WESTLIFE’S Shane Filan has revealed the band owes its success to Simon Cowell — not Louis Walsh.
The Sligo singer, 45, said the chart-topping group had a great team around them, including manager Louis and hit songwriter Steve Mac.
Shane Filan revealed who the band really owe their success to[/caption]
The band was told not to tour until their second album was released[/caption]
Simon Cowell was credited with guiding the band to great success[/caption]
But Shane said they owe their 25-year-plus career to Simon after he convinced them to stick to ballads, which kept them at No1.
He said: “Simon was very hard to say no to. He was always very great at convincing us to do this or that song. Sometimes we would have our doubts and want to be cool and different.
“One time he said, ‘Let’s release seven ballads in a row’. Back then, no one had done seven ballads in a row. Westlife ended up having seven No1s. So Simon knew there was a niche in the market.
“Maybe other bands were trying to do dance and be more cool and do more uptempo songs. But we stuck to ballads for nearly two years — and it worked.”
Shane was initially joined in the band by Mark Feehily, Kian Egan, Nicky Byrne, and Brian McFadden – who quit in 2004.
And he revealed X Factor judge Simon’s good advice stretched back to the start of Westlife’s career in the late 90s when they clocked up their first No1s — Swear It Again, If I Let You Go, and Flying Without Wings.
He said: “When our first album came out, Simon warned us not to go on tour until our second album was released because we would have more hit songs.
“So we waited for our second album to come out. By then we had 12 songs to perform on tour, so when we announced dates, we sold out ten nights in Wembley Arena and 13 nights in the Point Depot.
“It was that huge success we had in our first two years which helped us sustain a career for 20 years more after. And it continues.”
However, even Westlife thought they had bitten off more than they could chew in November 2000, when they ended up in a chart battle with The Spice Girls for the UK No1, with both groups’ albums coming out on the same day.
Shane said: “We had a similar start where it was all massive.
“But when we heard we were going up against The Spice Girls we said, ‘Are you sure about this Simon?’
“He told us, ‘Of course lads, this will create great hype. Win, lose or draw, it’s going to sell more records, and Simon was right. Our album (Coast to Coast) went to No1 and The Spice Girls album (Forever) was No2.”
- SHANE recounts the band’s crazy memories of the year 2000 while chatting to Henry McKean on Newstalk’s Rewind at 1pm tomorrow.
Louis Walsh was the group’s manager[/caption]