Westlife Interview On ITV.com - November 2006

 

Outlasting all the others, Westlife have been together 8 years now. The Irish charmers are back with a new album of love songs.

 

WATCH THE BOYS LIVE HERE
High  Low

 

So what inspired you to do an album of covers of love songs?

Shane: We planned originally to do an original album like last year. But to be honest, the songs weren't there this year. We had a lot of songs. We had about 40 songs coming in from different but only about three of them were up to the standard. And we weren't going to make a bad album. It was actually Simon Cowell who suggested doing a love album, a tribute to love songs.

Kian: The Love Album is a cheesy idea but when you look at the actual songs that we've picked for this album. They are not your typical love album songs. We kind of felt that we went for the ones that you wouldn't automatically pick for this album.What we did, we went for the non, not obvious.

 

Now Brian's girlfriend, Delta Goodrem is dueting with you on the new album, have you discussed bringing him back to the group?

Nicky: It would be very hard to bring Brian back now. It was a big shock at the time. It was nearly two and a half years ago since he's gone. Even though It's still weird to look at footage of us with Brian there, it would be even more weird to have him with us again and do everything with him again.

 

Do you think there will ever come a point when you will have had enough of Westlife, pack it all in and relax at home?

Mark: I don't think any of us would ever want to sit down and do absolutely nothing in our lives. At the moment Westlife is still going strong so we still have the opportunity to be able to continue with it and everything.

 

Have you considered making an album with a completely different sound, maybe a rock one?

Shane: What we have realised over the years is that 8 albums in eight years, and that's alots of albums to come out with. We've realised what our fans want from us. They love us singing ballads and singing love songs. That's what we enjoy singing the most. For us we know that our best albums are love songs and that's why we are still here I suppose.

 

What do you think about the return of the boybands?

Kian: Most of the bands that are getting back together were all together when we were about three years in the market. And now it probably makes a bit of sense why we didn't break up.

Shane: A lot of them bands were really successful when they split up, like Take That was very successful still when they split. Five, we couldn't believe they broke up. Blue, because they wanted to do solo things. I think that's a lot of reasons why bands break up. We respect each other an awful lot in a band. We are always going to be better as a four-piece.

Nicky: A lot of the Take That boys have come to see the shows over the years. Gary Barlow and Mark Owen. They came to Manchester to see us. Maybe, maybe they were looking at us saying well those lads are still doing it and selling records why can't we come back and form and do something again.

 

Now you stole the boyband crown from Take That, who do you think would win in a fight?

Kian: If we were to take on Take That?

Nicky: Yeah it would be a good scrap.

Mark: Have you seen the size of Gary Barlow?

Kian: I reckon we'd ‘take that!'

Nicky: I think we are a bit fitter. I'd take Howard.

Shane: I say that Gary would give you a good slap.

Mark: Gary would put you down hard.

Nicky: In the ring, on the pads.

Mark: It'll never happen, so not to worry.

 

The Love Album and new single, The Rose are out now!

 

Form more information visit www.westlife.com

 

Credit/Source: www.itv.com