Westlife, who will switch on the Christmas lights in Grafton Street this evening, have dedicated their new album to the fathers of Kian Egan and Nicky Byrne who died this year.
Egan (29), who lost his father Kevin in July to cancer, said 2009 had been an “extremely tough year” for the band. His wife Jodi Albert also suffered a bereavement when her grandfather died.
Byrne's father Nicky snr (60) died suddenly of a heart attack earlier this month. The death of Boyzone's Stephen Gately also affected Westlife as both bands are close.
The album sleeve for Where We Arewas due to go to the printers on the day that Byrne's father died.
“The day Nicky's father died, a girl from the record label rang me and said, 'we have enough time to put Nicky's father on the dedication if he would like that'," Egan said.
“We rang Nicky reluctantly because it was all so sudden for him. Luckily we had enough time. It would have felt wrong if the album was only dedicated to my father.”
Mr Egan, a father of seven, died in July after a year long battle with cancer. Pictures of him and Mr Byrne will be on the inside cover the album.
“We never had to deal with death ever as young adults. This year it seems that we have to deal with a lot of it. It makes you question what life is all about,” his son said.
“It has been a very strange and difficult year for us. I had not been to a funeral since I was a child when I think about it. All of a sudden in the last six months we have been to four funerals, two of them being parents of Westlife.”
The new album includes a song about death entitled I'll See You Again.
“The first time I heard it, it nearly broke my heart, but then as I kept listening to it, I thought that it really fits. Anybody in the world who hears this song will see that it really means something for anybody who was lost somebody. It will really touch them emotionally,” Egan explained.
Egan accepted criticisms Westlife had played it safe in the past by covering well-known songs such as Bette Midler's The Roseand Michael Bublé's Home were valid. He said the new album marks a departure from that with 11 original songs out of 12, mostly written by American songwriters.
It features only one cover, What About Now, a song by the American group Daughtry which is the first Westlife single from the new album.
"Looking back, we had one too many well-known cover songs," Egan said. "If we'd gone out there singing songs like The Roseand Homefor the rest of our career, we would not enjoy it as much."
The album also features a rare self-penned Westlife track Reach Out, co-written by band member Mark Feehily.
“We went through a phase in the early part of our career where we did want to write our own songs and we did, but they were crap in comparison with all the other great songs that we had,” Egan said.
“If we wanted to write the album ourselves, we could, but we know we're not naturally gifted songwriters. We know our strength is in singing the songs and performing them on stage.”
