Brian: I don't really miss being in Westlife

Brian McFadden enjoyed 12 number one hits with Westlife.

He then went straight to the top of the charts with his first solo single, Real To Me.

His debut album, Irish Son, comes out on 29 November and he told NR's Thalia about life after Westlife and why he thinks downloading music is great.

Do you feel under pressure to get another number one single?

With the new single obviously it's the title track off my album so it's all about the album this time. So I'm more interested in what people will make about the album. That comes out the week after so we're not really worried this time about chart position for Irish Son.

Tell me about the album

Lyrically it's all about my life, it's pretty much an autobiography. It starts at the beginning and just talks about growing up in Ireland. Right through to the very present, today.

How did you end up working with Guy Chambers?

I didn't look for Guy and Guy didn't look for me! It was just really weird that our two managers met at a ball. We both said no. I said no cos he worked with Robbie and he said 'no cos he was in Westlife and I'm not doing another boy band thing'. So they even had to convince us to have a meeting.

You can download tracks from your website. What do you think about downloading?

Illegal downloading I obviously don't support cos it will ruin the industry. The more that's downloaded illegally the less money there is for record companies to try and develop new acts and it just means you're gonna have less and less new artists coming out and that's the only sad part.

For me it's okay and people that are already established it doesn't really affect us that much. But for new artists it really does affect them.

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Download is brilliant for example for what I'm doing where you can download a couple of minutes of each song and you can get to hear the song.

Instead of just going out and buying an album you can listen to a few of the tracks on the album and see if you want to buy it which is cool. If people download my tracks and don't like it then they haven't wasted £15 or £16 on buying the album.

What's it like being on the road?

It's a lot of fun. It's a new experience for me now because I've got a band now and I've got new people around me.

We're getting to know each other on the road and it's really cool. Like going back to the start of Westlife getting to know people on the road. That's when we used to have the best laugh and then near the end of Westlife because we were so used to it, it wasn't as much fun because it becomes a bit repetitive.

What's it like being in a band?

It's cool, it's a bit wild but I'm enjoying it. Trying to keep myself settled.

You manage a rock band called Franklin. What's it like being a manager?

At the moment it's okay because they are only recording their album at the moment so the managerial stuff at the moment is listening to the tracks and kind of being in the studio.

I haven't had to deal with the everyday manager stuff yet which will probably happen when their album is finished.

How will you find time for that stuff?

I haven't got a clue! One of my best friends, Mark, he does the day-to-day managing at the moment. Looks after them. He'll take care of the day-to-day stuff. I'll just make the big decisions.

Westlife have got a new album out of swing covers. Have you heard it and do you like it?

I like it. There's one song I particularly love, When I Fall In Love, I just think it's amazing. When I heard the album I didn't really feel anything different. It will be weird when they record an album of brand new songs. This was just the boys' voices singing old songs.

Do you miss Westlife?

I just miss them as people, I don't really miss being in Westlife. I'm very happy on my own now but their company I definitely miss.

Watch Thalia's interview with Brian on Sunday 14 November at 3.50pm on the CBBC channel.