Thursday 24 November 2011

Westlife on why there won't be a reunion with Brian McFadden and and feeling 'unloved' by Simon Cowell



After 14 years of sell-out tours, No.1 hits and screaming fans, Westlife have decided to call it a day - but they are not about to go quietly.

The Irish boyband, who are lining up a farewell tour following the release of their Greatest Hits album next week, have a couple of things they want to get off their chest.

For starters, their goodbye gigs will NOT be a Take That/Robbie Williamsstyle reunion with Brian McFadden, who quit the band in 2004, being welcomed back with open arms. Far from it.

In fact, the mere mention of Brian's possible return to neatly bookend their career, causes a rare break in the lively banter among Kian Egan, Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne and Mark Feehily.

Kian, 31, finally breaks the silence, asking cagily: "Do you think he should come back? The thing is. Some people do look at it like that, but the four of us have spent the past eight years working our a***s off to keep it together. And he hasn't.

"Maybe a random gig. Or we could just get drunk together."

Someone else who probably won't be invited to hang out with Westlife backstage is former mentor Simon Cowell.

Feeling largely "unloved" by Simon, they parted company from his record label Syco back in March - and signed up to his Sony rival, RCA.

Nicky, 33, explains: "Leaving Syco was us trying to patch up cracks.

"We felt unloved because we were making albums with that particular label and we were having to make our own decisions.

"It makes you implode. So we thought, 'Let's get away to a new label and see what it's like there'. But when we got to the new label we were still imploding. It felt like we had done it for long enough."

Simon, it appears, had left them to fend for themselves. The man who first signed them in 1998 seemed to have taken his eye off Westlife, who have sold 45 million records, had 14 No.1 singles, and performed on 10 sell-out tours.

The boys have their own theory - Simon became too much of a celebrity himself to be bothered with them.

During the decade and a half of their fame, Simon went from the unknown A&R man behind the careers of 5ive, Robson & Jerome and, er, Zig and Zag to TV's Mr Nasty as a judge on Simon Fuller's Pop Idol.

It catapulted him into the public eye, and he went on to create The X Factor which has become a hit both sides of the Atlantic. Nicky says: "Simon WAS the best thing that ever happened to us, with Louis Walsh, in the beginning.

"Without Simon Cowell we wouldn't have had the career the way we've had it. He picked every single and it's the singles that make you successful.

"He's a very talented man at what he does. Especially picking songs.

"But then Syco Music... records... whatever. That whole machine exploded for him in the States.

"I don't think for one minute, 'Why is he gonna worry about little old Westlife when he's over in the States?'"

Laughing, Shane, 32, chips in with: "Nicky tells it like it is. 'Little old Westlife'."

Nicky continues: "He did love us. But I rwb remember going to America when Simon had just become a superstar."

Shane: "He was like Brad Pitt, he was."

Nicky: "We went to this club and obviously nobody in the States knew who we were.

"We were used to getting all the attention, but in this club everyone - including men - were queueing to get to him.

"We were edging closer, trying to stand beside him. All these people wanted to talk to him, and he'd just sit there and wink at us. He could be sitting with Oprah Winfrey and he'd turn and give you that wink."

Mark, 31, interrupts with: "He's not winking any more - his eyes don't move."

Botox jokes aside, Westlife were reportedly annoyed with Cowell for the way Gravity, their last album released through Syco, had been marketed.

Kian says: "I think we would have been a happier band if we'd released more singles from Gravity."

Nicky agrees: "Gravity is a fantastic album. But there wasn't any more singles, so we were slipping and slipping."

So they parted company with Syco, but it just wasn't enough to save the band and last month they decided to call it a day.

Shane explains: "One of the things that did it was the fact that we're doing a Greatest Hits album. Over the past couple of years we were doing new albums, so we all thought, 'Maybe another year, maybe another year'.

"Doing our Greatest Hits, it kinda felt like now was the time. It was a conversation we didn't like admitting. But we all did admit it."

Kian adds: "Over the years, we've 2001 tried to look at all the little things that were cracking and all the little things that were going wrong, thinking maybe we could change this or that.

"But none of them really had anything to do with it. I think it was just a case of wear and tear.

"We'd been doing it for so long, and the pressure and the stress of continuously trying to make it happen. And make the right decisions. It was down to the four of us continuously pushing, pushing, pushing to make it happen. Whether it was RCA, Universal..."

Apart from anything else, those fresh-faced lads starting out on the road to fame 14 years ago are now grown men who have settled down.

Nicky is married to Georgina and is the father of twin sons. Shane and wife Gillian have three children. Kian, who plans to open a surf shop, and his wife Jodi Albert, who sings in Wonderland, are expecting their first child. And Mark is engaged to long-term partner Kevin McDaid.

In many ways it now feels right to leave their boyband days behind them.

Mark agrees: "It's a natural progression. It naturally feels like it's time to do this.

We could have gone on and on like other people sometimes do - they're not sensible enough to realise there's a time to let go.

"They almost spoil it and it's not special any more. Nobody wants them any more. We're still on the top. We're still selling out tours, and we're still releasing albums, and selling millions of albums across the world. That's how we want to remember Westlife - not as something that stuck around a little bit too long.

"We want to remember it as the amazing, huge thing that it is now.

"We're gonna have this huge tour to celebrate the last 14 years. We're looking back at something amazing."

They joke that they are already being asked about a comeback - before the split has even happened.

Mark says: "It's so funny, for the last eight years, since Brian left, we've been asked are we splitting up.

"Now we're finally splitting up, they're asking are we getting back together! We're splitting up and that's it. Full stop."

- Westlife's single Lighthouse is out now and their Greatest Hits album is out next week. An ITV1 special, Westlife: For The Last Time, is on in December.

Source: mirror.co.uk

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