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5 minutes with Westlife (inflight magazine)
Topic Started: Aug 27 2008, 07:32 PM (235 Views)
JoanneVIP
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THE BOSS
5 minutes with Westlife , i found it while googling

by Ginny Cumming

West Life

In the history of music in the UK, the record for the most No.1 hits is held by Elvis, with The Beatles coming in a close second. And who do you think completes the top three? The Rolling Stones? Elton John? Maybe even Madonna? It will come as no surprise to fans that the answer is, in fact... Westlife!

These guys are serious superstars: in the nine years since they were ‘discovered’ by Louis Walsh, the ultimate boy band has released nine albums, sold 40 million copies and racked up 14 UK No.1 singles. Among their many gongs are two BRITS and an MTV Europe Award, and they’re the only recording artists to have won the prestigious ‘Record of the Year’ an incredible four times. Westlife is also the biggest selling arena act ever, holding the record for the most concerts held at Wembley Arena... an incredible 23! Eat your heart out U2, Bon Jovi and all those other big name ‘arena’ bands!

It’s an extraordinary feat, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of Irish lads. Their new album came out on 5 November and went straight to Number 1. It’s called Back Home, so we thought it was appropriate to have a chat with the boys about their home town of Sligo, near Knock. The album looks certain to wield some more mega hits, and if they continue at their current rate, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be knocking the King off his throne...

yb: How long did it take to record the new album?

Shane: “About six weeks – it’s turned out to be one of our best albums ever.”

Nicky: “The album is so new and fresh for us, without getting away from what we’ve always done. It’s pure pop.”

Mark: “Why fix what ain’t broke!”

yb: What’s your favourite track?

Shane: “Home, which is the first single.

After that, probably a ballad called Us Against the World.”

yb: Are you going on tour with this album?

Shane: “Yes, we start on 25 February, in Belfast.”

Nicky: “Belfast is a great city. After all the troubles over the years, it’s really reinvented itself. It’s very relaxing – it really is a good weekend away in Belfast.”

Mark: “There’s great nightlife, great shopping – there’s a shop called Cult Clothing that I’d really recommend. It’s a huge warehouse and the clothes are really good – and cheap!”

yb: Where do you guys live these days?

Nicky: “London for work, but for the rest of the time, Sligo in Northern Ireland is our home.”

Shane: “Sligo is a beautiful place in the northwest of Ireland. It’s a big town slowly becoming a small city, and it’s surrounded by beaches – there are about 10 within 15 minutes of each other.”

Nicky: “And it’s got more pubs per capita than just about anywhere in Ireland!”

Shane: “The scenery is amazing – mountains, lakes... it’s what inspired the poetry of WB Yeats. It’s got great golf as well.”

yb: You guys should be employed by the tourist board! Are you a bit hesitant to promote Sligo in case it gets overrun?

Kian: “Yes! I used to always promote it, but now it’s like – okay, it’s time to shut up because too many people know about it now!”

Mark: “He’s just jealous because all the people are coming in and surfing his waves!”

yb: Tell us about monkey Tree [the juice bar opened up at Strandhill beach, in Sligo, by Kian, a keen surfer]...

Kian: “We opened at the start of the summer this year, but we’re closed now for winter. It wasn’t the best summer in the world, but the juice bar has gone really well, especially during the last few weekends in September and October when it’s the high season for surfing. It was still really warm, with loads of surf coming in, and the queues were out the door! I went there one weekend and was just checking out the surf, looked in and the poor girl was absolutely run off her feet. So I had to go in and make loads of smoothies to get the queue moving faster!”

yb: Do you get a lot of paparazzi attention?

Shane: “No, not really. Very rarely.”

Nicky: “It’s a lot more relaxed for us, especially back home. It’s good to be able to go to the odd awards show, walk the red carpet, get a picture and then go home and just forget about it until the next one. That insane level of attention, you bring it on yourself.”

yb: How long is the tour?

Shane: “At the moment we’ve got six weeks of dates pencilled in, and now we’re trying to decide where to go. We still have to finalise places like Australia, South Africa, Europe and Scandinavia – it’ll be great to go back to some of these places, like New Zealand, where we haven’t been in eight years. We’ve spent a lot of time there and love it. We want to tour the world and really enjoy it and see all the countries. We’re not doing an album next year, so I’m going to just play golf, chill out, go on holidays and spend time with my wife and two-year-old girl.”

yb: What’s the single coolest thing that’s happened to you as a direct result of being pop stars?

Shane: “We got to meet Pope John Paul II before he died – he was probably the most famous, significant person we’ve ever met.”

Nicky: ”We all approach our religions in different ways, but he still is an iconic figure. And it’s weird, because he was the pope for so long, he’ll always be the pope to us.”

Shane: “Our mums got to meet him and shake hands with him as well, which was a great thrill for them!”

Nicky: “On a professional basis, we’ve sung with Mariah Carey, Diana Ross, Sinead O’Connor, Dolores O’Riordan [ex-Cranberries], Lulu, Donna Summer... even Donny Osmond! Kevin Spacey did a film Beyond the Sea – the Bobby Darrin life story – and we performed Mack the Knife at the premiere party. And then he came on our TV show and sang Fly Me to the Moon.”

Mark: “Kevin Spacey is actually a very good singer, you know.”

Nicky: “He’s brilliant. He’s as good a singer as he is an actor.”

yb: Who’s the one person in history you’d love to work with/have worked with?

Shane: “I’d like to do a duet with Michael Jackson.”

Kian: “Prince, Stevie Wonder.”

Nicky: “Elvis, he’d be pretty cool. And Frank Sinatra.”

yb: What’s your favourite Westlife song ever?

Nicky: “World Of Our Own.”

Shane: “Flying Without Wings.”

Kian: “I Want to Grow Old With You.”

Mark: “Us Against the World, from our new album, would have to be in my top two.”

yb: And what about your videos?

Mark: “They’re all crap!”

Kian: “The best video we’ve ever made was the World of Our Own US video.”

Shane: ”I like the one we’ve done for Home – it’s definitely the best video we’ve made in probably four years.

But the rest of them were crap – Home is a bit better than that – it’s a good video, not a brilliant one. You Raise Me Up is probably also one of the top two or three songs we’ve ever done.”

yb: What’s the most embarrassing outfit you’ve ever worn?

Kian: “What we wore to Record of the Year 1999.”

Mark: “One year at the MTV awards we all wore black and we were covered from head-totoe in sequins, like black Christmas trees. We looked like contestants in Dancing on Ice!”

Nicky: “My worst was the first arena tour, when we did Seasons in the Sun and I wore a turquoise sleeveless vest – that top alone just did it for me.”

yb: Who chooses the clothes?

Nicky: “That was a guy called Kenny Ho, who was styling the Spice Girls at the time, and I think we thought we were the Spice Girls for a minute!”

yb: Finally, do you think you’ll be like the Rolling Stones, and still be rocking the world while you’re collecting your pension?

Kian: “I think we’ll still be doing it in another 10 years, but not necessarily at the same pace as we’re doing it now. I think you’ve got to slow down a wee bit because other things are becoming very important in our lives – kids, marriage... being a hippy!”

Shane: “We won’t do another nine albums in the next nine years, that’s for definite, but we’d like to try and do maybe five or six in the next nine years – that would be a serious goal of ours now to get to that, and if we get to that, we would have done a lot by then!”

Westlife’s album Back Home is out now


Inflight magazine
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Nicky's Angel
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Sara
Thanks for posting how can Mark say that all their videos are crap have have done sone good ones
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JoanneVIP
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THE BOSS
Yes not sure they like them all but i have to agree i likes wooo US THE BEST ITS AMAZING and more like themselves and not in suits x
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Gloria
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Westlife DIVA star
Thanks Jo for posting.I agree with some of their answers.Some of the videos were not so much bad but boring.xx :rolleyes: hugs
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MrsMaryByrne
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Mary
Thanks for posting jo :)
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