He was the frontman of one of the biggest boybands of the 1990s and now Shane Filan is bringing the second leg of his solo tour, Right Here, to Watford.

Westlife stormed the UK charts in April 1999 with Swear it Again and since then they topped the charts year after year for 14 years and have remained as one of the most successful Irish pop bands.

Having been in a band for so long, I asked Shane what it’s like going from performing in group to performing solo. He says: “It’s a bit different for me but it is quite exciting as I love to sing.

“And coming from something as massive as Westlife and all the concerts that we did, it’s lovely to be able to sing a lot of those songs when I do these concerts now… so it’s like continuing the memories for the fans, which they love.”

The 37-year-old from Ireland admits however that he does miss performing with the other members - Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily.

“Of course I miss it from time to time,” he adds. “You miss the crack on the road, having a laugh with lads. When I look back on Westlife, we had an amazing time together and we have some amazing memories.

“When I’m on the road now, you’re solo, it’s completely different to being in a band.”

Speaking about his favourite Westlife memories, Shane goes on to say: “I like some of the earlier days… things being mad, especially when we were going out to Asia. Literally there would be thousands of people at the airports.

“It was crazy. We didn’t know what to expect when we first got out there – we knew we were successful, but we didn’t have a clue how crazy the fans would be out there… “They were taking rings off our fingers, pulling your hair… just going through the airport was mental. But I loved going to Asia, we didn’t go there that often so when we did go, the fans just went crazy. It was great fun.”

Westlife, who started off as a five-piece, is a massive part of Shane’s life and the father of three goes on to tell me how it all began – and it involves his mother.

“It was my Mum who actually rang Louis Walsh saying would he meet her son, he is in a band and he would love to meet with you and possibly look at managers and stuff.

“Although he was very busy with all his stuff he did meet us and very soon after that he got us supporting the Backstreet Boys, which was incredible for us as they were our favourite band at the time.

“We did a concert and straight after that he said he wanted to manage us and that was the start… back in 1998. We auditioned for record labels in the summer that year and we orginally signed to Simon Cowell’s label Sony BMG. And it all kicked off from there.”

Before they released their first single in April the following year, Shane, who’s favourite Westlife song is You Raise Me Up, adds that Louis and Simon started picking music for them to sing and they must have recorded 50 or 60 songs for their first album.

In 2004 the fifth member of Westlife, Brian McFadden, left the group to spend more time with his family. The shock announcement came just three weeks before the band embarked on their fourth world tour.

“It was very weird actually, because we didn’t expect it,” explains Shane, who lives with his wife and children on the coast of Sligo in west Ireland.

“It actually brought the four of us closer together – I suppose if one other member left, we knew that would be it. It was a scary time for us, especially because we only had 29 days till we had our first concert on tour.

“So as soon as it happened, we knew we had to get together really quickly and not let anything go wrong. It really bonded us as a band and we went on for another eight years – I guess it worked out in the end and we’re very proud of our success after that.”

Shane, who enjoys gardening at home, says that in Westlife they didn’t have time to write their own songs, especially as they were bringing out an album every single year.

“We had a lot of great songwriters so it wasn’t something we thought about too much,” admits the Bryan Adams fan. But now, he focuses on writing his own material and says he enjoys experimenting.

Watford Colosseum, Rickmansworth Road, Watford, Wednesday, October 19, 7.30pm. Details: 01923 571102