‘More than Words’, Queen of my
Heart’, ‘I Lay My Love on
You’…
If you thought I was about to launchinto a love poem of note, worry nomore – I am simply naming a few ofthe best loved songs by Irish boybandWestlife, who will be hitting the Hart vanWindhoek stage tonight to serenade theirlocal fans.With a career that spans 12 years,44 million album sales and goingfrom a quintet to a quartet (that’s 5 to4 in average joe speak), Westlife havecertainly proved that they are here to stay.The Weekender recently had theopportunity to conduct a telephonicinterview with Shane Filan (the cutestmember of the band, with the cutestaccent ever) about visiting Namibia forthe first time, what the band learned afterBrian McFadden’s exit and what theirrecipe for success is …Have you ever been to Namibiabefore?No, this will be our first trip to yourcountry and we are extremely excited.We land the morning of the concertand will only be there for a day and ahalf, unfortunately because we haveanother concert. We would have lovedthe opportunity to see a bit of Namibia’ssights, but we are really looking forwardto meeting local fans.Does it surprise you that Westlife ispopular, even in a little known countrylike Namibia?Yeah. It is surprising actually. Westlifekeeps being surprised with the scopeand size of our fan base around theworld. We are very proud ofthe fact and it is alwaysnice to to go to a newcountry and meet newpeople and fans.Some years backthe band faced abit of a crisis whenBrian McFaddendecided to go solo, what have youlearned from the experience?It has been quite some time since Brianleft but looking back it was definitely atough period. A weird few months wherewe had to decide if we wanted to pick upthe pieces and carry on. We decided tokeep going. We were disappointed but wehad to respect Brian’s choice to focus onother aspects of his life and career. Wedon’t hold anything against him. He leftamicably and there are nohard feelings.The experiencethough taught usto stick together, torespect each othermore even and to reallyunderstand each other. We knew if onemore member decided to leave it wouldbe over for Westlife. So we decided toforget the past and focus on the future.With four unique opinions and ideas,how does Westlife manage the creativedifferences which must surely crop upfrom time to time?I think we have to havesome sort of a democracy.We disagree all thetime, it is only naturalwhen dealing withfour different opinionsbut our management andrecord company and people in thebackground guide and advise us.At the end of the day it boils downto the four of us. It sometimes takestime but we always work things outin the end.What is your recipe for success?I really don’t know. If I knew I thinkwe’d bottle it and sell it! I think as a bandour initial goal was to be a success, allover the world. We all love singing and Ithink the fact that we never lost sight ofwho we are and where we came fromhelps. Deep down we’re all good friendsand we enjoy each others company.We had massive success quite early onand we didn’t really have time to thinkabout it much, I think that helped us agreat deal.What has been the highlight of yourcareer so far?My God, there have been so many.I think the incredible success we haveenjoyed has to be the highlight. It isamazing looking back, it’s pretty big. Westill remain humble but we have had theopportunity to meet so many amazingpeople like Pope John Paul and BarackObama. We’ve never met any presidentbefore so that was pretty cool. He is areally awesome man.Which artists or bands do youadmire?At the moment, I am very into JustinTimberlake. He is a great musician. BryanAdams, Bon Jovi, Rihanna – I think hernew album is really good. Beyonce is oneof my favourites. Coldplay, U2 – beingIrish, they are iconic back home and weare very proud of them.Are you guys working on an album atthe moment?Well we released ‘Gravity’ towards theend of last year so our next project will bea greatest hits album featuring all the fanfavourites.What can local fans expect from yourshow tonight?Our set will be 90 minutes long andwe will be performing songs from our’Gravity’ tour which includes all thegreatest hits and a few new songs. We willwork our way through all our albums andtry to fit in as many songs as possible.’You Raise Me Up’ ‘Flying withoutWings’, ‘Unbreakable’ …Do you have a message for your localfans?Yes, we would like to thank all our fansfor their support. We plan to put on a greatshow for you and we hope you enjoy theconcert.
