The
Boys Are Back In Town -
August 2006
Thanx
Rachie
Westlife’s
SHANE FILAN, 27, chats with Celine Tan about going back to their syrupy, ballady roots, and yes, panty
projectiles.
8
DAYS: People say the boyband is dead. What do you
think?
SHANE
FILAN:
I don’t think so. We’re not dead! I think Westlife is
just as successful as we were five years ago. Face To Face [the seventh album,
released last October] was huge across
Does
the flak from being in a boyband bother
you?
I
really don’t care about that. They can say, boyband
this, and boyband that. We’re a boyband, pop group, whatever you want to call us. We have a
very nice life. We’ve made a lot of money, and we’ve got nicer cars than they
do. (laughs)
Things
are very different for you now, though. You’re married and your baby girl just
had her first birthday.
Oh
yes, it was unbelievable. We did a concert on her birthday, near
Cool.
Have your fans changed too?
We
have an older fan base now. The girls who loved us when they were 14 or 15 are
now 23, 24 years old. A lot of them understand that we’re normal guys and that
we have normal lives. I’m happy that our personal lives are so normal.
Do
you still get under-wear flung at you?
Oh
yes! We always get the underwear! (Chuckles) We might get two or three
per concert. It still happens! Actually, we get more now. The fans used to be
younger – they were girls not women. They didn’t dare to take off their
underwear. But we don’t take it too seriously - we make a joke of
it.
Aren’t
you guys sick of singing ballads yet? The new album is
full of syrupy ballads.
No,
not really. I love singing ballads. That’s what we’re good at – we’re good
singers. We tried a different sound on [our fifth album] Turnaround. It was
deeper, darker and it didn’t work as well. It wasn’t a brilliant album. Face To
Face is typical Westlife. We’ve gone back to those
first albums. The next album, which we’re now working on and will be out end of
the year, is like that as well. It’s why people love us, it’s been proven so many times. It’s music we love to make, those big power
ballads.
Mark
Feehily said he could see Face To Face’s first single
“You Raise Me Up” becoming a favourite at weddings and funerals like “Swear It Again”!
Isn’t that kind of morbid?
Well
if a song can reach out to two completely different markets – the sad and the
happy – then it’s a very successful song.
Westlife’s
Face To Face tour to the
Credit/Source:
8
DAYS
/ Rachie