00:00But don't go anywhere, because after the break, we'll be filling that side of the studio with Westlife, who'll be chatting and performing right here in the studio.
00:18Welcome back to the show. Let's get my next guest out.
00:21They have had an unbelievable 14 number one singles and eight number one albums.
00:26Let's have a look at just some of their massive hits.
00:30Oh, I will never know. You're flying without wings.
00:36Uptime girl, she's been living in her uptime world.
00:42We've got a little world of our war. I'll tell you things and no one else calls you.
00:47Oh, man, you came and you gave me that taken.
00:52You raised me up to whiteness than a mountain.
01:00It's Westlife. Here they are. Come on now.
01:05Hello again. Welcome back. Welcome back from here.
01:19Mark. Good to see you, Nicky, Finn, Shane, Mark. Good to have you all here.
01:24OK, so life's changed for all of us. You're all parents now, is that right?
01:28Yes. Yeah. Who's the most recent father?
01:31Me. Me.
01:32Congratulations. That's so lovely.
01:34All of them.
01:35Oh, Leila, love you. Daddy, love you.
01:37Do all your kids get on? Because presumably they see each other quite often, I would have thought.
01:44Oh, yeah. They do. They have a good little backstage kind of crew going on out there.
01:48There's ten of them now backstage, so it's lovely.
01:50You know, they're all different ages, so Nicole is like 16, so she'd be kind of nearly babysitting Leila on the next tour, which would be lovely.
01:57Oh, yeah. And there they are. Oh, wow. Oh, sweet.
02:00That's everybody but Leila. I hear that some of them formed a little band, their own little Westlife tribute band.
02:05Yeah. Was it Two Cousins?
02:06Westlife Two Cousins is what they call themselves.
02:08And the name came from, because Shane is married to my first cousin, so that actually makes our children related.
02:15Kind of cousins. Second, third cousins. That's very weird.
02:18So they got together and they formed a little band and Nicole started writing songs and then Nicky's little girl, Gia,
02:24Yeah, she was only six at the time, was she? Five, yeah.
02:27Yeah, just like was standing over everybody, she was security.
02:31So any time...
02:32Any time now wants to be in the band.
02:34She's a little bit older now, so she sees that the security probably doesn't make as much as the band.
02:39Yeah, yeah. So she now wants to be the singer.
02:40It's not as glamorous as John White, is it?
02:43You've got two children as well. Yeah.
02:46And are you encouraging them to get into comedy or acting?
02:49Yeah. Gang. So your kids are all quite young, aren't they?
02:53Yeah, I've got, yeah, I've got a 19 year old and a 17 year old who are both about six foot and they just put me to bed.
03:02LAUGHTER
03:04Can I just say, there's a thing with boy bands, man bands, and I don't want to sound remotely, you know, sexist here.
03:11Can I just say man band sounds really weird, like some kind of erectile kind of...
03:16LAUGHTER
03:18No, but... You're known for it.
03:19They get hotter with age. They get, they get...
03:22That is one... It's amazing.
03:24I mean, that is a testosterone-filled sofa. That's a beautiful...
03:27Yes!
03:28For some reason, though, that made me think of Louis Walsh.
03:31And does he...
03:32He still manages you, doesn't he? Does he still manage you? He works for you, I guess.
03:35Absolutely, yeah.
03:36How different is he now to in the early days when he was first looking out for you?
03:39A lot of people think that Louis, you know, kind of showed us the bright lights of show business.
03:44And it is true, because he did, but the first time he showed us bright lights wasn't in fact show business.
03:49He was dropping us home in 1998, where we just started.
03:53Look at him with his brown hair. Look at you!
03:55Look at us there. And he used to drive, I don't know if you know this, but he used to drive a red Wrangler Jeep.
03:59You know, one of those... And it was an American Jeep, so it was left-hand drive.
04:03And he said to us one night, I'll drop you over.
04:05I don't know the north side of Dublin very well, but I'll drop you over.
04:09So we said, OK. So we were driving along out to where I live, and we approached a roundabout.
04:14And I was in the back of the car, and I remember looking and thinking,
04:16all these bright lights coming towards, Louis will slow down.
04:18And he, remember, was the left-hand side of the car.
04:21And as we approached around, he just didn't stop.
04:23And, you know, he'd look right, you know, to oncoming traffic.
04:26He just kept going, you know, cue.
04:28So we were Louis!
04:30And he was like, pulled in, what?
04:32And he goes, I told you I don't know the north side of Dublin too well.
04:36I said, Louis, it's roundabouts.
04:38You have them, it's the outside of Dublin too.
04:40But, erm...
04:42But I love the fact he still looks after you.
04:44I love the fact that you have it, because, you know, you hear a lot about managers
04:47and people get given a hard time.
04:48And sometimes they deserve it, of course.
04:49But Louis has always been very honest with you, I guess that's one of the reasons...
04:52Too honest.
04:53He's literally, he's like, he casts your mind, you're lucky, guys.
04:57You're so lucky to be in a band.
04:59Yeah.
05:00Do you all do an impersonation?
05:02I've heard three of them.
05:03Do you all do an impersonation?
05:04Will you lie?
05:05Here you go.
05:06It's good.
05:07Are you doing really good?
05:08You're lucky guy.
05:09Tell Jonathan I said hi.
05:11Send him my love.
05:12Don't forget he came to see you in Belfast.
05:14Come on, come on, Mark.
05:15Come on, come on.
05:16Come on, come on, Mark.
05:17Come on, come on.
05:18Come on, come on.
05:19Come on, come on.
05:20Come on, come on.
05:21Come on, come on.
05:22Come on, come on.
05:23You might be putting on a little bit of a race.
05:24No, he wasn't.
05:25He told me I lost my turn.
05:27Let me ask you about fans, because I know you've got fans all over the world, of course,
05:30but I know they're still quite obsessive about you in the kind of various Asian territories
05:34that you're hit with.
05:35What's it like when you go over there?
05:37What kind of interaction do you have with them?
05:39What kind of presence?
05:40Well, Asia definitely would be kind of the most Beatlemania kind of vibe that we ever got.
