Post by shayne on Mar 26, 2007 21:20:40 GMT 8
Westlife Mentioned In New Brian Interview – 26 March 2007
Interview shortened and only includes the parts about Westlife
YOU might be forgiven for believing that Brian McFadden is what he himself calls "a real prick". He did, after all, ditch his wife Kerry Katona during a phone call, slept with at least four well-known female pop stars then publicly humiliated Kerry not long after their relationship ended by recording the Almost Here duet with his 'New Love' Delta Goodrem, right? Wrong.
In fact, none of these stories is true. At least that's what Brian told me during this interview, which he promised would be "totally honest". Partly, apparently, because he's still grateful I gave him his first serious interview when he was "just a kid starting out with Westlife!"!
"Before joining Westlife I'd only ever kissed one girl! And even when we were touring at the start I'd get even more lonely looking at the other lads in the group with their long-time girlfriends - and I'm sure Mark had a boyfriend - whereas I had no one. So when Kerry came along and wanted me, that gap was filled and I felt good simply because I had someone to share everything with. Then she got pregnant, and everything went into even more of a mad whirl."
On leaving Westlife
Brian seems just as eager to put on the record the "real reasons" he left the group - which is, let's face it, fundamentally, as with U2, a multimillion euro-making music machine. Yet, that, as it transpires, is precisely why McFadden finally had to leave. And the breaking point was Westlife recording Mandy.
"We'd worked our arses off doing the Turnaround album, which was mostly original songs… brilliant," he says. "But then we put out the single Hey Whatever but it only went to number three - as far as I'm concerned, it just didn't get the record company support it deserved.
"Then Simon Cowell says, 'I told you what happens when you want to make your own albums. You're going to be dropped, but I have the record that will save your career,' and he played Barry Manilow's Mandy. Then, to me, he basically tarnished a great album by kicking it off with Mandy and I decided, 'I can't do this music any more.' I couldn't stomach the idea of doing the rounds singing Mandy but the other lads were happy to do that. Yet, they didn't write songs, they have no need to be creative at that level, they want to be successful, so if singing Mandy will make them millions that's what they'll do. Whereas I'd rather be number three with a song we wrote."
The "final straw" for Brian came when Paul Higgins, head of security and his best friend in the group, took time out from working with them and then it was decided that the band didn't want him back. But Brian's split didn't come until "after a press conference at the Meteor Awards" when "nine out of the 10 questions asked by the press" were about Brian's private life, and the other members of Westlife later "lashed into" him, saying "that was a f**king disgrace", and he left. McFadden also reveals that even if, on that night's RTE news reports of Westlife's break-up, his four fellow-members of the group were "highly emotional" it wasn't because of him leaving.
'NO, it was because they thought this was the end of Westlife, the end of their careers," he says. "But they had asked me to reconsider and I did. I said I'd finish the tour because I wanted a final payoff! Yet, they were going to split up but then Louis Walsh - who is my friend now but wasn’t then - talked them out of that and they came back to me and said 'We don't want you to do the tour.'
"They didn't want me making any more money if I wasn't to be involved after that. But I love the lads and they are there if I need them. Yet I've never regretted leaving Westlife and wouldn't go back. Sometimes I think, 'I could have had millions if I stayed!' but I don't make music for money any more. It's not that I'm rich. After my divorce, I hit rock bottom. But I've made money from my solo career because the royalties are coming in for songs like Real to Me. Besides, if I'd stayed in Westlife I'd never have had my first solo records or met Delta, and these are the things that matter to me now, apart from my kids."
Credit/Source: Irish Independent
Interview shortened and only includes the parts about Westlife
YOU might be forgiven for believing that Brian McFadden is what he himself calls "a real prick". He did, after all, ditch his wife Kerry Katona during a phone call, slept with at least four well-known female pop stars then publicly humiliated Kerry not long after their relationship ended by recording the Almost Here duet with his 'New Love' Delta Goodrem, right? Wrong.
In fact, none of these stories is true. At least that's what Brian told me during this interview, which he promised would be "totally honest". Partly, apparently, because he's still grateful I gave him his first serious interview when he was "just a kid starting out with Westlife!"!
"Before joining Westlife I'd only ever kissed one girl! And even when we were touring at the start I'd get even more lonely looking at the other lads in the group with their long-time girlfriends - and I'm sure Mark had a boyfriend - whereas I had no one. So when Kerry came along and wanted me, that gap was filled and I felt good simply because I had someone to share everything with. Then she got pregnant, and everything went into even more of a mad whirl."
On leaving Westlife
Brian seems just as eager to put on the record the "real reasons" he left the group - which is, let's face it, fundamentally, as with U2, a multimillion euro-making music machine. Yet, that, as it transpires, is precisely why McFadden finally had to leave. And the breaking point was Westlife recording Mandy.
"We'd worked our arses off doing the Turnaround album, which was mostly original songs… brilliant," he says. "But then we put out the single Hey Whatever but it only went to number three - as far as I'm concerned, it just didn't get the record company support it deserved.
"Then Simon Cowell says, 'I told you what happens when you want to make your own albums. You're going to be dropped, but I have the record that will save your career,' and he played Barry Manilow's Mandy. Then, to me, he basically tarnished a great album by kicking it off with Mandy and I decided, 'I can't do this music any more.' I couldn't stomach the idea of doing the rounds singing Mandy but the other lads were happy to do that. Yet, they didn't write songs, they have no need to be creative at that level, they want to be successful, so if singing Mandy will make them millions that's what they'll do. Whereas I'd rather be number three with a song we wrote."
The "final straw" for Brian came when Paul Higgins, head of security and his best friend in the group, took time out from working with them and then it was decided that the band didn't want him back. But Brian's split didn't come until "after a press conference at the Meteor Awards" when "nine out of the 10 questions asked by the press" were about Brian's private life, and the other members of Westlife later "lashed into" him, saying "that was a f**king disgrace", and he left. McFadden also reveals that even if, on that night's RTE news reports of Westlife's break-up, his four fellow-members of the group were "highly emotional" it wasn't because of him leaving.
'NO, it was because they thought this was the end of Westlife, the end of their careers," he says. "But they had asked me to reconsider and I did. I said I'd finish the tour because I wanted a final payoff! Yet, they were going to split up but then Louis Walsh - who is my friend now but wasn’t then - talked them out of that and they came back to me and said 'We don't want you to do the tour.'
"They didn't want me making any more money if I wasn't to be involved after that. But I love the lads and they are there if I need them. Yet I've never regretted leaving Westlife and wouldn't go back. Sometimes I think, 'I could have had millions if I stayed!' but I don't make music for money any more. It's not that I'm rich. After my divorce, I hit rock bottom. But I've made money from my solo career because the royalties are coming in for songs like Real to Me. Besides, if I'd stayed in Westlife I'd never have had my first solo records or met Delta, and these are the things that matter to me now, apart from my kids."
Credit/Source: Irish Independent