Markus Feehily: ‘I’ve Gone To The Dark Side After Westlife’ - EXCLUSIVE

Markus Feehily has been in the fame game longer than most celebs these days, with the Irish star first hitting the spotlight with his band Westlife back in 1998.

Together, the pop group took the world by storm with their catchy pop hits and love ballads, working their bums off for eleven years straight - with a tour and a new album out each year.

When Westlife split back in 2012, despite us being utterly heartbroken to no longer have the band in our life, we were excited to see what each member will be doing individually - and three years later Markus is fi-na-lly back with his debut solo album, ‘Fire’.

And when we grabbed the singer for an exclusive chat about the record, he warned us that he has gone to the dark side.

But before we get into that, what on Earth took Markus so long to return to the charts?

He explained to us: “I have been writing ‘Fire’ for over three years, some people did say to me to come straight out with something but to do that I would have really had to compromise and rush the music - I haven’t waited this long to do a solo album just to rush it so I really took my time.

“Westlife had an album out every single year and we had a tour out every year so it was just bang, bang, bang constantly. I wanted to bring down the pace and see what I was capable of as an individual.”

Discussing how his solo sound is different to the music he made when in Westlife, Markus told us: “It’s more pain driven. It was absolutely about my personal experience - I had the option to ring all the good songwriters and get them to send me songs but I just wanted to do something more personal.

“I’m hoping people will buy into me because they feel I am something more real; everybody has been through break ups and been messed around and when I went through my break up, which was my first ever break up after seven years together, it was a very tough time.

“There’s a lot of pop music about twerking and partying and slut dropping and a load of happy love songs, I think it’s also important to have albums out there that can be a tool for people who are heartbroken.

“It’s not just a heartbreak album, but it is dealing with that whole territory of the not-so-fortunate side of love - which is a bit dark compared to what Westlife was.”

Well, we don’t know about you but we are a little bit less scared of the next time that we get our heart broken now that we know we have Markus’ amazing music to help us through it.

Until then, we are still going to be listening to it on repeat because, if we’re being honest, it is a bloomin’ fantastic record.

Good work, Markus - ‘Fire’ was definitely worth the three year wait.

‘Fire’ is the debut solo album by Markus Feehily and it is OUT NOW.