In the last few years of their success, Westlife have refused to follow the toe-path of the regulation boyband. “Are we even a boyband anymore? I have absolutely no idea,” says Nicky Byrne, with disarming candour. Tradition has it that after the first five years, absolute maximum, the boyband must by default implode to make way for the new model. With Westlife, there simply hasn’t been a new model to outshine them. On the straight up British pop roster, Westlife have existed since before SClub7, B*Witched, Blue, Girls Aloud, Atomic Kitten, Busted, Misteeq, McFly, Liberty X and all the countless other record company follies that have disappeared without trace. Of those that they haven’t already outlived, you could put a pretty safe fiver on the rest bowing out before they. As a functioning, multi-purpose, thoroughbred pop operation, they are now twice as old as Take That were when they split for the first time and three times as old as Wham! were when they went forever.
One of the reasons for this is their unnerving agility and ability in rendering music that cuts straight to the primary core of a largely forgotten pop audience. Tuneful, melodic, simply structured music that doesn’t stray from the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-middle eight-chorus recipe of timeless tunes. But the other is because they are four distinct individuals who come together and make something that is whole.
Another reason is that the four boys cannot help but be themselves. People like that. Sometimes talking with Westlife is like talking to four kindred spirits who have bungled their through becoming the third biggest selling act in the British Isles, ever (pipped only by The Beatles and U2). Sometimes it is like talking with four squaddies on a night off down the boozer. Sometimes it is like talking to a naughty classroom, particularly when Mark Feehily gets onto the subject of one particular Spice Girl. Always it is like talking to a bunch of best friends. And just occasionally that memory comes back to you, amidst their tireless Irish banter, that even after almost a decade at it, these boys are four of the most popular pop stars Britain’s ever seen. Now take that.
So who are Westlife? Their success is not in question. Despite a rampaging media campaign against their favour at Christmastime last year, they managed to trounce the competition in a four way battle of album releases between themselves, U2, The Beatles and Oasis. Three of these bands were presenting bullet-proof, failsafe, platinum plated greatest hits packages. Westlife were the only ones that weren’t, with their sweetly rendered covers set, The Love Album. They could’ve waited until the more appropriately Valentine’s Day release, but after their enormous tenure at the top of the business, they have a formidable lack of fear of playing with the big game. They’re not cocky, like. But they are a force of British musical nature. And, frankly, they won.
In some ways the Westlife tale is one of simple, old fashioned camaraderie. Allow Nicky to take up the story:
“Even though we’ve looked at other bands that are similar to us, we’ve looked at bands like the Rolling Stones and U2, bands of men that have stood by one another over a long period of time. Those boys have been in dressing rooms and on tour with one another for so long that they know each other inside out and upside down. If there was a hidden agenda with anyone in Westlife then we’d all know about it. Nobody’s after the solo deal. Everyone has the band’s interest at heart first. We always said that we wanted to be the ones to change and break the mould. We had our rocky times, don’t get me wrong, when it might’ve happened, particularly when Bryan went, but we regrouped, stuck together and made a great album that got us out of the shit, effectively. Amongst ourselves and with a band like ours it’s always from the inside out. Internally these things can break easily and as soon as the cracks show on the inside inevitably they’ll show on the outside. You can never really say you haven’t had a fight if you have because your audience will spot that you’re lying.”
Kian puts it more simply: “I think that the success is very different to the reason that we’re still here today. I think that we’ve been very lucky to have people around us to pick out great pop songs when there seems to be none around. The reason we are still around is a very simple reason: communication. We have no holds barred honesty. There’s no bullshit. In Westlife you say what you feel and you don’t hold back.”
In their enduring tenure at the top of the pop tree, Westlife have earned themselves the right to a few months off every year. It’s a sort of payback time, if you like, for the years they put in at the beginning when they would get a week per annum off and squeeze in things like hernia operations into it.
Mark is circumspect about the reasons for this. “I bought a house a couple of years ago and I was doing a lot of renovating. In Sligo. I live out in the countryside. I like getting away from the madness and the pace of when you’re in the band. I think that every time I go home for a long time I remember how easy it is to get caught up in the madness and the lifestyle that is being in Westlife. Its important to step back from it and let it go for a while. The greed of the business can constantly pull you down. It’s nice to get home and to remind yourself of the things that are very important in life. That’s something that I go through every time we have a big break. It doesn’t hurt anyone to take a bit of time out. You come back a stronger person.”
And it would seem, a stronger band. The four counterpoints of Westlife have had their varying shares of thrills and spills in the time that they had apart from one another this year. Nicky has had twins (“the most breathtaking experience a man can go through”). Shane has watched his two year old daughter turning into a little person (“amazing”) and lowered his golf handicap (“almost as amazing”). Kian has bought a new house near his girlfriend Jodi’s family just outside London, opened a Juice Bar called the Monkey Tree in his surfing paradise hometown of Sligo, “and generally acted like a bit of a bum down the pub”. Mark has renovated the house he shares with partner, Kevin, in County Sligo. All things considered, it is no wonder they have opted for the title Back Home for their new collection of songs.
They are righteously proud of the new set. The record label – now as famous as the boys itself given the phenomenal success of MD Simon Cowell on X Factor and American Idol, and Louis Walsh on the former (they do a mean impression of him on telly, too, and offer him belated wardrobe advice on a weekly basis) – wanted another covers set. But the boys stood strong. They all think it’s their best yet. “It’s very Westlife,” says Shane, righteously and unapologetically, “but Westlife needed to step into 2007.” To this end, and under the boys own instruction, new producers have been brought in, the sound reconfigured and the suits and stools gone for the time being. “But it’s pop music. It’s not pop electro or pop rock,” adds Mark, “we know what Westlife is and we love that thing.”
There’s no arguing with that really, is there?
