Mark Feehily says he’s fed up of people criticizing 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.”

“Our record company, they don’t want to take risks, so they are happier to do more covers,” the “Flying Without Wings” vocalist claimed. “To anyone who criticizes 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 Feehily did admit the group has done “too many covers,” their newest single, “What About Now,” is actually a song originally done by Daughtry, the American Idol contestant. “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,” Mark explained.

Westlife’s upcoming album, Where We Are, will be released in a few weeks.