And this show came along and has literally saved me from that now, and I feel like now I’ve got that spark again - I've got that glow in me.
"I found a love in a different artform, and that’s after making me now fall back in love of my original artform," he says.
"I really want to get back into the studio again and start writing and start experimenting and seeing what comes up."
He also mentioned how the show has helped him to come out of his shell. "I was very private before this. I didn’t like putting stuff up on social media, I didn’t like talking about my personal life, that sort of stuff. But this is after changing all that," he says.
Expressing an interest in working in TV, he says, "I’d love to venture more into the more personality, TV... like me being a person, not just Wild Youth, ‘cause I’m really enjoying it."
With two of the previously eliminated contestants saying that they were feeling the effects of burnout from the show, Whelan says he has also struggled with the mental effects of long hours of intense training, and describes himself as a "workaholic".
"Last week was the hardest one. I was mentally, physically, everything - I was gone. I felt that I crashed last week. Really bad to the point where like I couldn't get the routine in my head, I was still learning it on Friday night," he recalls.
"We went in on Saturday to do our runs. I messed up the whole thing three times. I went in Sunday morning - I messed it up again. We did another run before the live show and it was the first time I got it start to finish with music, but not perfectly in any way shape or form.
"I was stressed. I was proper freaking out. I thought I'd ruined it. I thought this was the one that’s got me off the show - I'm done, I'm gone."
"You can't sleep properly because your brain is going into overload. Like I'll be waking up at two in the morning hearing cha cha music. I've gone clinically insane!"
"I'm a devil. I can't switch off a lot of times, so I struggle with that, hence why I crashed so bad last week."
He is using hot and cold plunge pool therapy everyday, and he credits the cold therapy for having changed his "mindset completely as a human being."
Despite all this, he says that he wishes the show "wasn't coming to an end".
The theme of this weekend's Dancing With the Stars semi-final is "Fright Night", with each celebrity taking up the role of a spooky character in their dance, including mummies, Frankenstein and witches. The show promises "ghoulish moves and spooky grooves".
Dancing With The stars continues on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Sunday at 6.30pm.
