Shane Filan

Shane Filan
Filan performing during The Nobel Peace Prize Concert in 2009
Background information
Birth name	Shane Steven Filan
Born	(1979-07-05) 5 July 1979
Origin	Sligo, Ireland
Genres	Pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, Guitar
Years active	1997–present
Labels	Capitol (2012 - 2015) Warner Music (2015 - 2017) / London (2013–2017) Ocean Wave Records (2017-Present)
Associated acts	Westlife
Website	www.shanefilan.com

Shane Steven Filan (born 5 July 1979) is an Irish singer and songwriter. He was one of the lead singers and frontman of boy band Westlife until the group disbanded in 2012. After the group disbanded, Filan released his debut solo album, You and Me, in 2013.

Early life

Filan was born on 5 July 1979 to Peter and Mae Filan and grew up in Sligo, a busy commercial town in the northwest of Ireland. The youngest of seven children, he has three brothers and three sisters: Finbarr, Peter Jr, Yvonne, Liam, Denise and Mairead. His parents owned a diner in Sligo named Carlton Café located on Castle Street and Shane used to work there as a waiter from a very early age.

Filan attended Summerhill College, a Catholic school, with Kian Egan and Mark Feehily. All three of them participated in a school production of Grease when they were about 12. The Hawkswell Theatre became a significant part of their careers. Filan was a fan of Michael Jackson as a child, and claimed the singer inspired him to pursue a career in music.^[1]

Career

IOYOU and Westlife

Before Westlife, Egan and Feehily were with Filan in a band known as I.O.U. with other Sligonians Derrick Lacey, Graham Keighron and Michael "Miggles" Garrett. He partly wrote the IOYOU's song "Together Girl Forever". For 6 months, Shane's mother, Mae Filan, tried to phone Louis Walsh (who is also the manager of Boyzone). Eventually, she was able to speak to him and talked about her son's band. 3 of them were dropped and the other 3, Shane, Kian and Mark, joined ventures to finding 2 more slots for the band. Then they were joined by Nicky Byrne and Brian McFadden to form Westside. The name of the band then changed to Westlife as there were already a number of bands with the name Westside.

Filan, along with Feehily, was the lead singer in Westlife. Their first album was released in November 1999, titled Westlife. With Westlife, Filan has received twenty-eight platinum discs and sold 40 million records worldwide.^[2]

Solo career

On 20 October 2011, Westlife announced and decided to split and go separate ways until the end of their 2012 Farewell Tour. Filan showed interest of being a solo music artist as his daily living. In December 2011, press said Filan is close to sealing a solo deal as several UK record labels are battling it out to sign the singer. Shane and his manager Louis Walsh, have been in talks with several record companies in London that month. "There's four, possibly five labels so far who have made it clear that they want to sign Shane", said a music source, to showbiz writer Paul Martin. "He's an incredible singer and he already has a very good idea of the kind of album he wants to make. He and Louis have been in meeting after meeting this week and are looking at their options. It's looking very good for Shane – he has his choice of record deals." Louis Walsh added:

"Shane Filan has one of the greatest voices out there [...] He's a complete natural – he's never, ever out of tune. He wants to do an album of modern, contemporary songs along the lines of Michael Bublé – something that would have wide appeal. He can tackle any music really simply because he has the voice."^[3] "I'm going to manage Shane Filan. He's going for the Michael Bublé market", Louis said on Irish TV over the weekend. "They're all good but I can only manage one. I love Shane's voice. I love Mark's voice too. The other boys are going to do TV and different stuff and radio. They are going out on a high [...] [He] is going to be a big artist. I will only manage someone if I believe in them. If I get someone amazing I will manage them."^[4]

Back in 2008, Filan showed no interest on planning a solo career.^[5] On 4 March 2012, it was updated that three major labels battling to sign him including Simon Cowell's record label, Syco Records.^[6] Paul Martin of The Irish Daily Mirror revealed the singer "has a number of multi-million euro offers and is currently deciding which to go with. Songs are already being picked out for Shane's debut album which could see him become one of the biggest singers to come out of Ireland since Ronan Keating. An insider said: “Everything seems to be going perfect for Shane right now. Having three labels fighting over you is about as good as it gets. It’s going to be a tough decision picking who he goes for as the offers are all extremely good. But for Shane a lot of it is coming down to what they can offer him. He wants to be sure there is good promotion waiting for when he begins as a solo artist. Behind the scenes his team are already eyeing up the songs that will go on his first record. They want to make sure the album is absolutely perfect. It seems to have been decided that Michael Bublé is the person Shane should aim towards becoming. If a tenth of the people who bought a Bublé album buy Shane’s first album he’ll be an immediate success. This is going to be a hugely hectic year for Shane. The hope is to get his album out towards the end of the year when there’s still a buzz after Westlife.”^[7]

In a March 2012 interview with Paul Martin, Filan said he will be signing on the dotted line in the next few weeks and he admitted that the nerves are jangling at the thought of going it alone and did not want to rush on things.

"It's exciting but, of course, I'll be nervous. It's only natural when you're coming out of a band after 14 years, you don't know where your life's going to take you [...] But all I want to do is sing, sing great songs and see where it goes. It's down to the songs." I'm just working out now exactly what's happening, there's different things happening and we'll work it out in the next month or two. Obviously I want to make the right decision", he said.^[8]

In December that year, it was announced that Filan has landed with a recording contract with Universal Music Entertainment. He spent time in Nashville with some well-known pop singers to boost his solo career. On 9 April 2013, an official website for Filan was launched, with a countdown to reveal news about his solo career. On 12 April, the official website of opened with an apology for keeping the fans waiting for a long time, and an announcement from him that he has signed a record deal with London Records, which is a part of Universal music Entertainment Group. He also stated that he had spent the past 12 months in both US and UK writing songs and recording. He also announced that a forthcoming single and an album later this year. He also said that "One of the things that pleases me the most about this record is that I've been given the opportunity to write my own songs. I'm so excited for people to hear them."^[9]

On 10 May, he announced that his first single will be released, along with three other tracks as an EP, via his Twitter account.^[10] On 17 May, he released a teaser from the studio through his official YouTube channel, and issued some lyrics featured in the teaser through Facebook and Twitter and also uploaded the photo of the lyrics in Instagram.^[11][12]

On 31 May, he announced that the website will be launched soon, and that he had finished the album and had been doing some shooting in Los Angeles for the video of the first single. He also stated that the first single will be released in few weeks, and he would be doing some radio work and some small gigs to promote his album.^[13] On 14 May, Shane revealed that the first single will be out on August.^[14] On 4 July, Filan revealed the title of his first single was "Everything to Me", and the resulting EP has three other songs "Everytime", "Today's Not Yesterday" and "Once". The release date was also announced as 25 August.

On 20 August 2013, Filan performed "Everything to Me" live at the 2013 Rose of Tralee festival, his first live solo TV performance.^[15]

On 10 September 2013, Filan released About You, the second single from his album You and Me.^[16] Shane released his latest CD You and Me in November 2013 and had scheduled a UK tour in 2014.

Right Here (2015)

On 13 March 2015, Filan announced he was working on his second studio album after You & Me, tour, Westlife split, bankruptcy and his debut autobiography My Side of Life. On 10 August 2015, Filan released the music video for the first single of his second album Right Here, titled "Me and the Moon". The album was mainly recorded in London and Denmark, with Shane working on the music with Cutfather (The Saturdays, JLS), Jez Ashurst (Will Young, Gabrielle Aplin), Jon Maguire (Union J) and Tre Jean-Marie (MNEK, Jason Derulo). On 25 September 2015, Shane's second album Right Here was released. It reached #1 at Irish Album Charts at its first week of release.

Love Always (2017)

On 8 May 2017, Filan released NSYNC's "This I Promise You", one of the track from his third album Love Always through his Youtube account,^[17] and announced his next tour, Love Always Tour 2017.^[18] On 28 June, he announced that his third album would be released on 25 August 2017, which features of some of his favourite love ballads, such as Bangles' "Eternal Flame", Bob Dylan's "Make You Feel My Love", and Bryan Adams' "Heaven".^[19][20] The next day, he released "Heaven" as a promotional single and announced that "Unbreakable" will be the first single through his Twitter account.^[21]

Personal life

Filan married his childhood sweetheart, Gillian Walsh on 28 December 2003 at Ballintubber Abbey, followed by a reception at Ashford Castle, Ireland.^[22] Gillian is the cousin of fellow band member, Kian Egan, making Filan and Egan cousins-in-law.^[23] They have three children: daughter Nicole Rose (born on 23 July 2005 in Sligo, Ireland) and sons Patrick Michael, (born on 15 September 2008 in Sligo, Ireland) and Shane Peter (born 22 January 2010), named after his father.

He and his eldest brother, Finbar, run Shafin Developments – a property development company. The company was placed in receivership in May 2012^[24] and Filan was declared bankrupt a little over a month later after suffering losses in Ireland's property crash.^[25]

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

As lead artist

As featured artist

Songwriting

Filan, along with the other band members of Westlife, has co-written a number of songs, including:

• "Fragile Heart"
• "Bop Bop Baby" (reached No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart)
• "Don't Say It's Too Late"
• "I Wanna Grow Old with You"
• "I'm Missing Loving You"
• "Singing Forever"
• "Where We Belong"
• "Never Knew I Was Losing You"
• "Love Crime"
• "How Does It Feel"
• "Crying Girl"
• "Reason for Living"
• "Miss You When I'm Dreaming"
• "A Little Part of Me / Little Part of Me / Extraordinary Love"¹
• "Love Ain't War"¹
• "This Life"¹
• "Closer"
• "Too Hard to Say Goodbye"
• "Last Mile of the Way"

^1 – Songs were found to be Filan's co-written songs. No other details whether it's for Westlife or not.

Songs written for other artists, (together with his former bandmate McFadden):

• "Listen Girl" performed by John Ostberg
• "Let Me Be the One" performed by Simon Casey (co-written with Gary Barlow)
• "Sei Parte Ormai Di Me" performed by Il Divo, in their self-titled album (2004)^[36]
• "The Music Won't Last / Music Won't Last" performed by Jerry Given

In the week beginning 26 April 2010, an unreleased solo song by Filan called "Beautiful in White" leaked on the Internet, but it was credited as being recorded by Shayne Ward instead of Filan.Filan performed the song on 13 March 2010 at a private wedding ceremony in Co. Kildare Ireland for Irish multimillionaire Mark Walker's daughter.

Tours

• You and Me Tour (2014)
• Right Here Tour (2016)
• Love Always Tour (2017)

References

https://web.archive.org/web/20140901124045/http://shanefilan.com/watch-the-official-video-for-knee-deep-in-my-heart/

External links

• Official website
• Shane Filan on IMDb
• Westlife's official website