kianlover
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 Posted: 10-07-2008 19:03:59 Post subject: That's Amore! Intervieuw Kian |
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March 27th, 2007
That's amore! - Interview Kian
Source: What's On icBirmingham / by Dave Freak
Westlife are in love... Kian Egan answers the questions
Coming in the wake of Take That and Boyzone, Irish all-male vocal combo Westlife have arguably surpassed their peers, selling over 35 million records worldwide, including seven multi-platinum UK albums and over a dozen number one singles - placing them in the same league as Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
Their most recent collection is The Love Album, 11 interpretations of tracks on the theme of amore including Bette Midler's The Rose, Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Lionel Richie's Easy and The Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Loving Feeling.
Currently in the middle of a world tour, Kian took a break from their hectic schedule to chat to What's On.
How did you select the tracks for the latest album?
It was difficult enough. We made a list and our management and our record company went through the 150-200 songs and we short-listed as we went along - 'Yeah, that's a great song, nah, won't work...' - and went on like that until we had about 20, and from that 20 we let our manager Louis Walsh and Simon Cowell pick.
To be honest they're the most experienced and wiser.
Are there any that didn't make the final cut that you would have liked to have seen on the album?
Yeah. There was one song in particular I'd like to have seen on the album, Chicago's Hard to Say I'm Sorry - love that song. But Simon said it made the album cheap, he said we had 10 to 11 classic classic classic love songs there that are really superb songs but Hard To Say I'm Sorry was a bit too... I dunno, common? He wasn't feeling it, so it's gone to the bin.
Did you feel that there was a risk that'd the album might be a little too... cheesy?
Westlife aren't your most typical serious band, we're a pop band who make good sounding records and I guess cheesy kinda works for us sometimes [laughs]. Our audience are a simple audience, they look to us to for nice songs sung nicely and that's what we do. To be honest with you, we're not out there looking for credibility or looking to be cool, we're out there because we like what we're doing.
Were you already familiar with all the songs selected?
Mostly. But there were some I wasn't so familiar with. You Light Up My Life by Debbie Boone - I knew of the song but didn't know the verse, I could hum the chorus. A song like that was very well chosen by Louis and Simon. The Dance by Garth Brooks is another not so well known song, although in Ireland it's huge, so that was a big favourite of ours. Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful is a song I'd never have imagined us doing, but it turned out beautiful. That's what we do. We record good songs and try to make them sound good.
When you're recording a new album, do you go out of your way to look for a challenge?
It's not necessarily what we look for. But if we heard a great song, we wouldn't say that's a great song but it might not suit us, we've never ever ever been that. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, the Bonnie Tyler song, which is our next single, is a huge song and a huge huge challenge for us - it wasn't something that we'd back away from, we said if it works, it works, and it ended up working.
You've included a track called All Or Nothing which was originally written for you ages ago but rejected...
Yes, it's the first time we've recorded it. It was turned down, Simon turned it down for us years ago and it got passed on to an American boyband, O Town, who ended up having a number one American hit with it. As much as Simon gets it right, he does sometimes get it wrong [laughs]. On that front, we weren't too annoyed, at the end of the day, we've had so much success, and Louis and Simon have made some great choices .... it's a good song. I think I prefer O Town's full production, but our acoustic version is nice.
You're breaking into Australia, China, South Africa and other countries - how's progress?
Everywhere [we tour] is arenas. Not necessarily the same size as here and we'd only play one night per city but Cape Town is about 10,000 [capacity], Johannesburg is about 18,000, Australia - it's the first time we've every toured Australia - general ticket sales are 5,000-6,000, and across Europe we sell a lot of records too.
You've been at the top of your game for nearly a decade - what challenges do you think Westlife face?
I don't know. We're not a band who write our own songs, we're not a rock band, we're not a band who go into a studio for three months and have gotta come out with something or we're by the wayside, we're the kind of band that relies on other songwriters. If the songs aren't there, we look to the cover versions. We try to record great pop songs. And luckily for us there's never shortage of good pop songs. We'd like to carry on, do another album this year, we're looking at a Best Of Westlife in next two to three years. We're coming up to our tenth year as Westlife next year, so we're just sailing along and enjoying the ride, you know [laughs]. Keep enjoying it for as long as we can. As long as we enjoy it and the fans enjoy it, we'll keep on.
Any plans for your 10th anniversary yet?
We haven't talked about it yet, but I think the record company want to do something big.
Anything you'd like to do?
No. Not really.
You seem to have tapped into something with The Love Album - any plans for a Love Album II?
It's not something we'd do straight away. For Westlife, I'd like to make a studio album of new songs with maybe a couple of covers on, like the Face To Face album we did a couple of years ago. We haven't got to the point where we're heavily discussing what we'll do next, but we haven't ruled Love II out 100%.
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