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Date: 2015-10-07; view: 384.

Chapter Seven

The Power of

Louis Walsh

Louis started phoning me to talk about the band, explains Kian, and I would then relay the information on to the rest of the boys. It saved him making five identical calls, I suppose, and I was always very excitable, enthusiastic. I would give him an opinion and be keen to go and tell all the lads whatever the news was. I think he got a buzz off that. I would never have spoken back to him in a million years. That was Louis Walsh on the telephone to me, here, whatever he says is God, because he'd made the biggest boy band in Ireland. Louis Walsh is an A+ in music, he knows every song that's ever been written. That man's a walking encyclopaedia of music. Minutes after Simon Cowell had left the first audition, recalls Shane, when I'd been drunk the night before and performed so badly, Louis took me to one side and said, 'Listen, dye your hair blond for the next time Cowell comes.' 'What?' 'Dye your hair blond, then he won't recognize you.' 'Are you serious?' I asked. 'Absolutely. Shane, he auditions d0zens of people every week. He Saw you for about five minutes. He's not going to remember you.' He was serious. The next audition for Simon, we actually had mics and backing Tracks, says Mark. We'd even got a stylist, a local Dublin woman, who'd made us look like characters out of Grand Theft Auto! This was backin the day when we didn't really know what style we were going to be. I remember Louis saying he wanted us to be a male All Saints. So the day came when we were due to perform for Simon, continues Kian, this time with the full latterday Westlife line-up: Shane, Nicky, Brian, me and Mark. It was in the Pod nightclub, so at least it was a bit bigger than the last audition. Shane's hair was longer Of sunbeds so he was browner. As we were about to start, Simon Pointed at Shane and said to Louis - I swear to God - 'Who's the new guy? ' Louis came over to us, laughing quietly, and said to Shane, 'He hasn't got a clue who you are. It's worked - he thinks Nicky, Brian and you are the new boys... And I'm not ging tell him either.' We were all extremely rehearsed and ready for this. The first song was called 'Everybody Knows', a really strong ballad. We started it and immediately we were on top form, the harmonies were superb, we nailed it. Only 30 seconds into that first we noticed Simon leaning over to Louis and whispering something into his car. Later on, we found out what he'd said. 'Louis, I'll sign them.' Although Simon told Louis he'd sign us after 3 seconds, says Shane, we carried on and sang about six songs, some Boyzone, some Boyz II Men and some Backstreet Boys tunes. We were half-singing, Half-watching Simon, who was nodding with an approving look on His face, exactly as you now see him do on X Factor. Remember, we did't know he'd already said he'd sign us, so I was just seeing this and thinking, I don't reckon he thinks we're shite... Afterwards, he came and sat down with us. 'I really like you guys. You're got great looks, good harmonies. You're a bit unique. You're not like Boyzone and you're not like the Backstreet Boys, I see you as a genuine male vocal pop group.' He liked the combination of my vocal with Mark's - mine i a more pop vice, it has an edgier tone, while Mark's has that Incredible R&B vibe to it, not what you'd expect from a white Irish kid - and he loved Kian, Nicky and Brian's melodies and harmonies. We liked the idea of being a male vocal group; we knew we weren't brilliant dancers so we didn't want to be jumping round the place doing body rolls. It was more about the vocal for us, and he'd Already kinds seen what we wanted to be. He was saying all the right Things as far as we were concerned. Then he started talking about songwriters and producers he was thinking of, explains Kian, people like Max Martin, Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, all these massive songwriters who'd had huge hits for massive bands. As soon as he'd left, Louis came bouncing over. 'He loved you guys! He wants to sign you! You were all brilliant!' He was so excited. 'Simon's the one I wanted to sign you, he's the man that will make what I want to happen with you happen.' We totally put our trust in Louis. He knew Simon Cowell was the right man to go with. The main reason I really committed to doing the band, says Nicky, was because Louis was behind it and we all knew what he'd done with Boyzone. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done it without Louis being involved, but I'd have been far more sceptical. It just always felt like it was going to work with him involved. One thing about Louis that people don't realize is he does it because he loves it - he wouldn't do it for free, of course, but he doesn't do it for the money. So when he said Cowell was the man for the job, we trusted him. Mark continues, Shortly after that, they wanted to get us in the studio. I knew Cowell liked my voice and Shane's a lot, but the next step was to see if our live voices worked as well on tape, because that's not always the case - as Cowell says on American Idol a lot, you may not have a 'recording voice'. So they flew me and Shane to Sweden to make a few samplers. They must have liked what they heard, because the record label Simon Cowell worked for, Sony BMG, soon confirmed they were offering us a major five-album record deal.

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Kian: While the lawyers got busy, Louis pulled two masterstrokes. We were all still in Sligo and Dublin at this point, so we had to live out of suitcases while this was all being sorted out. What we didn't know is that those same suitcases would soon be our way of life. We had no money, so I think Louis paid for a lot of the expenses for us. One day Louis gave us all Ј500 each to go and get some new clothes for an important photo shoot we had coming up in the Evening Herald. That was great fun; it seemed like so much money. He'd also got us a photo shoot for Levis and we got a pair of free jeans each. Already the papers were talking about us as 'the new Boyzone', so it was a very exciting time. Louis had kept dropping hints that he wanted Ronan Keating involved in the management side of the band, explains Shane. He and Louis were tight, really close, and Ronan came to see us rehearse and really liked us. Why wouldn't we want Ronan involved? He was a superstar! So eventually we went to a meeting with him. He was a total gentleman. He offered us some advice and then it was agreed that it would be announced that he was our co-manager. Ronan received half of the management commission, but it was a stroke of genius by yer man Louis Walsh. It created such a buzz around the band, it was a very clever publicity stunt, and we benefited from it hugely. You've got to hand it to Louis, agrees Nicky, it was a masterstroke announcing Ronan was co-manager. Obviously, Ronan didn't do the majority of the day-to-day managing; he was never going to, that was Louis. But the impact that had within Boyzone fan circles was huge. Louis wasn't afraid to play up to 'the new Boyzone' tag. He explained to us that when that band had first started, they had hogged Take That gigs in Dublin. They had literally stood outside with photos of themselves, meeting the Take That fans going in, chatting to them, charming them and telling them all about their new band. So, when Boyzone were massive, we did the very same thing, standing outside handing out leaflets and walking up and down the queue until the doors were opened. Very cleverly, Louis and Sony-BMG had these business cards printed with Ronan's details on there as co-manager. The girls would stop and chat and we'd give them our little card, saying we were going to be the next big boy band and, pretty soon, we were having pictures taken with these fans. Of course, if they saw Ronan's name on the card, that made a huge difference. It was hard graft, but we loved it. You have to be into what you do and we loved it. We worked our asses off to be in with a chance. Let me tell you about a funny incident during these early days. We were staying at Castle Leslie, County Monaghan, and it was supposed to be haunted. We all had a few drinks then went back to our rooms for some kip. Now we'd already had the hotel tour and they'd said some rooms were more haunted than others. We were all shiteing ourselves, I'm telling you. Before Shane got to his room, I slipped in there and hid in a chest at the base of his bed. I must have had to wait about 20 minutes - I kept lifting the lid up and going, Where the fuck is he?- before I finally heard the door handle turn and Shane come in. I peeped out from under the lid, and he was just kind of looking around the room. You could see he was uneasy. Then I just jumped out and went 'Aaarrrggghhh!!' He fell to the floor, shit himself and then he went after me! He didn't do anything, obviously, but he was furious. Then he said the funniest thing: 'Nicky, you bastard, I could have had a stroke!' That comment made me laugh even more. I was pissing myself - he was only 19, and he was saying he could have had a stroke! Yeah, says Shane, I was fuming. I nearly killed him I did, I could have strangled him there and then! I said sorry, like... Fucker! Before Louis pulled his second masterstroke, we changed our name, continues Kian. Simon thought IOYOU was wrong. 'If I'm being perfectly honest,' he said, 'it's terrible, absolutely terrible.' He suggested the name Westside, as he felt it fitted our west of Ireland roots. Then Louis told us that we would be going on tour with Boyzone. We were so excited. So excited, we almost died! says Shane. Well, not exactly, but on the way up to their Belfast show, I thought my end had come. Mark's dad Ollie was driving us up from Sligo - me, Mark and Kian - and there'd been some really icy weather. The road was black with ice; it was awful. The road out of Sligo towards Belfast isn't the best - it's very windy and narrow - and we were slipping and skidding all over the place. There was nothing Ollie could do about it, it was like an ice-skating rink. We were laughing at first because it was comical, the car having a mind of its own. Then there was one particular corner that we skidded towards with a vertical drop of about 100 feet the other side, and we weren't laughing then. I really thought my time was up. I remember thinking, Aaahh! I'm not gonna get to support Boyzone! Aaahh! We ended up driving at about 15 mph and I thought we were going to die on at least 25 separate occasions! It took over six hours to get there - the longest six hours of my life. Going on tour with Boyzone in all these massive arenas was insane, recalls Mark. Even though they weren't always full to capacity when we sang, it was brilliant. We did some shows with Boyzone in Europe, quite a few in the UK and then it sort of intertwined with a Smash Hits tour as well. That was when it started to sink in that I wasn't going to be able to pop back home to Sligo all the time. I remember asking one of the girls out of B*Witched when they'd last been home and she said, Two months.' That was a real reality check. But although that worried me, I was having a great time. There we were, on tour supporting Boyzone without a record deal, says Kian. Next thing we know, we were on the big Saturday TV show CD: UK without a record deal. Next thing up, we got a slot playing on the Smash Hits Roadshow, which then led to us winning a Smash Hits award for Best New Touring Act - the power of Louis Walsh. Mark: I remember an incident with Louis way back then that showed me how serious he was about his bands being totally professional. We were doing a TV appearance in Ireland and there was another Irish boy band in the green room beforehand, getting a bit lairy and drunk. They weren't terrible, but they were having a few. Louis was standing next to us and he said, 'If I ever see you doing that, I'll leave in a second. If I see you hanging around in the green room drinking beer before you go on TV, I'm finished.'

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Signing the actual record contract was amazing, recounts Nicky. It was in the first week of November 1998, while we were still on tour with Boyzone. A lot of the lads hadn't even been to London before; I was a little more experienced in that I'd been to America, Canada and much of Europe with family holidays and football tournaments. Louis was travelling to the record label seperately, so it was literally the five of us travelling over on a plane to meet him there. We made our way from the airport to this big office block where the record company was based. I remember that standing there, ready to go in, we were just giddy kids. Looking back, as soon as we entered that doorway, all of our lives changed beyond recognition. We went into a big meeting room that is now Simon Cowell's private office but back then was just a huge conference room. Sonny Takhar was also there, Simon's right-hand man who has also been instrumental in our career. We knew it was a big record deal - we signed for five albums on a contract worth several million pounds, so, understandably at that age, we all thought that once we'd signed this piece of paper, we'd be millionaires. Of course that money is split over the albums and it has to go towards paying for some incredibly expensive stuff like accommodation, clothes, cars, video shoots, recording costs and so on. It's funny, looking back, because we'd all been looking at what cars we could afford. Rather than get proper carried away, I was thinking of buying maybe a Toyota MR2, you know, for 15 grand, say - nothing too ridiculous. That's how you think at that age. Signing that record deal was all my dreams come true, says Kian. It really was a lifelong dream and here we were, signing the contract, about to record an album, put singles out, travel the world in a band and make music. It was just amazing. It was the stuff of dreams, absolutely, recalls Shane. All my life I'd been looking forward to this moment. It was one of my major goals in life, but I never thought it would happen. I knew I wanted to get married and I hoped I'd be a father, but I never thought I'd get a massive record deal. It's such a prized achievement for a band. I can't really ever forget that excitement, that moment sitting in that office, all the thoughts buzzing around my head: We are going to be pop stars! We might have a hit single! Then the teenage thoughts kick in, like Maybe I'm going to be a millionaire! Then, most importantly of all, I can go and buy a new car! Signing the record deal was a huge decision for me, says Mark. I can clearly remember actually putting the pen on the page where I was supposed to sign. I can see it now, the pen moving in slow motion as I signed my name. At that precise second, a thousand thoughts were buzzing through my brain. I was excited about the deal, naturally, but I was very nervous about what it meant for my life back in Sligo. I was really scared that it might change things. Of course it changed everything beyond recognition. Subconsciously, I must have known this and that is why signing that piece of paper was such a big deal for me. There I was, an 18-year-old country boy, flying into this big corporate office in the middle of London, being surrounded by all these big names in the business, working for this worldwide company, sitting by accountants, lawyers, managers - it felt insane. I think in the back of my mind I'd been preparing to go to college, like a lot of kids do from around Sligo, then suddenly here I was signing a multi-million pound record deal with all the heavy responsibility that comes with that. Maybe for a kid brought up in Camden, it would have been an easy day out, but for me the contrast was so severe. Exciting, thrilling, scary, daunting, all at once. I'm just trying to be really honest here. As I signed, the noise of the city outside was as far from my idyllic country childhood as you can imagine. I could feel that distance sitting there in that room, writing my name on that sheet of paper. Right there and then, I put a barrier up. This is not going to change me, this is not going to change my life, I kept saying to myself. It was important at that point to have that feeling. It reassured me. I hadn't travelled like Nicky, I didn't have the confidence of Shane, Kian and Brian. But, ultimately, the draw to sing was greater than the desire for my life not to change, so I signed the contract. But I just kept telling myself it wouldn't really change anything. How wrong can you be? The business side of it hit us instantly, says Nicky. We had to set up a company, we hired an accountant, Alan McEvoy, and we got lawyers and tour managers lined up, all sorts. It was explained to us that the company, Blue Net, should own the band name because if any member were to leave then the band could continue without legal problems. We just agreed - it sounded reasonable and besides, no one was going to leave Westlife, were they? As soon as we signed the deal, we spoke with Louis and he said, 'Right, you're going straight into a recording studio.' Game on.

Part II

Chapter Eight

The First of Many

From the phone call in the pub from Louis, saying he'd got us a slot supporting the Backstreet Boys, remembers Shane, to our first single, which was released in April 1999, it was just 13 months. The pace of it all was insane. And it was about to get much more insane... Next thing we know, says Nicky, we're on a plane to Sweden to begin recording our debut album. It was moving so fast. It seemed that even before the ink was dry on the record contract, the pace of our lives flipped to light-speed. There was one more name change to come: we discovered that there were several overseas acts already using the name Westside, so we altered it once again, this time to Westlife. It was between this and West High, which I preferred, but all the other lads wanted Westlife. We made our way to the Cheiron studio, all incredibly excited. All the big American pop bands recorded at that place in Sweden. The Backstreet Boys had been there a week before we flew out for the debut album sessions. Fans would circle around the reception and entrance to the studio and when we walked out they'd be like, 'Who are you?!' But instead of laughing or taking offence, we would introduce ourselves and tell them we were Westlife, what we were doing and that we were going to be a big new boy band, and that's how we started building up our fanbase. Other than that, I remember those first album sessions to be full of sickness. It was freezing cold in Stockholm, absolutely bitter, and in fact I got so sick I was eventually flown home. Our first single was to be a song called 'Swear It Again' and it was due for release in late April 1999. I remember that earlier Shane came back to the house we were all staying at in Dublin and excitedly played us this demo. It was a version of 'Swear It Again' sung by session vocalists. I think it was maybe even Mac's co-writer, Wayne Hector, singing. I distinctly remember thinking, Wow, this is a great song. It's a big chorus, great harmonies. This is exactly what we want to be recording. We shot the video for 'Swear It Again', explains Kian, and Cowell hated it, he tore it to pieces. He'd spent Ј150,000 on it and he just threw it in the bin. We reshot the video completely and did five or six different photo shoots with five or six different stylists. It was really a case of no expense spared by Simon and the label. Between them, Simon and Louis got us on all the front covers of magazines before we'd even released a single. We were the first band to ever be on the front cover of Smash Hits without releasing a single. In the lead-up to the single's release, remembers Shane, we were hearing good things from the record company. Radio was loving it, the record shops were ordering good numbers of copies ... It sounded good to us, but to be fair, we had never done it before, so we actually had no idea what it all meant. As the week of release approached, they kept saying, 'Lads, it's going to be a big song.' They told us that all the signs were there for a Top Ten. Top Ten! We thought this was brilliant. We'd have taken number 10 any day of the week. Then it came to the actual week of release and we were all sitting in Peter Waterman's studio doing more work on the debut album. The phone rang and it was Louis with the update. 'Lads, you're going to be number 1.' It was incredible. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. We were jumping up and down, hugging each other, shouting, just hysterically happy. Pete Waterman came down with a bottle of champagne. It was mental. When we finally heard the official charts and we were indeed on top, I know this sounds silly now, but I remember looking out of the window and pointing at all the streets, going, 'We're number 1 there, there ... and there ... and there!' It got better. 'Swear It Again' stayed at number 1 for the next week too. We got to do Top of the Pops two weeks running, which was brilliant, a dream come true. It was a fairytale. I don't want to sound clichéd, but it literally was the stuff dreams are made of. Within just over 12 months, our lives had been totally turned upside down. We'd wanted to be a famous band, we'd wanted a record deal, we'd wanted to be number 1, and now it had all happened. And it had happened so fast. From being six in the band to being five, to meeting Simon, signing the record deal, officially becoming Westlife, recording a single and then hitting number 1, it was a year and two weeks - as quick as that. Unbelievable. The single didn't stop there either - it was a massive hit all around the world. Suddenly, everyone was talking about Westlife. From that moment, it was pure insanity, says Kian. We were in Tenerife a week later shooting a video for our second single, 'If I Let You Go', and then we came back and released that and it went to number 1 as well. Then we went to Mexico to shoot another video and in between all this we were doing all the TV shows, promo in and out of Europe and the Far East, and flying everywhere, just go, go, go, go, go! That opening single started a record-breaking run of singles going in at number 1. It stretched from April 1999 to November 2000, when our seventh single, 'My Love', hit the top spot. It was only with our eighth single, 'What Makes a Man', and a certain kids' TV character, that we failed to enter straight at the top. But we'll come to that. For now, it was sheer pandemonium. After our second single had gone straight to the top, next up came one of Westlife's biggest ever songs: 'Flying without Wings'. There's a story to tell behind that massive track. We've always enjoyed a great relationship with Simon Cowell, explains Nicky. Back in the day, before X Factor and American Idol, before he became a huge celebrity, he was an A&R man at a record company working 9 to 5 (and then some). At that point, when he was intimately involved, there was no one to touch him. He'd call you up on your mobile out of the blue and say, 'Nicky, I just didn't like what you were wearing on GMTV today, have a word with the boys.' He'd also call the other lads at times and say stuff like 'You looked tired, you looked overweight, you seemed uninterested' and so on. That might sound negative, but what he was very clever at was making you all feel special, because he'd comment on your performance or appearance in a way that was constructive. It was more of an observation than a criticism. We knew he was trying to get the band to sound its best, look its best, perform at its best. You'd sit in a meeting and I noticed after a while that during the course of the discussion he'd make direct eye contact with every single one of us, or maybe give a nod, a look or a friendly wink to each of us. No one felt left out. In complete contrast to the public perception of 'Nasty' Simon Cowell, he's an expert at making people feel special. He was the character with the high waist-band and low-necked T-shirt, says Kian. You know, 'Darling, look...' We used to rip the piss out of him, we'd sit in meetings and just be like, 'Love the shoes, Simon. Love the trousers. D'ya want to pull them up a wee bit higher?' But do you know what? He's not wrong very often. If you're like me, you'll sit there and watch these talent shows where he's knocking people, and if the truth is known, it's what most of us are thinking. In terms of being your A&R man, which is, after all, what our relationship with him is, I think he gets what people like. That's the only way I can describe it: he gets what people like. We wanted to learn and I think he taught us well. Without him, we wouldn't be Westlife and we wouldn't be where we are today, in my opinion. In those very early days, and I'm being very honest here, we were, 'What do you want us to do? Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.' That sounds terrible, but actually we liked what they were suggesting. We weren't puppets who did stuff against our wishes, we wanted to do these things, so it was a happy partnership. Later, we wanted more involvement in all sorts of decisions, of course. I guess that's natural, but at first that's how it was. Simon is a perfectionist. If he doesn't like a video when he sees the final clip, he'll just say, 'Reshoot it,' almost regardless of cost, just as he did with 'Swear It Again' and has done many times since. One time we did a big awards ceremony and he'd asked one of the stylists not to glisten us up with loads of glitter and stuff. He did, so Simon sacked him the next day. He knows how to get people excited and interested and involved and to make an idea feel like their baby. He has the amazing power to sit in that office and make you feel like you are the man, and then you walk out of there and do it the way he wants it done! He is a clever, clever man. We've gone into so many meetings with Simon saying, 'Right, we can't let him do that to us again,' and 30 minutes later, he's won us round yet again. Back then, we knew that he was a big hitter, says Shane. There's a famous music business story that shows the lengths Simon will go to for his artists. As we were starting our careers, his boy band Five were very big news. Simon had heard of a song written by the pop songwriting legend Max Martin, who has penned tracks for the likes of the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync and latterly Kelly Clarkson. It was a track called 'Hit Me Baby, One More Time'. We all know this now, of course, as Britney Spears's breakthrough tune, a very famous pop song. But back then, Simon wanted it for Five. The rumour went that he was so keen to get it that he even offered Max Martin a Ferrari. Max didn't take the gift and didn't give Five the song, but it shows you how passionate Cowell is about getting the right songs for his artists. We knew that he knew he would get us the songs we needed to make it big. And when he heard 'Flying without Wings', he had to have it for Westlife. So he did, simple as that. We first heard the song in demo form in a meeting with Simon, Sonny, Steve Mac, his co-writer Wayne Hector and Louis. It was obviously a great tune, even in that early form. We'd heard that several singers were after it, including, I believe, Stephen Gateley. Steve Mac knew the potential Westlife had at this point - we had become massive within just a few months of 1999, so he could see the sense in giving it to us. It must have felt good for him to sit there with that monster song up his sleeve. Simon made all sorts of fantastic offers to secure this song. I think it was part of the package that Steve and Wayne were made executive producers on the album alongside himself, not least because so many of their tunes were on the album. Thankfully, they chose to let us record it and in doing so gave us one of our signature tracks. In the early days, that song presented me with a little bit of an issue, recalls Mark. There's a part in 'Flying without Wings' which everyone calls 'the high note'. It's not actually that high, but everyone goes on about it. For the longest time when we were singing it live, I'd be like, Oh, here comes that bastard note, I'm going to have to try and hit it and everyone is waiting to see if I can do it live and... here we go, here we go... here it comes... It was becoming a real issue, even though I knew I could hit this note in my sleep. Eventually, Shane sat me down to talk about it. He just said, 'Stop thinking about it, just shout it out and who cares if you fluff it, whatever.' He was so confident about it, so practical, it was brilliant advice. It was only after I stopped worrying about that note that I was able to sing it properly on stage. It's probably fair to say I sometimes suffer lows more than I enjoy highs. When something good happens, I think, Great, and move on quite quickly, but if something bad happens, I tend to dwell on it. I don't actually think that's a bad thing, though, especially when you're talking about singing, because it drives you on to be good and keeps you on your toes. Shane: 'Flying without Wings' sold 350,000 copies on its way to number 1 and was a massive international hit. It was on the radio everywhere. A sign of how it is now seen as a pop classic is that when we released a live version in 2004, it became the first ever download number 1 nearly five years after its original release. Perhaps most importantly for us at the time, 'Flying without Wings' was a definite turning-point in our career. It took us from being seen as a pop boy band to a vocal group.

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Before our next single, we released our self-titled debut album in November 1999, Shane continues. By this point, Ronan had stepped away from the management side of Westlife. He was a great adviser and a good friend, but he was happy to move away now we'd become a big concern. One of the biggest misconceptions about Westlife, explains Nicky, is that we are a covers band. Our first three singles were originals. The first cover we did was the double A-side 'I Have a Dream/Seasons in the Sun' in December 1999. It felt right to do a cover at that point, because Christmas is that type of market. That release went straight in at number 1 again, the fourth time we'd done this. Plus, it kept selling for several weeks after Christmas, making it the last number 1 of the old century and the first number 1 of the new millennium. Just before this, we were nominated for Record of the Year for 'Flying without Wings'... We couldn't believe it. We were in ridiculously high-profile company: Ronan Keating had 'When You Say Nothing at All', and Shania Twain was also nominated; it was mad. We thought we had no chance of winning the thing, we were just naive and very excited to have been nominated. To be totally honest, we assumed we were there to make up the numbers and have a piss-up. As long as we don't come last... We performed the song and Simon Cowell and Sonny Takhar were really on the ball, as always. They put us on stage with a gospel choir and a beautiful set, no expense spared. Then, when everyone had performed, the vote counting began in the various regional centres, much like on Eurovision. At first, Ronan and Britney were streets ahead and we were down in fifth, still happy to be there, still happy to be having a piss-up. Just happy to get some free drinks, really... As long as we don't come last... Then we went to Northern Ireland and we cleaned up. Then we went around parts of the north and were cleaning up again. Suddenly, we weren't fifth, we were fourth, then third, then second. Manchester loved us, so did Newcastle, and we were drinking free beer. It was great craic. Then, bang, we were in first place and it was all over. We'd won Record of the Year. We've won it a further three times since. I know Ronan well now and I still take the piss out of him about this first win, but to be fair, he must have been gutted. We couldn't believe it. Brian picked Denise van Outen up on his shoulders and spun her around when she handed us the trophy. I was made up. I love winning trophies. I'm very competitive - it doesn't matter if it's a game of tiddly winks or an arm wrestle or football or PlayStation. The lads will tell you. I remember winning Best Goalkeeper at quite an important European tournament for the Home Farm team in Dublin, and I have a picture of me and my parents at Dublin airport, hugging and holding on to the trophy like it was the World Cup. So to win something like this with Westlife was amazing. Brian gave me the trophy, a lovely gold statue of a woman holding a glass record aloft above her slender shoulders. We had to sing the song again, then as soon as we'd finished, I jumped off the stage and ran over to Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, who'd written the winning song. I threw my arms around Steve and smashed the trophy in half across his back. I'd only had the thing five minutes. When we went home that first Christmas, we realized our lives had changed forever, continues Nicky. I walked home, went to the local pub for Christmas Eve, and bang, it literally hit me. Let me explain. I had this thing with my mates which dated back to when I was 16, coming back from Leeds and wanting to make sure I saw them all at Christmas time. We'd all go for a pint at the local and have a laugh. This Christmas Eve, I noticed straight away I was getting a lot of attention. I was with the lads in the International Bar in Dublin and we were actually starting to think about going home when this girl came up to me. She had a tattoo on her arm, but it was one of those that looked very DIY, home-made even. It was pretty rough. Some of the letters looked blurred, a bit scribbled out, so one of my mates, just being cheeky, having a laugh and said, 'Did you not like your tattoo? Why don't you get some Tippex?' This girl took offence, but instead of answering back to my mate, she turned around and slapped me! In the early days, we used to get a fair bit of verbal too. Blokes on the street would shout 'Queers!', all that sort of crap. At first, you're a bit taken aback, but you get used to it and, to be fair, it doesn't happen anymore. One time we were doing a photo shoot on an open-topped bus in Dublin and it was attracting quite a bit of attention. We stopped at some traffic lights and a white Transit van pulled up alongside us. The bloke driving it looked up at us, all dressed immaculately for the shoot, shouted, 'Westlife! Arse bandits!' and drove off. We fell about laughing. Not a lot you can say to that, is there?!