I have three children to take care; I have a wife. My job is to take care of them, and I can say it's a pretty cool job to have.
My mum and dad ran a family cafe in Sligo for 35 years and worked long hours. We grew up in a very hard-working family and had a lovely atmosphere, as we lived above the restaurant. It definitely made me want to work hard, whatever I chose to do. As the baby of seven kids, I was definitely a bit spoilt.
The couple of years before I was declared bankrupt were the roughest. The bank letters, the pressure, the stress was awful. You're in this twilight zone of not knowing where your life is going, and yet you're in Westlife. Everything was great with the band. I was earning money, and it looked good.
When you look at bands like Take That, who have come back bigger than ever, you can see there will always be a market for good pop bands.
My kids are Irish; I want them to grow up playing Gaelic football and learning Irish.
You know One Direction do a lot of up tempo songs, but when they did that Ed Sheeran song 'Little Things,' that was probably their biggest song off their last album, so it shows you that a ballad never goes out of fashion.
Working on solo material is something I had always dreamed of doing, and I'm incredibly happy with the results. 'Everything To Me' is a very personal song to me lyrically; it is such an upbeat and optimistic record, perfect for the summer. I can't wait for people to hear it!
When I had money, I felt pressure, whether it was to invest it or do good with it, and I couldn't let it fizzle out. It was like I needed to prove to myself that I could look after it, only I did the opposite, but you have to take a chance in life.
When I finished Westlife, we had - Louie Walsh is still managing me - I was lucky to have options from different labels such as Sony and Universal. When we met Capitol and Nick Raphael, I just believed in them the most, and it looked like they believed in me the most.
I worry about putting food on the table, paying for my kids needs, their college fees in years to come. It's about earning enough to have a living to be able to look after your children.
I will definitely start in small venues, as I want to find my feet as a performer; the first shows that Westlife did was ten dates at Wembley, which was just crazy. We didn't have a clue what we were doing because it was so big.
I didn't want to be a solo Westlife - covers and ballads - and the reason I signed with Capitol Records was because they wanted me to write songs myself. It was pretty scary, but they put me in a studio in Nashville with some new songwriters, and the results were pretty good.
After Westlife, I was in a scared place, you know; you've three children, and I worry about providing for them, and I had no guarantees going forward about the future.
I put all my eggs in one basket and invested in property. I didn't do anything internationally - it was all in Ireland.
It's a big deal to bring your family on the road, you know? I'd love to do it sometime, but you have to work out schools and all that.
