OUR STORY 5 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 396.

Chapter Nine

Buzzing with the

Queen Bee

We need to make one thing perfectly clear, explains Mark. We never agreed to be 'single' or 'available'. Nicky had been with Georgina for some time, likewise Shane with Gillian. Gillian was going to college at the time, recounts Shane, and was very keen not to have Westlife affect that. She wanted a normal college life. As I remember it, no one ever said to us, 'You can't have a girlfriend.' If they'd have said that was essential it would have been the end of the band, like. Without a doubt, because for me I wanted Gillian in my life above everything else. It was her idea really, not to publicize it so much. She wanted her own friends, her own time at college. Her best friends knew, obviously, but she didn't just want to be the girl who was going out with the guy in Westlife. Later on, people started realizing, but by then she'd managed to enjoy a normal life at college. Whatever she wanted, I wanted. This was the girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, long before Westlife or college or any of this. I loved her then and I just wanted to do whatever she wanted. I knew her personality, what she loved, what she didn't like, her pastimes. Remember, I'd admired her from afar in Sligo and we'd even written a song about her, as you know. I'd been a friend of hers for maybe seven years before we got together. She got Westlife. She understood what it meant - that there'd be attention from girls - and she knew how to handle it all, she had no problem with that. There's no other woman in the world who comes close to her. I'd fallen in love with her and that was that. So the band situation really didn't affect us, to be honest. From Day One, Nicky was known to be going out with the Taoiseach's daughter, says Kian. He never kept it a secret, never discussed saying otherwise. It was as simple as that. Even when he auditioned, next to his picture it stated who he was dating. He never went out the back door of a nightclub with Georgina to keep it quiet. We've always been adamant that's one thing we're not going to bluff anyone about. If someone had said to us, 'You all have to be single and available,' I'm convinced we would have said, 'Shove your contract.' I seem to remember Louis saying something about us not publicizing any girlfriends, though. He didn't say we couldn't have any, it was more about not making a big public show of them. It didn't bother me one way or the other, to be honest with you. I had a few girlfriends here and there, nothing too serious. I wasn't about to run off and get married. I know Nicky and Shane had different situations, but for me it wasn't really a big deal. Louis leaked stories at the beginning that I was going out with Bertie Ahern's daughter, says Nicky, because it was a huge story in Ireland, so it was another spin for him at the beginning when Westlife needed press. I didn't really mind either way. I'd found somebody that I loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with and that was it. It was perfect for me that Georgina's dad was in the public eye, because the record company couldn't ignore that fact, so I didn't have to hide her, which I think can be difficult. There was never a question of 'I can't have a girlfriend,' it was more a question of 'How do I make everything in my life balanced?' First and foremost I wanted my girlfriend to be my wife and then I wanted my career to be the biggest it could be.

* * *

We didn't tour the first album, recalls Mark, so it was straight into summer recording sessions for the follow-up, to be called Coast to Coast and set for a November 2000 release. We'd been nominated for an MTV Award in early 2000 for Best UK and Ireland Act, which was brilliant. And we won. Mariah Carey had also been nominated for an award. We all went down to London for the press call for the nominations and it was a suitably star-studded event. Then I heard someone whisper that Mariah Carey was in the building. I couldn't believe it. I was so excited, I can't tell you. Now, because I listen to so much music and hear so many songs from other artists, Mariah is by no means the only artist in my record collection, but back then she was still someone I'd always wanted to meet. There we were, standing around backstage waiting for stuff to get started, and then she walked past. My eyes were on stalks. She looked absolutely gorgeous and just floated by. For me, that was a huge moment. Here was this woman who had inspired me to start singing seriously, whose voice I'd so admired, whose songs I'd learned every note of - here she was, walking past me at an awards press call that my own band was involved in. It was bizarre. Within about 20 seconds of her walking past, I was scouring the building looking for our record company person, saying, 'Please, this might never happen again, you've got to sort it out so I can say hello to Mariah, please!' Even though I was a huge fan at the time, I was obviously aware of all the rumours that she was supposed to be difficult, a diva, demanding and all that, so I didn't expect much. Also, I was a little concerned that if she was dismissive it would tarnish one of my all-time idols. But at the same time, I had to ask. I thought if I could just say 'Hello' and get a picture, I'd be a happy man. Then the word came back saying that Mariah would love to meet me. All the lads were delighted for me and were egging me on. They were brilliant. I followed Mariah's representative down some corridors and finally through a door, then I sort of paused momentarily, aware I was about to meet her. The woman beckoned me through the door... and I walked into a room packed with media, a full-blown press conference, with Mariah lounging on an extravagant chaise longue with 100 flashbulbs taking pictures of her. This was where they'd arranged for me to meet her, right there and then in front of the assembled press pack. I was too nervous to back out of it, but it was so embarrassing going up onto what was basically a stage with a chair on it and Mariah Carey perched there in front of 100 tabloid journalists. I introduced myself and said how nice it was to meet her, slightly apprehensive about what she would be like and if she would be mean to me in front of the press. But do you know what? She was lovely. She couldn't have been nicer. She looked me straight in the eye all the time we talked, she gave me her full attention, and she was really kind. I'd managed to get hold of a copy of her album somehow and she signed that and was very gracious about me being a fan. Then suddenly it was all over. I was so pleased she'd been so lovely to me. It was great. A few weeks later we were in a hotel in South East Asia on a promotional trip, when the door to my room burst open and the rest of the band tumbled in, laughing, shouting, waving and saying, 'Mark! Mark! We're going to do a song with Mariah Carey!' I think they were almost as excited for me as I was myself, which was really nice. They knew how much it meant to me. I don't know how to describe the excitement at hearing that news. It was unreal. We all knew how much Mark had wanted to meet Mariah properly, says Nicky. We knew he had met her previously, albeit briefly. So when we heard about the song with her, we were bursting to tell him. Kian took the call from Louis and I have to admit my exact words when he told me were 'Fuck off, no way!' It was to be 'Against All Odds', the Phil Collins track, and it would eventually give us our sixth number 1 in 17 months. What's more, we were pencilled in to record the single and video with Mariah in Capri, an island just off Italy. We had a tiny window of 48 hours to record the single, shoot the video and get it all done. Kian lost his passport. I felt really sorry for him, because he ended up shooting his parts of the video on his own. Mariah had shot hers on her own, mind you, then we had gone out and done our clips, but because Kian wasn't there, they'd filmed shots of us separately and then spliced it all in later. There were shots of a car with 'Kian' in it, but they were from a distance and cleverly done to hide the fact he wasn't actually there yet and was still desperately trying to get his passport sorted. We were to have dinner with Mariah in a beautiful Italian restaurant in the most amazing location and we all got there nice and early. The sense of anticipation among the lads was huge. Then suddenly, there she was, like the Queen Bee, gliding in wearing a flowing chiffon outfit. I don't even think her feet were touching the floor, she was gliding that much. It was a real spectacle and obviously everyone in the restaurant was staring at her. She just had that presence. She was probably giving it some for effect, but she definitely had a colossal X factor. We all sat down and I was trying to eat my pasta but it was just too weird, sitting round a table eating dinner with Mariah Carey. Every now and then I'd relax and chat to one of the lads, then I'd turn my head and think, Holy shit! That's Mariah Carey! She was surrounded by 'her people', but actually they kept a distance and let us chat happily with her. I have to say, once we'd got over our nerves, she was an absolute pleasure to talk to. She wasn't at all like the demanding diva you read about in the tabloids. We shared a beer and had a bit of craic and I even remember, for some reason, that the food was sensational. It was very hard to really be yourself, though. I kept trying to open up and even tell a few jokes, but in the end, I thought, The less said, the better. You don't want to ruin the night. You don't want Mariah Carey to think you're a knob. We hadn't recorded the song at this point, so I think we were all on tenterhooks in case she came away from that meal and said she didn't want to work with us. But that didn't happen, she said she loved our company and I thought she made a huge effort. Obviously, the best part for me, recounts Mark, was singing with Mariah in the studio. I kept thinking back to when I was a kid listening to 'Hero' and all those other great vocals, then pinching myself because I couldn't believe that I was in a studio in Capri with her in person. What's more, she was basically producing us. She had her engineers and all that, but she was sitting behind the desk using the faders and the talk back, telling us to do another take and giving me guidance on a few points. It was incredible. I have to be honest and say it was actually a bit of a blur! It was all very strange, but good strange, amazing strange. I was really pleased, too, because I wasn't freaking out, I sang my parts calmly and I was proud of them, I wasn't overwhelmed. I was actually very composed and thoroughly enjoying myself. That goes back to what I said about being self-conscious, reserved, anxious to get approval in most parts of my early life except singing, where I just opened my mouth and felt completely liberated. I was definitely a bit nervous, but I realized in those two days that I didn't care who I sang in front of, even Mariah Carey. And, of course, hearing that voice in person so close was a dream come true. Personally, I enjoyed the studio time, continues Nicky, but I did find it a little intimidating. For a start, there were these three backing singers who were phenomenal, and then you had Mariah Carey, one of the most gifted vocalists in history. The studio was at the top of about 300 stone steps, there was a terrace overhanging a cliff down to the Mediterranean and she had some food brought out for us. It was lovely. I'd set my mind on looking really cool when we first got there, but by the time I'd walked up the 300 steps, I was fucking gasping! It took us like half an hour to get up to the bloody place. I don't think we had much of a say in any of the video, as she'd decided she wanted her personal videographer to make the clip. We didn't mind - this was Mariah Carey. I definitely don't remember anyone complaining! Mariah wore a luminous pink dress, and we had to walk along by her. It was surreal - she was walking all light-footed, fluttering her eyelashes at the camera, pure Mariah, and we were all walking alongside, trying to look cool and not look at her and go, 'Jesus, lads, look, Mariah Carey!' I also remember she was brilliantly well lit and we hardly seemed to be lit at all, which made me laugh. Whatever people say, Mariah was really approachable and although she does that mwah, mwah, mwah kissing thing when you meet her, she is genuine and she is always lovely to us whenever we bump into her. It's always, 'Hello again, my Irish boys!' My favourite story from the various times when we've been lucky enough to meet Mariah has to be when we were all sitting with her after a charity event in Manchester, where we'd sung our duet together. While we were chatting away, from just out of my line of vision a person walked over with a glass of mineral water which had a straw in it. While Mariah was still talking, a hand silently came in from the right and placed the straw directly under her lips. Without even looking at it, Mariah took a few sips from the straw, then the hand silently moved the glass away. Then another hand, also silently gliding in, came from the left and dabbed the corner of her mouth before sliding away. Mariah was looking straight at me all the time, chatting, and I swear she looked at me with a half-wink, as if to say, I know you think this is nuts, but this is what I do. And she did, she had this diva-like presence, this aura, there was certainly none of the unpleasantness that you hear about, nothing at all, and you could see she was playing up to her reputation because it was all part of the show. I smiled about that straw for days.

Chapter Ten

Too Much Torro

Rosso

Coast to Coast was an insane period, says Kian. That second album was huge. Millions of copies were selling around the world. In the UK, we literally could not walk down the street. Our hotels were mobbed, we were on all the TV shows, all over the radio, the press - it was nuts. Sonny Takhar had a brilliant idea ahead of the album's release. They hired a private jet, had 'Westlife' splashed down the side and booked in signings in four different cities in one day. We were due to visit Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and London. The Spice Girls were releasing their 'comeback' album, Forever, after Geri Halliwell had left and there was this big chart 'battle' between us and them. So this city-hopping promo jaunt was perfectly designed to ramp up our PR that week. Great idea. The record label invited a load of media onto the jet to fly around with us - it was great craic. The whole stunt was high profile and we had thousands and thousands of fans turning up in each city. It was insane, proper popstar stuff. There were thousands of people in the streets, they were closing off roads all over the place, the traffic was jammed, it was mental. I was playing junior-team football at Leeds, remembers Nicky, when the Spice Girls were first coming out. All the lads were talking about which Spice Girl they fancied, that was the talk of the football team. They just seemed so famous. Then there I was, in this brilliant band with these brilliant lads, only a few years later, going up against them in a battle of the bands ... ... and beating them hands down, continues Kian. When the charts were announced, we'd creamed the Spice Girls. We'd shifted nearly 250,000 copies and outsold them three to one. That week was probably the absolute height of Westlife hysteria in the UK. No one could touch us ... ... apart from Bob the Builder, says Shane. 'What Makes a Man' was our Christmas single and it was one of our best songs, definitely Top Five Westlife or so. We do it every single year on tour because we still love singing it live so much. It's a cool song - great lyrics and melody, brilliant. So it's a real shame that this was to be our first single that didn't enter at the top. Those midweek phone calls with our likely chart position were like a ritual by then. And we'd had so many number is that there was a burden on us to keep getting the top spot. During the early days, a number 2 became unthinkable. Oh my God, I couldn't sleep the night before a midweek. I'd be lying in bed at three or four in the morning, thinking about it. Then you'd get the midweek and it would be number 1 and you'd be like, 'Oh, Jesus, the heat's off now... till the next single.' That might sound extreme, but we didn't know any different, we had to get number is. When we beat the Beatles record that was weird enough, but then we got five, six, seven in a row - it was ludicrous. And then we only hit number 2 with 'What Makes a Man', because of the Bob the Builder Christmas song. The day we found out our midweek, we were gutted. We knew Bob was gonna be big. What was even more frustrating was that it was the biggest first-week sales we'd ever had. That was such a shock, our first number 2. It was the first time that something hadn't gone perfectly, the first time we'd thought it wasn't all going to be plain sailing. It was a pity because - I know I'm being greedy now - the next three singles after 'What Makes a Man' also went to number 1, so if Bob hadn't stuck his oar in, we'd have had 11 in a row. Nevertheless, we're all proud of those seven consecutive number 1 singles, and given the changing climate with downloads and all that, I don't think anyone will ever beat that record. You never know, but it'll be some mighty effort.

* * *

We didn't tour the first album, explains Shane, which sold 1.5 million copies in the UK alone. Simon Cowell had wanted it this way. Then he didn't want us to tour before the second album. He wanted us to get even bigger first. And he was right. By the time we came to the first headline shows, Coast to Coast was selling millions of copies around the world and Westlife was massive. We set up the 'Where Dreams Come True' world tour. It was completely sold out within minutes of the tickets going on sale. That first night in Newcastle was amazing - our first headline arena tour and 11,000 people there, just for Westlife. They'd been waiting two years to see our show. We were a big band and although we'd supported Boyzone at big venues and done the Smash Hits Roadshow tour, which was also to big crowds, we'd just been a support act. So now the anticipation was immense. It was for us too. I'd been looking forward to it all my life. Ill never forget it. I couldn't breathe for about three songs — I literally couldn't catch my breath. It was unbelievable. And the heat - it was so intense. Standing on stage in our first stage outfits for the first number was an insane feeling. I was singing the words quite well, but I was gasping, I really couldn't get my breathing right. The adrenaline was racing through me so much that I could almost feel it in my veins. I didn't really smile that much for the first three songs because I was having to concentrate so hard just to remember the routines and breathe. Then a couple of ballads calmed things down and I managed, finally, to catch my breath. I relaxed hugely and, I'm glad to say, have stayed relaxed on stage ever since. There's a real difference between singing in front of 3,000 people and, say, 15,000. When there are that many people there, sometimes some of them are so high up you can hardly see them. When you're singing away to the audience in front of you, you sometimes forget there's a whole other tier at the top. When there are loads of people, there are a lot more things to look at, that's for sure! For our first two headline tours, says Mark, I couldn't really hear myself sing because of the screaming. We hadn't really had any coaching with regards to the mics or monitors; there was an element of being thrown in at the deep end. So for those two tours I pretty much just shouted. You get this weird feeling of trying to project your voice to the back of this huge arena - but shouting isn't going to do it! Eventually you learn how to work the microphone and the sound system, but that takes time and we kinda learned as we went along. The expectation among some of us was that there would be dozens of people to help with vocal technique, styling, performances, studio work, all that. None of us were from stage school and maybe those sort of people have that head start on us, they've already been trained with their voice, in performance, all that. We'd only really sung at school and in musicals, and then on the Boyzone dates we'd be on stage early when the venues weren't full, and then suddenly, it seemed, we were on stage in front of 15,000 people. I'd be standing there, eyes staring, mouth as wide open as possible, thinking, Fuck me, 15,000 people need to hear this! I must have looked like I was on drugs! I later developed a trick, or technique if you like, that I use to this day, particularly with TV appearances where I feel awkward. I'll see someone in the room or in the crowd and I'll go, Right, you're the one I'm going to impress now, and I'll pretty much sing to that person. I won't look at them all the time, and they probably won't even notice I'm doing it, but it helps me focus and perform. I might just see a fan in the crowd who looks like someone who I know, for instance, and I'll pick them. It doesn't happen every night, by the way. Some nights I don't see a person, but then the next night I will see someone and the whole gig will be based on what they are going to say when they get home. Maybe it'll be someone who just looks like they are enjoying themselves or someone who's singing along, and that person will make me go for it. It really helps. One funny aside from that is when we first started I had a bit of an issue with waving. Where I come from, if someone waves to you in the street, you wave back - simple manners. So we'd be playing to, say, 15,000 people and the first 50 rows would be waving. Especially down the very front, girls would wave every time you walked by. So I just had to keep waving back to all of them. I thought how I would feel if I'd waved at Prince or Mariah and they'd caught my eye and then not flickered and not waved but moved on. So I would wave and wave and wave and wave, all night. It was getting ridiculous - there were times when I was spending more time waving back - so as not to be rude - than I was holding the mic!

On our very first concert tour, laughs Kian, once we were offstage, we went ballistic. We felt like superstars and we drank like fucking nut jobs. I'm not even sure I want to explain what went on! We'd been doing two years' solid promo with no tour and virtually no days off since it'd all started. Then, in typical Westlife fashion, the first tour we ever did was humongous - we did nine Wembleys, thirteen nights in Dublin, six Newcastles, six Manchesters, six nights in Glasgow, three in Birmingham, three in Sheffield and then were overseas for nearly three months. It was four months of the most massive shows. That was only the half of it, though. Behind the scenes, there was just an explosion of pent-up energy. Young lads, well known, in all the magazines, songs in the charts, money coming in, out on the road together - to be totally honest, we went ga-ga! We drank very heavily every single night. Vodka and Red Bull was our favoured tipple and we sank it by the gallon. Our security man Paul Higgins reckons Shane and myself drank ourselves into oblivion for over 50 nights straight. We were like caged animals being let loose. The situation was so different from promo - there was no record company telling us to get to bed or behave ourselves. We never needed to get up early. You'd have all day to relax before the show the following night. All the people on the tour were being paid by us. We were the bosses, so we did what we wanted, when we wanted. And what we wanted was to party. Mark: Actually, we were sponsored by Red Bull, so really we were just doing the right thing by our sponsors ... A memorable day in the history of Westlife, says Kian, was in Sheffield on that first tour. I'll never forget it. We had a run of three shows so it felt like a mini-residence. We found this little bar around the corner from the venue which seemed ideal for our parties after each show. One of our security team went around and spoke to the manager and enquired about letting us use the bar for our after-shows. It was a great little pub, full of weird and wonderful characters, mostly big stocky dudes who all drove Ferraris. They made us very welcome and we partied there every single night of our Sheffield stay. On one particular night, a lot of us had brought friends over and everyone was absolutely steaming drunk. Even the truck drivers, man, they loved us because they would joke and say, 'Where's the party tonight?' and we'd say, 'Follow us!' so we'd race over to this bar followed by all these massive truck drivers ready to get wrecked. It was pure carnage. Someone was going around on a leash; one of Nicky's best friends, Skinner, was drunkenly pretending to be a priest, taking a bucket of water around and blessing people; folks were running around absolutely slammed on the bar; music was on full blast all night; Nicky was standing on the bar with shades on pretending to be Bono - it was nuts. All our dancers, all our crew, all of us, all our friends and family went mad. The barmen were just chucking drinks at us and we were chucking them down our gob. By throwing out time, we were cuckoo. One of the bar owners offered to give me and my brother Gavin a lift home in his Ferrari as he hadn't been drinking. It was only a two-seater, but we weren't missing out on this. 'Come on, Gav, lesh get in, it'll be fucking greeaaatt!' Gavin sat in the passenger seat first and I basically sat on top of him, completely bladdered. Then I had one of those moments of seriousness that you only get when you're blind drunk. 'Hey, Gav, whereshfuckingsheatbelt...?' I wrapped it around him and me and said, 'At leasht if we die at 150 milesss an hour, we'll die together, eh, Gav?' This didn't seem to comfort him too much. The bar owner then proceeded to do about 130 mph down the motorway with me and Gavin absolutely ossified out of our faces in the passenger seat. We made it back to the hotel and continued the drinking at full tilt. Gav was actually a secondary school teacher and by about 4 a.m., he was absolutely fucked. We bundled him off to bed - for a guy who is ten years older, he did pretty well! We got up around one in the afternoon very much the worse for wear. I had to abandon some promo interviews because I couldn't stop giggling and I was still drunk. I knew Shane was doing some interviews in his dressing room, so I headed for there, thinking he would be organized and sober and might calm me down and get me back on track. I walked in to find him sitting slumped in the corner on his own, wearing only his boxer shorts and a pair of white sunglasses with blacked-out lenses ... and on his head was a pair of deely-boppers with flashing stars at the end of each bouncy wire. 'Hey, Kian, what's the craic?' was all he could muster. We were due on stage in about five hours. He was still completely twisted from the night before, off his chops on 20 shots of vodka and Red Bull. I sat next to him, laughing out loud, and thought we could both sit there and sober up together, when Paul Higgins, our security man, raced in and said, 'Kian, Kian, you've got to come, Brian's acting all weird, you've got to sort him out...' To be fair, I was in no fit state to sort anyone out, but if the choice was either me or Shane, then it was gonna be me. I went out to the tour bus to find Brian also twisted on vodka and Red Bull, telling everyone that the walls were closing in on him and that there was something wrong with him. 'You fucking eejit, sit down will ya...?' We walked around a bit and Shane came out of his dressing room, still with his bouncy stars on, saying, 'I think I need some sleep... Eventually, we all surfaced from the drunken stupor and prepared ourselves for the show that night. Shane got some sleep, we all sobered up and started to feel human again. As I followed Shane up the steps to the stage, where 12,500 people were waiting for us, he leaned over a bucket and vomited. 'Shit, are you OK to go on, Shane?' I asked. 'Yeah, yeah, it's OK, it's all out of me now. Let's go.' He jumped up onto the stage, said, 'Hello Sheffield!' and we all proceeded to play a blistering show. I have to say, in my opinion, the partying never affected our shows. We were kids - well, 21 - and we were bullet-proof. Plus, we were from the west coast of Ireland, so we had a background of heavy drinking, you know. The drinking carried on the next day. And the next. And the next, and so on for the whole tour. And the tour after that. Shane: I don't recall being sick right before I went on stage, but perhaps I was still in no fit state to remember. I didn't learn my lesson, either. We just went on drinking, as Kian says. That night in Sheffield, I had trouble breathing in some of the songs and I probably should have gone to hospital and got it all pumped out of my system. I remember being in an interview with Sky News the next day and I had big dark glasses on. People probably thought I was on drugs, but I wasn't, I was still very, very drunk from the vodka and Red Bull. Vodka and Red Bull is a mad drink. I was a nutbag on it. I'd go out with Gillian to a club and I'd be drinking it and forget about her for an hour and a half, just be chatting to people, having a laugh, and eventually Gillian would be like, 'Where were you?' So, eventually I stopped drinking it, because it just didn't agree with me. But, come on, we were young fellas, we were 20, 21, out having a laugh and we were famous. We were in this band, it was amazing, we were selling out everywhere, we had money in our pockets, it was like pure joy. What's the point doing all the work if you can't enjoy the benefits? We just kinda enjoyed them a bit too much.