Westlife defend cover versions

Mark Feehily says he's fed up of people criticising Westlife for doing cover songs.

The 29-year-old vocalist said he was annoyed his group - who have had 14 number one hits and sold more than 43 million records sold worldwide - were "misunderstood."

The 'Flying Without Wings' vocalist said: "Our record company, they don't want to take risks, so they are happier to do more covers.

"To anyone who criticises what we do, we actually do a lot of original pop songs and a lot of our best songs, a lot of our number one singles are actually original pop songs. "

Although he added: "We definitely did go too far, we did too many covers. That's something we allowed to happen and shouldn't have."

Despite this, Westlife's new single 'What About Now' is actually a cover of a track by Daughtry, an American rock band.

Defending their choice, Mark said: "It's a cover in the way that it's been recorded by another artist but it's not a cover in the way 'Mandy' was, in that it's been a massive hit already."

Westlife's new single 'What About Now' is released today (02.11.09), and their album 'Where We Are' follows later in the month.