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00:00Today's guest sold over 50 million records worldwide as part of one-fifth of boy band
00:16Westlife. Westlife went on to achieve 14 number one singles, 26 top 10 singles and six number
00:24one albums. That's unheard of now really Mark. Well we've done okay for us, we did, we sure did.
00:29You definitely have. After taking a break he's ready to put his Westlife stall to one side and start a new chapter in his solo career with his debut single Love is a Drug.
00:38Please welcome to Charter Show TV, Mark Fahili. Hello, thanks for having me. That is one mammoth intro. That was a big intro definitely, it was a very nice one though, thank you.
00:47I had to squeeze it down because you have achieved a lot in your career, it's crazy. We did, no in fairness we've done very well and you know we were very lucky and we worked very hard and yeah we had a fantastic time.
00:58I mean it was it was over half my life you know so and the best years of my life you know by far it was phenomenal a great experience.
01:03Definitely. Now after the final Westlife gig in Dublin, Ireland you went your separate ways in 2012. Did you take some much needed time out of the spotlight?
01:11Yeah so I kind of got straight out of the country basically at the end because I wanted to sort of I didn't want a million questions flying at me and I didn't know what I wanted to do next so I was like what's the point of me staying around just getting asked that question constantly so I went over there and lived life a little bit but then I kind of I was a bit worried that you know after so long in the music business maybe maybe I'm like do I need to do something else like not music related?
01:35Maybe I'm a bit too kind of don't need to take a big break from it but thankfully I realised within honestly within weeks of getting to America that I was still desperate and dying to get back into the studio and just start singing songs again and recording and basically I was ready for that responsibility and I was ready to write songs that I was 100% behind and kind of ready to make all the decisions of lyrics, melody, direction, musically like everything. I was just ready for that responsibility.
02:03Yeah definitely after being in a band for so long and going out alone it must be nice to kind of do your own thing, get to write what you want to write, experience life because obviously the boy band was all you knew so I guess it was nice to go to LA and just kind of relax.
02:19Yeah just I mean I remember one time I sat down and like I knew what I was doing from that day up until like a year and a half after like every day you know it was like even our holidays were like in like you know in the diary as like a holiday for seven days and then back into the studio and I kept on flicking the pages okay keep going going going and I got to like 18 months from the day I was looking at it and it was really really scary and so like at the end of the band I kind of felt a bit like excited and like naughty that I could just do whatever
02:49I wanted and nobody was going to start calling me wondering where I was and stuff.
02:52Now what normal things were you able to do that you couldn't do when you're in the band like go to a shop and buy some milk for instance.
02:58Yeah I did start kind of shopping myself and cooking a bit more and getting into those kind of home sort of things a little bit more and so I just kind of as I started living life and kind of surrounding myself with as many creative people as I could and you know drawing off all their sort of musical tastes and seeing what was out there at the moment what kind of cool new music was coming up and what cool new writers and producers were coming up.
03:22And you had time to look around and kind of see that.
03:24Yeah I could take my time and not just dive in you know.
03:27The option to dive in would have been there to kind of hit the ground running and stuff but I think any record label that wanted me to do that they would have wanted me to just go straight into a solo version of Westlife and it's just not what I wanted to do I wanted to try something different you know.
03:41Shane and Kian have already released albums were you happy to wait until the time was right for you to kind of put your record out there not put it out straight away.
03:48Yeah I mean I didn't I did not release it till now because of any of the other lads release schedules or I just didn't release till now because it wasn't ready till now you know.
03:58I knew that I was going to have to go off and go back to the drawing board a bit and sort of start from scratch with a blank canvas and you know and I know that was going to take time you know.
04:08I needed to try like to work with a load of different producers to find the right one and you know.
04:12The right style and stuff.
04:13Yeah I worked with quite a lot of different people and as much as I enjoyed working with all of them one or two of them or three of them sort of started rising to the surface as the ones that it was working out better with you know.
04:23Okay.
04:24And so then I kind of done more work with them and I'm also going to America in a few weeks to do some more writing over there as well.
04:31So you know the album is by no means finished yet but it's well on its way and hopefully it'll be ready to come out at the end of this year.
04:39Love is a Drug is your debut single.
04:43It's slightly dark but really contagious.
04:46It feels a million miles away from Westlife.
04:48Why are you keen to get away from that mainstream pop and try something a bit different?
04:53Yeah I mean I kind of it's not that I intentionally decided to get away from it.
04:57I just said right I'm going into the studio.
04:58I wanted to just see what actually naturally comes out of me in the studio and that's what I've done.
05:04And so now I can stand on a stage and sing a song and it's naturally me it's believable you know.
05:10I think people people will first of all people are very good at telling when somebody's faking it.
05:15Yeah.
05:15And I can't fake it now especially because I'm by myself on the stage I can't fake it it has to be real.
05:20All eyes are on you.
05:20Yeah and I have to believe in it and I don't want to be standing on the stage kind of feeling silly because I don't really like this song that I'm singing.
05:26So it was really important to do what was true to me and you know I am lyrically and melodically and everything a bit darker as an individual.
05:36The songs are written about real experiences I've had and for whatever reason I don't tend to write songs when I'm having a great day.
05:41I just go down the road and have a laugh with my mates.
05:44It's when I'm kind of going through something that's a bit more difficult that I tend to be inspired to write a song.
05:49I guess people can relate to it that way.
05:51Yeah well I mean love is a drug is about being in a situation where it's just wearing you down like day by day week by week.
05:59But for some reason and I think this is the bit everyone can relate to is that you keep going back to this person.
06:03Yeah.
06:04Even though you know they're bad for you.
06:06Everyone's been there.
06:06I think everyone's been silly and replied to a text they shouldn't have or went back with someone they knew was going to turn out bad but you still go back to them.
06:17You learn your lessons after a while though.
06:19Well yeah but I'd like to think I learned my lesson anyway.
06:22You know we'll find out if I have.
06:25Now you don't feature much in your video.
06:27Were you conscious about keeping yourself fairly anonymous to let the song kind of take the lead and do its thing?
06:31Well basically what I found was that when I was sending my new song into sort of various different places or whatever.
06:38If I kind of sent it in and it was Mark from Westlife all over the front of the envelope we'll say or whatever however we sent it in.
06:46Sometimes they wouldn't even bother listening to it.
06:49And so we started sending the song to people and not saying who it was.
06:53And then all of a sudden everyone started reacting like really well and everyone was like oh my god who's this we love it you know we're definitely going to play this song on the radio or so on and so forth.
07:01So we kind of realized quite quickly that it was kind of an interesting approach to just send it in without saying who it was.
07:07And so similarly in the video I want the song to do the talking on so you know I just said for this video I'm not going to be there sort of looking down the lens like smiling and sort of being kind of old boy bandy and stuff.
07:20And just me just being a little bit more you know mysterious in the background so.
07:24Now that song was co-produced by Mo Jam who are James and Moose who were once in the band Blazing Squad.
07:30That's right yeah absolutely I did of course yeah I know I mean they took the song and just give it that like modern sort of urban edge which is exactly what I wanted to happen with it.
07:38The demo wasn't slightly as much like that but that's what I felt it was missing and that's what I needed to call on those guys to bring it to that level of you know being sort of a big radio song so.
07:50And they brought it there.
07:51They certainly did honestly I'm very grateful of what they've done to it.
07:54Cool and they've produced massive hits for Naughty Boy and Sam Smith, Professor Green, Katie B just to name a few.
07:59Yeah they're very talented.
08:00So you in Save Hands they are so talented.
08:01Honestly they're very talented and straight away you know I sort of told them the kind of what I felt was missing on the song and within like half a day they got back to me and I was like boom you've got it straight away you know so.
08:12Now taking it back to your first taste of the spotlight you kicked off your career in a massive way when Westlife's debut single Swear It Again went to the top of the UK.
08:20Now were you surprised at the amazing success you had over the years?
08:24I mean a lot of bands kind of come and go.
08:26We didn't ever really ever take any of it for granted you know.
08:29And that's the good thing about you guys you were really humble about it all.
08:32Yeah well we just I don't know we knew that we've seen all the bands in the past that kind of had it and then lost it and stuff.
08:38So we enjoyed we enjoyed most of it you know nearly nearly every minute of it we enjoyed.
08:44Apart from all the times you didn't get much sleep.
08:46Yeah well I do love my sleep in fairness so anybody will tell you that I wasn't the best in the mornings whatsoever.
08:52So let's look at some stats.
08:54You released 10 studio albums and 29 singles.
08:57You sold out 8 tours and shot over 30 music videos all in the space of 13 years.
09:03Now at such a young age to be able to do all of that.
09:05Did you take the time out to kind of appreciate everything at the time or?
09:09When things are going well you just have to kind of strike while they are in town.
09:12Exactly.
09:13If we stood around sort of enjoying everything in a really kind of nice casual calm way we wouldn't have had enough time to do everything we'd done.
09:20So I don't regret anything but you know there is certain things I suppose that just yeah your head's kind of left in a spin and you're just kind of you're like whoa what just happened there?
09:29What did we just do?
09:30You know and but I don't know I don't regret it because as I said that's just that's just life in a big young boy band.
09:38Exactly.
09:39Life goes by so quick.
09:40It does.
09:40You kind of have to try and remember what you can.
09:42It's good it's good to try it I mean somebody asked me about you know advice for One Direction or whatever and not that they need any advice from me but you know that's the one thing I said was just to try to try as much as you can to just enjoy and take everything in as it's happening because it's amazing it's just amazing and it'd be a shame to go through it all and to kind of not actually enjoy it or realise you know what country you're in or who you just worked with or you know whatever.
10:06Yeah definitely.
10:07Now originally you were signed by Simon Cowell and managed by Louie Walsh were they both a lot different then to how they are now are they still the same guys?
10:16They're pretty much the same apart from just mega mega famous all over the world.
10:21When we met Simon like Simon was famous amongst sort of the group of people that he worked with.
10:25Yeah.
10:26Because he was Simon you know he always had the trousers you know the kind of all year round tan and the v-neck and the hairy chest and he was always just Simon you know and Louie the same I mean Louie kind of Louie didn't care as much about his appearance we'll say until a few years into the X Factor and then it was like he used to bring his own clothes and everything like iron them himself backstage at the X Factor and then he had hired a stylist you know and he had like a clothes stylist and next thing he was wearing this shirt and tie with the waistcoat and having his hairstyle properly and the makeup done properly and stuff.
10:56So then he sort of started taking it a bit more seriously.
10:59Going up in the world Louie you were always the member of Westlife that people kind of said had the most powerful vocal would you ever do a West End show? I can imagine you in the West End.
11:09Yeah I'd love to I mean to be honest I kind of I like the idea of thinking that anything could happen you know next year something else could happen you know in 10 years time you know whatever and so doing a show like that's either theatre or one of my lifelong ambitions is to do a voiceover in like an anime.
11:26It's really genuinely the start of the rest of my life now you know and this is the first thing I've done and I've always wanted to make a solo album and I want to make plenty more solo albums but I also want to do lots of other stuff in life so I'd love to do something like that yeah.
11:39You've got a lot of time.
11:41Absolutely I'm only young.
11:43I guess people forget that you know you started out young so you still only are young.
11:46Yeah absolutely.
11:47You've got a lot of time.
11:48Now in honour of your new solo career we've made up our own version of Higher or Lower.
11:52Can you guess which of the following boy band members turned solo superstars charted higher or lower than the one before?
11:58Okay.
11:59First off we have Robbie Williams whose first solo single was Freedom it charted at number two.
12:04Now do you think that Ronan Keaton with When You Say Nothing at All charted higher or lower?
12:09Oh that was higher.
12:10That was number one.
12:10Correct.
12:11It was number one.
12:13What about Michael Jackson with Ben?
12:15Oh well I mean you can't get higher than number one can you so it must be lower.
12:18Correct.
12:19It was lower.
12:19It charted at seven.
12:21Justin Timberlake with Like I Love You.
12:23Oh higher.
12:24That must have been number one.
12:26Higher but it was number two.
12:27I'll give you that because you said higher.
12:28Yeah just higher.
12:29Sorry I'll stop saying that.
12:30That's fine.
12:31Simon Webb with Lay Your Hands.
12:34Higher or Lower?
12:35I'd say lower as much as I like that song.
12:38Perfect.
12:38It was lower.
12:39Went to number four.
12:39Not bad.
12:40And finally Nick Jonas with Jealous.
12:43Absolute tune.
12:43Higher or lower?
12:46Lower but it's a really really good song but I didn't even think it was out yet.
12:49Yeah it came out and it was higher.
12:51It went to number two in the charts.
12:52Oh wow okay.
12:53Great.
12:54Amazing.
12:54In America.
12:55Oh right okay.
12:55In here in the UK.
12:56Oh god okay.
12:56Yeah I'm just out of touch altogether.
12:58It's a great song though.
12:59It's a great song.
13:00It's an amazing song.
13:00It's a great song.
13:01Well thank you so much for joining us today for a chart show chat.
13:04We look forward to hearing the rest of your album later this year.
13:07Thanks for having me.
13:08Oh you're very welcome.
13:09If you want to see more chart show chats please subscribe to our YouTube channel below.
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