Speaker 1: Hey
Speaker 2: guys, how are you? It's so good to see you.
Speaker 2: I wasn't expecting you to be in the same room
Speaker 2: but looking great, congratulations on the new album.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much
Speaker 2: the Starlight. I was watching the music video for this
Speaker 2: and I just kept thinking to myself, it just looks
Speaker 2: like you guys are having so much fun. What was
Speaker 2: it like shooting a music video together?
Speaker 1: Well, it was one of the first things that we've done,
Speaker 1: you know, when we got back together. Um well, I
Speaker 1: mean obviously we made the album, but interestingly we made
Speaker 1: our album quite remotely and quite apart.
Speaker 1: We had a mobile recording setup that went around to
Speaker 1: all of our individual houses.
Speaker 1: That was the first and it was definitely something that was,
Speaker 1: that happened because of Covid and lockdown and everything like that.
Speaker 1: We couldn't really travel around to each other's houses
Speaker 1: and so the communication levels were high, but physical interaction wasn't,
Speaker 1: you know, as per the norm during the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. So when we got it, we came to
Speaker 1: London and we started making the video and doing some
Speaker 1: photo shoots and everything for the album promotion and that
Speaker 1: was the first time we were all back together and
Speaker 1: it was the first time we were performing. It was,
Speaker 1: it was the first of a lot of things to
Speaker 1: be honest with the first time back in hair and makeup,
Speaker 1: you know, we got into like cutting our own hair
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 1: not so much makeup at all for about two years.
Speaker 1: So you know, it was just, I mean, yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was interesting, was really good, it was interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it felt good to be performing again, you know, um
Speaker 1: choreography was another thing that even though you don't see
Speaker 1: a lot of in the video,
Speaker 1: um
Speaker 1: there's still some stages and right, Mark, you've got to
Speaker 1: stand here and can you stand here and when that
Speaker 1: drumbeat hits in, you've got to walk over here and
Speaker 1: just remembering how to follow all those orders after being,
Speaker 1: I was my own boss for two years and we
Speaker 1: were on our own bosses for like two years. So
Speaker 1: getting used to getting people telling him what to do again.
Speaker 2: Oh
Speaker 2: wait, hold on, sorry, I lost you.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, that must have been crazy. Did you
Speaker 2: give each other a huge hug?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did actually when we saw each other for
Speaker 2: the first time, it was uh it was weird, you know,
Speaker 2: we have been in the, in the same room, the
Speaker 2: four of us for 564 days. Uh we got somebody
Speaker 2: to count it up exactly how long it was, it's
Speaker 2: the four of us were there.
Speaker 2: So it was lovely to kind of be back together again.
Speaker 2: You know, we do nice, we went out for dinner
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 2: reminisced on everything like, you know, some of our kids
Speaker 2: have grown up so much and stuff that happened obviously
Speaker 2: and market had a baby since we saw some last
Speaker 2: and it's been a it's been an amazing couple of years.
Speaker 2: And as Mark said, making the album then remotely, but
Speaker 2: coming together at the end of the recording, it was lovely.
Speaker 2: You know, it was when we did our fourth shoot
Speaker 2: for the album and
Speaker 2: finish the record, and we had all our Children there together,
Speaker 2: and we were in a big castle in Ireland, and
Speaker 2: it was it was pretty cool.
Speaker 2: You're giving me the warm and fuzzies. That's so nice
Speaker 2: about the album though.
Speaker 2: It reflects you were saying that it's an album that
Speaker 2: reflects the times, right? People are going through a lot
Speaker 2: of difficulties and that's what makes it so special. Did
Speaker 2: you intend to uplift us with the music or did
Speaker 2: it just kind of happen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I think honestly there was a huge,
Speaker 1: well, you know, we all have a conversation as a
Speaker 1: band and we just said, you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: album do we want to make, what's it gonna be like?
Speaker 1: And
Speaker 1: it's really what everybody just immediately sort of said that
Speaker 1: we wanted it to be uplifting. We want it to
Speaker 1: be something that,
Speaker 1: you know, like,
Speaker 1: we know that we're eventually we're going to be performing
Speaker 1: these songs for our fans, or even if we don't
Speaker 1: perform them, they're there on, I was gonna say, cd
Speaker 1: they're there for the
Speaker 1: the fans to listen to on her album, and, you know,
Speaker 1: we were obviously aware now that there's lots of people
Speaker 1: that will wait for our new album and they'll listen
Speaker 1: to it when it comes out,
Speaker 1: and we just felt like a responsibility to give them
Speaker 1: something positive, something to look forward to, something
Speaker 1: uplifting and shiny and bright. And so we we just
Speaker 1: made sure that the album was quite positive and happy
Speaker 1: and it sounded like something, I mean, you know, we've
Speaker 1: all like kind of a couple of cups of coffee
Speaker 1: and dance in our kitchen, a couple of gin and
Speaker 1: tonics or whatever makes you dance in your kitchen and,
Speaker 1: you know, over the last couple of years, I mean,
Speaker 1: because we've been kind of House Bank and
Speaker 1: so we wanted people to dance to it, we wanted
Speaker 1: people to love to laugh to feel, you know, some
Speaker 1: of our albums are quite somber and sort of slow
Speaker 1: and ballad driven and you know, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of songs that people play,
Speaker 1: that's sad events such as funerals and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't the album to go down that road,
Speaker 1: we wanted to and, you know, it's not even just
Speaker 1: about our fans, like for ourselves, I think we needed
Speaker 1: to make happy music and we needed to make music
Speaker 1: with beats and with rhythm and something that made us
Speaker 1: made us feel happy and if it made us feel happy,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna make our fans feel opportunity
Speaker 2: 100%. Um you've been talking about a lot about how
Speaker 2: it makes you guys feel. Um you guys came back
Speaker 2: in 2019 as a band that was huge. What did
Speaker 2: your family members, your spouses, your kids make of that?
Speaker 2: It was that was actually really probably the best part
Speaker 2: I suppose, coming back together was how special it was
Speaker 2: for our families and for especially for our Children, because,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of our Children weren't old enough
Speaker 2: to understand West life the first time around, you know,
Speaker 2: so
Speaker 2: when we broke up in 2012, you know, a lot
Speaker 2: of our kids were very, very young babies, um Nicole
Speaker 2: was probably my daughter was the oldest, she's 16 now, so,
Speaker 2: you know, she still was only like, you know,
Speaker 2: eight, you know, so she was still very young. So,
Speaker 2: I think now looking back, you know, when, when we
Speaker 2: did come back and started playing all these concerts and
Speaker 2: you know, we were going to Singapore, we were going
Speaker 2: all over the world, like, we're going everywhere, and they
Speaker 2: kind of really got to understand what West Life was
Speaker 2: and how big it was and how many fans all
Speaker 2: over the world loved,
Speaker 2: you know what daddy did for a living, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is our job, and they thought this is
Speaker 2: so cool that, you know, the kids coming
Speaker 2: Get over that whole hysteria, that was still around West 11,
Speaker 2: when we came back, you know, we our tour and
Speaker 2: we came back, we sold more tickets than we did
Speaker 2: on our, you know, our farewell tour, you know, it
Speaker 2: was it was incredible the amount of people that came
Speaker 2: to our shows the last time. Even Singapore, we've been Singapore,
Speaker 2: indoor stadium, you know, and it was
Speaker 2: come back,
Speaker 2: We miss you. Yeah, it was it really showed that,
Speaker 2: you know, there was people coming and maybe they were
Speaker 2: bringing their boyfriends this time, or they were bringing their
Speaker 2: moms and dads, or they were bringing their kids, whatever
Speaker 2: it was, West Life turned into a kind of a
Speaker 2: kind of a family event, you know, and everybody didn't
Speaker 2: want to miss it, which was lovely to feel and
Speaker 2: and our families got to see that and they realize
Speaker 2: now what West Life is and
Speaker 2: it makes them very excited. So it's cool, it's cool
Speaker 2: dad vibes for sure. What are your favorite songs from
Speaker 2: the album? Because I know that you all had a
Speaker 2: hand in different ones and they're very personal to you specifically,
Speaker 2: depending on the member, but if you guys had to
Speaker 2: had to say,
Speaker 2: what would it be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a few. I mean, I think it is actually,
Speaker 1: we're pretty happy with the fact that across the board,
Speaker 1: like
Speaker 1: it wasn't like, you know, in the past, we've we've
Speaker 1: written sort of a few songs on an album, you know,
Speaker 1: everything between one song on an album, to like four
Speaker 1: or five songs on an album. But this time we've
Speaker 1: kind of wrote most of it to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: So we got to kind of say that we've wrote
Speaker 1: the album was supposed to a couple of songs on
Speaker 1: there and we
Speaker 1: I don't know like I mean it kind of changes.
Speaker 1: It changed a lot and we've been very busy and
Speaker 1: promotion the last couple of weeks. So we've been listening
Speaker 1: to Starlight and my hero a lot because we've been
Speaker 1: singing them a lot, but I actually haven't listened to
Speaker 1: the album in a week or two. Whereas for a
Speaker 1: while there I was listening to it about 10 times
Speaker 1: a day, you know, because we're making it picking the
Speaker 1: songs and everything.
Speaker 2: Getting on the final mixes, you keep listening to
Speaker 1: listen. Listen Yeah,
Speaker 2: Was Your Daughter Like Enough Enough Dad, No more of
Speaker 2: the album. They were starting to pick their favorites, which
Speaker 2: was nice to see, you know, I think
Speaker 2: there was different songs on there, as Mark said, you know,
Speaker 2: like but while Dreams as a song, because it's the
Speaker 2: title of the album, it was one of it was
Speaker 2: one of the first songs that we wrote for the
Speaker 2: album and it was that kind of essence of we
Speaker 2: want we want it to be a bit more, you know, upbeat.
Speaker 2: We wanted to be a bit more fun. We wanted
Speaker 2: to be even a bit more contemporary.
Speaker 2: Um and myself and Mark,
Speaker 2: I wrote that song and we started the whole idea,
Speaker 2: kind of
Speaker 2: we were apart and we were sending each other like
Speaker 2: boys notes, guitar notes, different things.
Speaker 2: And it was the song that we wanted to get
Speaker 2: one of the producers have done a couple of songs
Speaker 2: on the album, Grammy. Yeah, cause he was like the
Speaker 2: guy that wrote when You're looking like that back in
Speaker 2: the day, So he's a really, really top world class producer,
Speaker 2: and we thought we'd love to get him involved in
Speaker 2: this album. And that was the song that did it.
Speaker 2: And then
Speaker 2: Fast forward nine months later, it's the name of our album.
Speaker 2: It's the name of our tour. It's
Speaker 2: it's just a very proud feeling as as obviously writers
Speaker 2: and collaborators and, you know, this is our band, you know,
Speaker 2: and as Mark said, you know, a lot of songs
Speaker 2: on there are coming from the band. So, for the
Speaker 2: first time, I think Lockdown gave us the opportunity and
Speaker 2: and Covid and fairness,
Speaker 2: the whole pandemic gave us the opportunity to spend time
Speaker 2: on this album and really take our time and really
Speaker 2: kind of experiment behind closed doors when nobody even knew
Speaker 2: we were making an album. And we found an inner, suppose,
Speaker 2: an inner and inner belief in ourselves and confidence that yeah,
Speaker 2: we can we can do this and we can do
Speaker 2: a lot more of this and we really,
Speaker 2: really enjoy the process of it, which is the most important.
Speaker 2: Oh, that is fantastic. I think we've run out of time,
Speaker 2: but thank you so much and I want to say
Speaker 2: good luck for the tour and we really hope that
Speaker 2: you come here because we've
Speaker 1: missed. We're going to be in Singapore. Very sick. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know how soon, but very sick.
Speaker 1: We're going
Speaker 2: to, we're definitely going to be there on this tour,
Speaker 2: whatever that were. So stay tuned for news on that too.
Speaker 2: Cannot wait. Thank you so much guys and thank you
Speaker 2: so much for taking the time and have a wonderful
Speaker 2: rest of your day
Speaker 1: to talk to you today. Thank
Speaker 2: you very much.