The first song I sang was, funnily enough, Uptown Girl. I was five years old then. But my greatest challenge as a singer I think was singing in front of Mariah Carey. I was just so nervous but it was great, I loved it. My most memorable experience though was meeting the Pope, John Paul II. We were invited to perform at the Vatican with our families. What was most special was that my mom got to meet the Pope. This was definitely the best present I have given her, a picture with him. That is a moment I’ll never forget.
I love playing golf. It’s very relaxing and I get to be out in the countryside, which I love. I’m not too bad at it either. My favourite song is Lone Star. I am amazed by it. I have done an acoustic cover of it for my deluxe album. Its my wife’s and my favourite love song.
As a singer, my finest moment so far has been playing at our national stadium, Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland. We played there four times among 85,000 people a night. It doesn’t get much better than that. So you can imagine, it was a very difficult decision for us. In fact it took us about two years to make the decision, one that none of us wanted to make but we knew it was right for the band and for Westlife’s legacy.
Honestly, I just wanted to keep singing. It’s what I love to do and I knew I had to do it on my own if I wanted to continue singing.
The experience of going solo has been very exciting; it’s very different. I think everything is a challenge to a certain degree but I’m going work as hard as I can and hopefully I can have success. Having said that, so far I am really enjoying it as well. It’s too hard to compare being a solo artist and being in a band. You probably need to be a lot more focused as a solo artist because you have to make all the decisions yourself. But so far so good
My new album is called ‘You and Me’. It’s a very honest, positive, lyrical album. I spent about eight months in the studio making it. It’s quite upbeat, a little bit different to Westlife. It’s got a country-folk-soul-pop kind of feel to it. But I’m very proud of it and I can’t wait to see what the fans think. If you like the EP, you’re going love the album.
I’ve felt nothing but love and support from everyone in India. The country is full of history and culture, which is very similar to Ireland. The support has been incredible and I hope someday soon I can come back to do a concert here. I would also love to do a duet with an Indian singer, that will be cool.
The album is set to release on November 4.