Westlife are the new Rat Pack

It's Westlife, but not as you know them! For their brand new album, Allow us to be frank, the 'Life have recorded a CD full of Rat Pack covers. They've even got right into the roles and have taken to dressing in the '50s style clothes. But as Nicky, Shane and Kian tell us, this ain't just for the mums...

Why did you decide to do a Rat Pack covers album rather than come up with some new Westlife material?
NICKY: We've always wanted to do some kind of themed album and we wanted a bit of change and this year was the year to do it. When I say change I don't mean we wanted to get away and not do Westlife songs, we just needed a bit of excitement for us, the fans. Our albums, touch wood, always seem to be quite successful so we always thought that Westlife doing something alternative, like the Rat Pack or like a Greasemania album or a Christmas album or something different, would create some interest. We did a TV chat show in Ireland after Brian left and everyone said to us afterwards that we looked like the Rat Pack, that's where the seed was planted. And being big fans of that era we said let's give it a go and we recorded the songs. We also happened to be going to Las Vegas for the World Music Awards so we even lived the life a bit and shot the videos there.
SHANE: It was kind of Louis' [Walsh, their manager] idea. After that TV show he said we looked like a young Rat Pack but we didn't take much notice. But then my mum said the same and Kian's dad said it and we told Simon Cowell who loved it. And if Simon thinks it's a good thing then we knew we should all get behind it. We just thought it would be an exciting idea, something different and let's go for it and see what happens.

Were there any other ideas instead of a Rat Pack album?
S: A duets album. But then we thought after Brian leaving it might feel as if we're replacing him on every song and plus it's too hard to promote and tour-getting all those people on TV shows with you is a nightmare. The Rat Pack just fitted us better; there were four of them, four of us, a great style of music.

Are all the songs on the album personal favourites or did you discover some new ones?
KIAN: When you hear the names of the songs you kind of go, 'Do I know that one?' but as soon as you hear the song itself you go, 'I knew that one!' That one song we didn't know that Simon loves is 'Clementine'. Apart from that one we sat down, came up with a list, went through it and picked our favourites.

Were there any songs where someone said 'I'm definitely singing that one'?
N: There are songs where you go, 'I'd love to sing that line,' but we're not in a band where someone demands to sing something. We let the producer make that decision because that's what he's there for. What we have tried to do is make sure everyone is featured.

What was it like recording these songs compared to other times in the studio?
N: This album was so much more enjoyable to record than any other album, maybe apart from our first one as we didn't know what we were doing. This one was being in the studio day in, day out, getting into character, listening to the old Rat pack, and just having fun.

What do you think Westlife have added by covering these songs?
S: You can never go and try and beat the original, but what we've tried to set out and do is put our modern day take on it. We've a big fanbase and we wanted to bring these songs to them, especially to those who may not know these songs at all.

How do you think your fans are going to receive this album?
K: The one thing about this music is that these songs are still here so many years later. And the reason is that they're such amazing songs. One thing we've always tried to do on our albums is to make sure we have the best songs on them and we feel this Rat Pack stuff is good enough for our audience to like. A lot of big ballads on this album may not sound the same but are the same type of thing; they're love stories, they're ballads our fans will enjoy, they're songs we love to sing. In the uptempo songs they've got a kick in them that'll give you the same feeling as something like 'World Of Our Own' will. It was a minor, minor thing at the beginning when we thought would our fans get this but as we started picking and singing the songs we knew our fans would get it. The songs are too amazing.

Allow Us To Be Frank is out November 8.

article © Popworld 2004