My Side of Life/by WESTLIFE.CN

by Shane Filan

  Again – what? I had a meeting with Boyzone manager Louis Walsh, one of the most important men in the whole Irish pop business – and my mum had fixed it up? I listened as she filled me in.

  Like any mother, Mum wanted the best for her son. She had misgivings about the management contract Mary McDonagh had offered IOYOU, and she had taken them right to the top. She had made it her mission to talk to Louis Walsh – and she was armed with a very special weapon.

  She came from the same village as Louis. The MacNicholases and the Walshes were both from Kiltimagh in County Mayo. She had never met him, but apparently that hadn’t stopped her from calling his office daily for weeks and weeks.

  He had never got back to her but my mum is nothing if not persistent. When he finally picked up, she had introduced herself as Mae MacNicholas from Kiltimagh, and explained that her son was in a Sligo boy band named IOYOU.

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard of them,’ Louis had told her. He had seen our twenty-second TV appearance on Nationwide!

  As my mum rattled through this bizarre tale, my heart was racing. I would never even have dared try to get in touch with Louis Walsh and my mum had just gone and done it, as casual as you like. He had told her he was way too busy with Boyzone to manage another band, but he was happy to have a chat with us.

  But it was her last line that was the killer: ‘You’re meeting him tonight in some place called the Pod!’

  When I put the phone down for the second time, I felt as if I was going through a bizarre out-of-body experience. Kian was just as shocked. We spent the day running around Dublin trying to buy the right clothes to meet Boyzone’s manager. (We bought jackets and polo necks – exactly what Boyzone would wear!) The Pod was Dublin’s trendiest nightclub, where bands like U2 and hip DJs such as Gerry Ryan and Dave Fanning would hang out. Kian and I rocked up trying to look cool but feeling shit-scared. We gave our names and were asked to wait.

  I had never seen so much as a photo of Louis Walsh before and had no idea what he looked like. I was imagining a guy like Michael Jackson’s manager: very cool, tanned, long hair tied in a ponytail and wearing a leather jacket.

  So I was incredibly surprised when this ordinary-looking little fella popped up in front of us, all skinny and chirpy in a checked shirt and jeans, grinning away, holding out his hand to be shaken and talking at us nineteen-to-the-dozen.

  As we followed him upstairs to the Chocolate Bar, the Pod’s VIP area, Kian and I arched our eyebrows behind his back and silently mouthed the same question: ‘Is this Louis Walsh? Really?’

  Yet as Louis sat us down and got us a beer, he could not have been easier to talk to – except that he spoke so fast, we could hardly tell a word he was saying.

  Louis told us he had seen us on the telly and had heard that we were good singers. We had brought a copy of the IOYOU CD along, and he straight away put his finger over one of the boys on the cover and said, ‘Ah, six is too many – five is a lot better.’

  Shit! We were sitting with the most important – actually, the only – music-industry person we had ever met, he was giving us advice, and it was the last thing we wanted to hear. But Kian and I felt lucky to be there, and when Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy from Boyzone wandered into the bar and Louis introduced us, our eyes were on stalks.

  Had we crossed a line into a magic kingdom? Was this really happening?

  Louis talked to us, or at us, for about an hour then headed off, telling us to enjoy the rest of the night in the Pod and to keep in touch. Kian and I were buzzing from meeting him and had a few beers. In fact, the pair of us got bullets, as we say in Sligo.

  Louis had said that he would give us any help he could, and Kian and I went back home and told the other lads what he had said about having six in the band. We weren’t sure if we would hear from him again, which was why I was amazed a week later when he phoned to invite me to Ronan Keating’s twenty-first-birthday party.

  Naturally I was mad excited about this. Ronan was like pop royalty in Ireland – and Britain – at the time. Louis said there were one or two people he’d like me to meet and I could take a friend. Kian couldn’t make it so I asked Miggles, because I knew he was a good talker.

  The Pod was definitely the place to be in Dublin at the time and that was where Ronan’s party was. My mum and dad gave me a bit of money and, like the fashion victim I was, I spent the day before in Grafton Street buying my outfit: a grey jacket, polo neck, combat trousers and ankle boots.

  There was a weird trend in Dublin for hipsters to wear specs with clear lenses. I knew Ronan had some so I thought that I had better wear some to his bash, too. God knows what I was thinking of.

  Well, actually, I do know. I was thinking, I might be a bag of nerves, but at least I can look cool.

  The party was crazy. Ronan and his fiancée Yvonne made an entrance on a Harley-Davidson, dressed as Danny and Sandy from Grease (Grease again!). Louis introduced Miggles and me to a mate of his, Brian, who had managed bands, and we tried to make a good impression on him just in case – you never knew – he wanted to manage us.

  Admittedly, my bar was set low – Equinox in Sligo – but it was the most glamorous night I had ever seen. A lot of the Irish football team were there, and I got to talk to Ronan for about a minute. At one point I went to the toilet and Ken Doherty, the snooker player, was there, having a slash.

  I stood at the next urinal to him and was pissing away when I heard a Geordie guy on the other side of me say, ‘Hello, Ken, how are you doing?’ I glanced over at him. It was Alan Shearer.

  At the end of the night, Louis told me he would be in touch. I could only hope that he meant it.

  It turned out that he did.

  A week later, I was hanging out with Kian, Mark and the lads in a bar named MJ Carr’s on the outskirts of Sligo. My phone rang.

  ‘Shane, Shane, hi, this is Louis! How you doing? Look, the thing is this…’

  It was Louis, talking even faster than usual, and in the noisy bar I couldn’t hear a word he was saying. I jumped up from my seat and ran out to the corridor. ‘Sorry, Louis, can you say that again?’

  ‘I was saying, can you get to Dublin next weekend?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘You’re supporting the Backstreet Boys.’

  3

  LOUIS, LOUIS

  When somebody gives you the thing that you want, that you need, more than anything else in the world… what do you do? How do you react?

  I managed to hold it together, just about, while Louis told me all about it. He had managed to swing us two – two! – nights opening for the Backstreet Boys at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) venue in Ireland’s capital the next weekend: the same shows that Kian and I had got up in the middle of the night to queue to buy tickets for.

  When we finished the call, I lost it. The other IOYOU lads had all run into the corridor and gathered around me when they’d heard me say Louis’s name. We were screaming, cheering and hugging each other, unable to take it in. I found myself down on my knees, sobbing my heart out for joy.

  We were supporting the Backstreet Boys. We were supporting the Backstreet Boys.

  I said the words over and over to myself. I still didn’t believe them.

  I also knew exactly who I most wanted to tell. Gillian had a part-time job waitressing in the upstairs restaurant at MJ Carr’s. I sought her out and broke the amazing news. She was as lost for words as I was.

  Gillian was due to be working on the night of the first gig and didn’t know if she’d be able to get it off. I found her manager and begged her to give Gillian the night off. The boss could see how excited we were and happily agreed.

  The next week went by in a blur of intensive, delirious, wild-eyed rehearsals. Kian was by now working in EJ’s, as did I occasionally, and Eamonn came through with a load of free Sonnetti and Firetrap gear for us to wear onstage. IOYOU travelled up to Dublin fuelled by equal parts exhilaration and panic.

  The first gig was on 17 March, St Patrick’s Day, and t
he night before we all went to the RDS to hang around outside. We looked in a window. The Backstreet Boys had loaded up their gear and were messing about playing basketball in the arena on a portable court.

  There they were! That was them! Brian Littrell! Nick Carter, with his floppy blond fringe! I was as excited to see them in the flesh as I was to support them.

  Well, that’s not quite true. As we stood in the wings the next night, about to run the gauntlet of 8,000 people, I could have heaved my guts. I felt sick with nerves. An American guy, some kind of MC, appeared onstage and yelled, ‘Hey, let’s all give it up for IOYOU!’ There was no way out now.

  We did three songs: ‘Together Girl Forever’, ‘Everlasting Love’ and ‘Pinball Wizard’ by The Who, which was our big rock number. We sang them all into a blizzard of screaming. Hardly anybody in the place would have heard of us, but they knew we were Irish lads and they loved us for it.

  It was so exhilarating. In the dressing room afterwards I felt like I was glowing with happiness, yet I was also a little scared. I was thinking, That was so brilliant! I never want this to end – please don’t say tomorrow night is the last time we will ever do this… I tried to put my worries to the back of my mind and enjoy it. It honestly felt like life couldn’t get any better. I was wrong. When we arrived the next afternoon to sound-check for the second show, the Backstreet Boys were playing basketball again and invited us to shoot a few hoops with them. It was by far the coolest thing that had ever happened in my young life.

  The second night’s show was just as thrilling, and afterwards the Backstreet Boys invited us to go to the Pod with them. We went on their tour bus, got ushered past the waiting queues into the club and then headed straight for the VIP room, where Brian, AJ and Kevin hung out and chatted with us.

  They say you should never meet your heroes. Well, bollocks to that! The Backstreet Boys were great. On the way back to our B & B that night, I remember thinking, This sort of thing just doesn’t happen. If IOYOU never do anything else, at least we have had these two incredible nights.

  And then Louis told us he wanted to manage us.

  He phoned Kian and broke the news as we were on the train back to Sligo after the second Backstreet Boys gig. He explained that the gigs had effectively been an audition for us, and we had passed. When Kian told me, I couldn’t believe my ears – or our luck. Jesus! I knew how massive this was.

  Boyzone’s manager wants to manage us!

  But there was a catch. Louis told Kian that he still hadn’t altered his opinion from what he had said in our very first meeting. Six was too many for the group. He didn’t think Derek fitted in, or that he was up to it. He had to go.

  Shit. I went from elation to despair in one second. Derek was such a great guy. He was one of my best mates in the band, if not my best.

  ‘No,’ I said to Kian. ‘We can’t do it. Let’s try to talk Louis out of it.’

  We sat on our hands for a few days in the hope that Louis might change his mind. He phoned Kian again and asked if we had sacked Derek yet. Kian admitted that we hadn’t.

  ‘Look,’ Louis told him. ‘I’m serious about managing you. But you have to do this.’

  We were torn. Derek was our friend and we felt like we were betraying him. At the same time, Louis Walsh – LOUIS WALSH! – wanted to manage us and turn us into the next Boyzone. This was our chance of a lifetime; we weren’t about to blow it. Kian and I called a band meeting in the sitting room at my house.

  Once we were all there, I just came out with it. ‘Derek, Louis wants five in the band, and he thinks you’re not suited to the group.’

  It was horrible. Derek hadn’t seen it coming and was just so upset. He started crying, and that set me off too. He didn’t say much: what could he say? He got up and walked out of the room. Our friendship finished right there, and I didn’t blame him. It was just too much to take.

  I had lost somebody who was hugely important in my life. But it wasn’t all bad news; I was about to gain a soul mate.

  Gillian and I had started seeing each other around Sligo again a few weeks after she and her boyfriend had split. We were hanging out, but we were also both wary. I was nervous and didn’t know what to say to her; she was just coming out of a long-term relationship.

  I think we both knew how we felt by then, but neither of us dared say. If I plucked up the courage to make an awkward move, Gillian drew back, maybe fearful that she was on the rebound. She still didn’t know that I had written ‘Together Girl Forever’ about her.

  A week after the Backstreet Boys gigs, I walked her home from her part-time job at MJ Carr’s. She was staying at Helena’s, and I went in for a couple of minutes and then said that I would be off and headed back out the front door.

  As I turned to say goodbye, Gillian was right behind me, on the step above. She leaned down and kissed me.

  My knees buckled beneath me. I honestly don’t know how I didn’t faint. It was the first time we had kissed since we were twelve and it made me feel like I had never felt before. Wow! When we pulled apart, I didn’t know what to do.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ I said, trying to play it cool. Cool was the last thing I was feeling. As soon as Gillian closed the door, I virtually exploded with joy.

  I ran all the way back to the Carlton, laughing and roaring like a madman. My head was a jumble of wild, euphoric thoughts: This is it! She is my girlfriend! I’ve finally got her!

  And I had.

  I could not have been more ecstatic at getting together with Gillian – but it almost led to me getting kicked out of the band.

  Now Louis was our full-time manager, he was hard at work arranging meetings for us with record labels. He told us the first one was to be with a man from Sony BMG Records, who was flying over from London so that we could audition for him on a Saturday lunchtime at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin.

  The guy’s name was Simon Cowell.

  The night before the audition, I was out in Sligo with Gillian. We were in Equinox drinking Sex on the Beach, as usual. I knew I should really get an early night, but we were having a great time, I didn’t want the evening to end, I could sleep it off on the train in the morning… I fell into bed at 2 a.m.

  The next morning on the train up to Dublin with the band I was bleary-eyed and thickheaded. I felt like shit. Louis met us at the Westbury and asked why I looked so f**ked. I said I’d had a late night. Louis, understandably, didn’t look best pleased.

  We had never heard of Simon Cowell. He wasn’t famous in those days: he was just a record-label A & R man. But Louis told us that he had turned down the chance to sign Boyzone in their early days, and was now masterminding the career of 5ive, so we knew he was a big deal.

  Simon had hired a suite at the Westbury and we introduced ourselves as we filed in. He looked exactly like I imagined a record executive would look: immaculately turned out, very confident, super posh. (I can’t claim that I noticed at our first meeting how high he wore his trousers.)

  We sang the Backstreet Boys’ ‘Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)’ for him. The cocktails and my lack of sleep caught up with me and I struggled through the song. Simon hardly looked at me. We finished, left, and Louis stayed behind to talk to Simon.

  He reappeared a few minutes later. We hardly needed to ask what Simon had thought. Louis had a face like thunder. He stormed up to me… and slapped me in the face.

  ‘What the f**k was that, Shane?’ he yelled at me. ‘I’ll tell you what it was – it was shite! He didn’t like you!’

  I had never seen Louis like this; never seen him so furious. He was raging at me. Simon had only liked two of us: Kian and Mark. He said he didn’t think I was a star. ‘I was counting on you!’ Louis yelled. ‘You had to deliver – and you f**ked it up!’

  It was too much. I couldn’t cope with this attack. I felt like in three minutes, with one hangover, I had messed up the band; my career; my whole life. I burst into tears.

  My crying seemed to abate Louis’s anger.
It was like a storm had passed over as he looked at me and shook his head.

  ‘Don’t panic,’ he said. ‘I know what to do. Simon has said if I get rid of you and find somebody else, he will come back and see the band again in a few weeks. You can grow your hair long, dye it blond and audition great next time. He will never recognize you. Trust me!’

  As plans went, this stupid scheme sounded to me like something that Mr Bean might have dreamed up, but I nodded eagerly. I would give it a go. At least I was still in the band. I had a lifeline.

  Far from being put off by this setback, Louis was a man on a mission. He wanted to get some decent material to send to the record labels, and fixed up for us to spend a few days in London recording with a hip new songwriter and producer named Steve Mac.

  I sat next to Mark on the flight over. It was the first time either of us had been to London and we were super-excited. We flew in by night, and I remember punching Mark on the shoulder as we gawped out of the window at the metropolis: ‘Oh my God, will you look at that! Big Ben!’

  Steve Mac had worked with Damage and Boyzone and was a cool guy in a New York Yankees baseball cap who was only a few years older than us. His writing partner, Wayne Hector, was a hip Londoner with a great singing voice. They looked the business and we wanted to impress them.

  It was intimidating being in a proper professional studio that made the place in Sligo look like a broom cupboard, but we got into the session. Steve and Wayne listened to us all sing one by one, and then we recorded three songs that they had written: ‘Everybody Knows’, ‘The Good Thing’ and ‘Forever’.

  Steve was giving me at least half of the lead vocals on every song and also handed Mark a lot of leads. He seemed to like our two voices. This was a big confidence boost for me. After the Simon Cowell fiasco, I needed it.

  Louis had apparently asked Steve Mac to report back to him with his thoughts on us. I suppose it was another audition that we didn’t know about – and once again, we didn’t all pass it. When we got back to Sligo, Louis phoned Kian and said he wanted Graham out of the band.