Westlife's Shane Filan has spoken about the band's new album Wild Dreams, their status as ballad kings and dedicating the record to his late parents.
The hitmaker, 42, and his bandmate Markus Feehily, 41, spoke exclusively to MailOnline about their 13th album Wild Dreams, which was released on Friday, as they discussed the inspiration behind the records.
After losing his mum Mae and dad Peter to cancer between 2019 and 2020, Shane has dedicated the record to them as he revealed: 'It's been so hard but music has helped me through it and writing this new album has helped to deal with the grief.'
Last week, both Adele and James Blunt released new albums while Ed Sheeran, who has written songs for Wild Dreams is also storming the charts, yet Shane insists there is no 'battle' with the band and other ballad heavyweights.
Out and about: Westlife's Shane Filan has spoken about the band's new album Wild Dreams, their status as ballad kings and dedicating the record to his late parents
In October last year, Shane revealed the sad news that his father Peter has died 10 months after his mother Mae passed away. His dad, a father of seven, was well known in County Sligo where the family ran the popular Carlton Cafe.
On his parents, Shane said: 'My mum and dad would have loved this one. This album is for them. It has been so hard since losing them but music has helped me through it and writing this new album has helped to deal with the grief...
'I had amazing support for the band too.'
On Adele, Ed and James' music releases at the same time as Westlife, Shane insisted there is no 'battles' with the band and other ballad heavyweights.
Sweet: Shane is pictured with Mae on GMTV in 2000. She passed away in late 2019
Tribute: Last year, Shane confirmed his father's passing and praised the staff at St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin for the care given to him
He said: 'When we come out with new music, genuinely we don't see it as a battle with anybody. We're delighted to be releasing music and be mentioned in the same sentence as the likes of Adele and Ed Sheeran...
'All these people that are bringing out albums but Westlife are still there and still successful. That's down to our army of Westlife fans that keeps supporting us, but it's amazing to be still making music...
'I think this is a very important album for us in general. It's not necessarily a classic Westlife album, of course there's a couple of big ballads on there because we don't want to change who we are as a band...
'But I think this album is definitely a little bit more experimental and it's a bit more contemporary. The music, sonically and radio wise, is very today and very 2021.'
Happy days: On their career highs, Shane said: 'We've been very lucky to work with a lot of people growing up as a band. Obviously we got to work with Lionel Richie'
When asked about being seen as pop's 'good boys' and how their mentor simon Cowell marketed them, Shane said: 'We were marketed in that way, when we came out at the time and we were signed to Simon Cowell...
'He already had Five who were more the bad boys of pop and we were the good boys of pop. He was marketing two different bands and he wasn't going to market them the same way. That definitely had a factor in it, plus we were a vocal group who were singing ballads and were more angelic...
'Simon dressed us in white or black and he wanted to market us in a way to show that these boys just love singing ballads. We always wondered why he kept picking ballads, but they kept becoming number one!...
'We had seven number ones in a row and after three or four number ones, we really started to realise he wanted us to be different. He didn’t want us to be the Backstreet Boys or Take That, East-17 or whoever, he wanted us to be a vocal group...
