My Side of Life/by WESTLIFE.CN

by Shane Filan

  By the end we were shouting and Nicky and I had a stand-up row that ended with him storming out of the diner. ‘If you’ve got a problem, talk to Louis about it!’ I yelled after him. The lads got on the phone and did exactly that.

  In the context of our trip, it was an even more ridiculous thing to be arguing about – because Westlife’s second American ‘invasion’ was the same story as our first. We went to loads of local record-company launch parties and tried to charm the arse off the media, but our timing was shite.

  Boy bands were dead in America. ’N Sync and the Backstreet Boys had split up and we had missed the boat: radio stations weren’t playing anything like us. Well, once bitten, twice shy, and Simon and Louis had to accept that we would never happen in America.

  It disappointed us, but we weren’t gutted. We had so much going on in Europe, Asia and everywhere else that it was hard to be too downcast: it just wasn’t meant to be. We figured that at least we could always go on holiday to America, chill out and be anonymous.

  We certainly couldn’t do that in Indonesia or the Philippines!

  When we got back to Ireland from the States, Louis phoned me up and told me some unexpected, and seriously major, news – I had been offered a solo record deal.

  The offer had come from Universal Records, whom we had turned down to sign with Simon, but who had signed Boyzone. They had seen Ronan launch a solo career outside of Boyzone, and were wondering if I wanted to do the same.

  It was a good offer, about two or three million quid, but I wasn’t tempted in the slightest. It wasn’t about the money. I had loads of money in Westlife. I loved being in the band and I didn’t want to leave it for the world. Plus, if I am honest, the very idea of going solo terrified me.

  So my decision was easy: thanks, but no thanks. Louis was relieved that I felt that way: he didn’t want me pissing off the others and maybe breaking up the band. In fact, he saw that this news was the perfect way to reunite us.

  Louis called a band meeting and the other lads started giving out again about me being in the middle of the photos. I was fed up of this by now and let loose with another of my ‘Get over it!’ rants. Louis heard us out, picked his moment, and then dropped his bombshell.

  ‘Listen, lads. Shane has been offered a solo contract!’

  The room went silent. I could see one thought on four faces: This is it. F**k. He’s leaving the band.

  ‘But he’s said, “No”,’ Louis continued.

  Everyone looked relieved and started throwing questions at me at the same time: ‘Really?’ ‘What’s the story?’ ‘Are you sure you’re staying?’

  ‘Yes,’ I explained. ‘I don’t want to go solo. I want to be in Westlife. So stop worrying about f**king photos!’

  It was another management masterclass from Louis, and a brilliant way to kill that particular issue stone dead. Having said that, we did try to mix up our photo-compositions a bit more after that.

  We also cleared the air about a few other niggles we had in the band. Some of us were a bit pissed off as we felt that Brian’s partying meant he wasn’t always on top form, and Mark had kept us waiting a few too many times.

  Louis patiently explained to us the common sense that we had all got too pig-headed to see. We were one of the biggest bands in the world, none of us was perfect, and we were going to fall out sometimes. The key was being big enough to talk the problems through.

  As usual, we quickly had something else to think about. The time arrives in every band’s life when they have to think about Greatest Hits albums, and ours had come very quickly. We had put out three albums in three years, and Sony BMG were keen to strike while the iron was hot and put out a singles compilation.

  We were excited about this but also a bit worried. We talked it over: would a Greatest Hits send out a signal that it was all over for the band? Would it be hard to follow up?

  Were we nearing the end of the shelf life for a boy band?

  We went back and forth, but in the end we just figured: shit, Simon and Louis know what they are doing here. Everything they have touched has turned to gold so far. So, as usual, we fell into line and agreed to record a few new songs for the album, then do a big Greatest Hits tour the following year.

  We recorded a new single called ‘Unbreakable’ and gave the Greatest Hits album the same title. They both went straight to number one in November 2002, and the album stayed on the chart for more than a year.

  Yes, maybe the record label did know what they were doing.

  Somehow word had got out about my offer to go solo – but not that I had turned it down – so in all the interviews at the time of Unbreakable we were being asked if Westlife were splitting up. At least we could honestly say no.

  By now, we had done so many interviews since we started that they could be a real slog. Journalists all tend to ask the same questions as though they are the first person to think of them. It all gets a bit Groundhog Day.

  The European and Asian promo trips were the hardest. The local record companies would squeeze in radio slots, TV shows and interviews from eight in the morning to eight at night. In truth, the novelty of jetting around the world to talk to people about the band had now definitely worn off.

  We started asking the local PRs to cut a few things out of our schedules. We didn’t want to be difficult or diva-ish but at the same time we knew if we slaved away 24/7, it would kill the band – or we would kill each other.

  Far more enjoyable was a holiday to Dubai that Gillian and I had just before Christmas 2002 – when I asked her to marry me.

  I had not actually planned to propose on that trip – in fact, I bought the engagement ring at a jewellers in the hotel – but I had never felt more certain about anything in my life. After a candlelit dinner, Gillian and I went for a night-time walk along the beach next to the warm Gulf waters. We lay side-by-side on recliners then I got up, fetched the ring from my pocket and held it over her head. As she gasped, I got down on one knee. ‘Will you marry me?’

  When she accepted, I was the happiest man in the world.

  Our families were delighted when we told them the news and we had a very happy Christmas in Sligo. We decided to keep the Christmas theme going and get married right at the end of the following year.

  Westlife might have been having a few ups and downs, but the Unbreakable tour through Europe and Britain in the spring and summer of 2003 was fantastic. We had a brilliant stage set, with weird sci-fi and Las Vegas-style neon lights, and played a few stadiums as well as our usual arenas.

  It seemed like we had finally graduated out of the Point and we did two gigs at the Lansdowne Road rugby ground in Dublin, which was pretty amazing. I was even more proud of being hometown heroes when we played at Markievicz Park in Sligo.

  Yet we felt as if Westlife were at a crossroads. The Greatest Hits album represented a full stop to the first, hugely successful part of our career. We had already been around for far longer than most boy bands managed. For the first time, we felt as if we didn’t know what was coming next.

  It was a weird, uncertain time, and looking back, we started making some bad decisions. Maybe we had an identity crisis. Maybe we were tired of getting criticized for only ever singing ballads, because we started thinking about maybe reinventing Westlife and doing rockier numbers.

  Kian was a bit of a mover for this. He was really getting into the business side of the band and liaising between us, Simon, Louis and Sonny. He enjoyed that organizing part of the job, and was almost becoming Louis’s assistant manager. It was fine by me: I could never be arsed to do stuff like that.

  Kian came into Steve Mac’s studio raving about a song called ‘Rainbow Zephyr’ by a rock band from Northern Ireland called Relish. It had been a hit in Ireland and he wondered if we could rework it. Well, why not? We rejigged it into a soulful, up-tempo number that we renamed ‘Hey Whatever’.

  We were all dead pleased and thought it could be the start of something new for Westlife, and Kian went and push
ed for it to be released as a single in September 2003. Simon thought it was OK, no more than that, but we had nothing better, so he agreed.

  We might have liked our new direction – but that didn’t guarantee that our fans would. The first single from a new Westlife album had always, always gone straight in at number one.

  Not this time. When Louis phoned Kian, the news was not good. Kian was pretty down when he called me. ‘“Hey Whatever” is only number four,’ he said. ‘And Simon has called us in for a meeting in his office tomorrow morning at eleven.’

  This was a meeting at which Mr Cowell did not mince his words.

  ‘Sit down, kiddos,’ he told us, as we all filed into an executive office the size of a football field. ‘We need to have a talk.’

  ‘I think you’re losing your way. You’re falling into a trap and you’re losing sight of what you are. And quite frankly, if you carry on the way you are…

  ‘This band is over.’

  8

  THE STRIFE OF BRIAN

  There is one thing I should say here. The Simon Cowell who had just said those fearful words to us, from the other side of his enormous desk, was not the same Simon Cowell who had signed us.

  Actually, that’s not true. Simon hadn’t really altered – he was still the same person; he still thought he knew everything; he still called everybody ‘kiddo’. But his circumstances had changed dramatically.

  When Simon had signed us five years earlier, he had been a big player in the music industry, sure, but effectively he was just another record-business executive. Then, in 2001, he had become a judge on ITV’s Pop Idol on Saturday nights. The following year, he did the same in the States on American Idol.

  His fame had rocketed. Simon was the same on those shows as he was in meetings with us, very opinionated and telling it straight the way he saw it, but the media and the public had really latched onto him. The A & R man working behind the scenes to make stars had become a star himself.

  He had taken to it like a duck to water. Seriously, if Simon had walked down the street with one of Westlife now, it would have been hard to say who would be recognized more. He had become a proper celebrity, all over TV, magazine front covers and gossip columns – and he loved it.

  We had found it hilarious watching Simon become a bona fide superstar, especially as he’d essentially done it just by being himself. Sitting in our crisis meeting now, the music mogul, with his immaculate shiny hair, glowing tan and perfect white teeth, looked like he was turning into Tom Cruise. Every inch of him looked famous.

  Yes, we loved what Simon had become – but we didn’t love what he was telling us.

  ‘I think you’re losing the plot,’ he repeated. ‘You’re forgetting what you are and you could be finished very, very soon.’

  Shit. His words hit me like a punch in the face. I felt sick to my stomach. Here was the man who had signed us, named us and made us, telling us that we were as good as over. Had it come to this?

  I snuck a glance around the table: at Louis, at Kian, at Mark, at Nicky, at Brian. They all looked like they were at a funeral. Was that what this meeting was?

  Simon let his words resonate, as he wanted them to, took in our reactions – and then produced his miracle cure.

  ‘But I’m not going to let that happen, kiddos,’ he grinned. ‘I am going to save you from ruining your careers. Your fans love you singing love songs, and this should be your next single.’

  Without even looking behind him, Simon leaned back in his big black leather executive chair and pushed a button on his gleaming sound system. Some gentle piano chords filled the air, and then a soft, yearning vocal. ‘I remember all my life, raining down as cold as ice…’

  Hang on. I knew this. We all did. This was… ‘Mandy’ by Barry Manilow? Everybody looked aghast. Everybody except Simon, who sat back smiling, smoking and nodding along as the song built to its big, schmaltzy chorus. ‘Oh Mandy! Well you came and you gave without taking, but I sent you away…’

  All the time the song was going on, Simon was working his meeting magic. Simon was amazing in meetings. He just had the knack of always getting exactly what he wanted from people. I always said he should have been Prime Minister.

  What Simon would do was scan the room for the people who seemed most opposed to what he was suggesting. Right now, that was everybody, although Mark and Brian were the two who tended to least like Westlife doing cover versions. Simon would catch that person’s eye… and give them a sly wink.

  It was incredibly powerful. It was like Simon was sharing a secret, drawing you into his confidence: ‘It’s you and me, kiddo.’ You always found yourself smiling back, wanting to agree, seduced by his charm and charisma. ‘Well,’ you’d think, ‘maybe he has got a point…’

  That trick had worked well when he was just Simon our A & R man, and it was irresistible now that he was one of the biggest TV personalities in the country. Right now, in this meeting, Simon was doing a lot of surreptitious winking.

  Barry Manilow’s power ballad wafted to its epic close. There was an uneasy silence. I think most of us were still thinking, Are you taking the piss? But nobody said anything. Who would break the silence?

  It was Nicky: ‘Ah, that’s me mam’s favourite song!’

  Simon gave Nicky a particularly big wink for that one, and then he gave it to us straight.

  We had to think of what our fans wanted. We might want to be cool, and edgy, and mix things up a bit, but they didn’t need that from us. Our millions of fans had no desire for us to try to be hip, or to change.

  They just loved us singing love songs and ballads, Simon concluded – and they didn’t care if they were covers or not.

  It was a powerful argument from a master politician and it was hard to argue with. Mark and Brian raised some token objections in the meeting, but the problem was… we knew that he was right.

  In a way, though it was a hard thing to take, that was a massive landmark meeting for Westlife. Kian had pushed for ‘Hey Whatever’, and got some of the blame when it didn’t work; he could have felt crushed, but afterwards he summarized things brilliantly.

  ‘OK, so we may not always like doing covers, but what is cool, exactly?’ he asked. ‘Is it cool to change and to be getting to number five or number twenty in the charts? Or is it cool to go on for ten years yet and still be having number ones? Simon’s right!’

  When we went back into the studio to finish off our fourth album, to be called Turnaround, there was no more talk of us writing songs or covering indie tunes. Instead, it was a record of smart, slick ballads and pop songs, the majority of them by Steve Mac and Wayne Hector. Classic Westlife.

  And, what do you know? As we were doing our usual non-stop round of media interviews, ‘Mandy’ went straight in at number one in November 2003. Turnaround did exactly the same a week or two later. It was almost like that cocky Mr Cowell knew what he was doing.

  It was such a relief. Up until our Greatest Hits, Westlife had had a perfect, faultless career (apart from the upset caused by that little bastard Bob the Builder). We had certainly had a blip this year, our worst to date, but now we all felt back on course and on top of the world again.

  Right at that point, it felt like… could things get any better? And for me the answer was yes, a thousand times better, because I was about to marry Gillian.

  It was a Christmas wedding. We both loved Christmas so it seemed the natural choice to get married then. We settled on 28 December, in that lull that always happens before the New Year celebrations kick in.

  People always say that a wedding is the bride’s big day and the groom just shows up, but in our case we were both keen to make the day unforgettable. We had always dreamed of getting married in a castle, so we chose Ballintubber Abbey for the service, in Mayo, with a reception at nearby Ashford Castle.

  Joanne Byrne of Presence PR, who had been Westlife’s PR in Ireland from the very start, volunteered to organize the wedding. She had her work cut out. The media were des
perate to gain access, and she had celebrity magazines like Hello! and OK! in her ear trying to weasel their way in.

  Gillian and I had never shown the slightest interest in selling our big day to a magazine but a bidding war somehow broke out regardless. The day before the wedding, Joanne called me to say that a celebrity magazine had offered us €1m for exclusive coverage.

  Even then we said no. I felt like the day should be private and not for sale and the thought of the world gawping at our wedding photos seemed weird. Over the years, all the other Westlife lads have sold their wedding days, and good luck to them; it’s entirely their business. But it wasn’t for us.

  Before the wedding, I was dead nervous. This was a different kind of nerves to before a Westlife show, when it was all about anxiety and adrenaline and hoping that nothing would go wrong. This was a nervous elation. As I stood at the top of the aisle, a single, simple thought echoed around my head, I’m getting married! I’m getting married! There were a couple of thousand fans alongside paparazzi behind the security barriers outside the abbey. Gillian was arriving in a traditional horse-drawn carriage, and I knew she must have got there when screaming broke out. When she appeared at the top of the aisle, she looked perfect.

  Father Gilhooley, whom I had listened to at Mass every Sunday as a kid, took the service. It was beautiful. Afterwards Gillian and I went out for a few minutes to wave at fans and let the press get some shots. It kept them happy, and it meant that they left us in peace when we went off to enjoy the party.

  Louis had loaned Gillian and me his black Bentley to use as our wedding car and we were driven in it to the castle for the reception. At the castle gates, we switched into the horse-drawn carriage for our big entrance.

  Every groom worries about his reception speech. I was no exception. I knew what I wanted to say – that I loved Gillian, and I always had – but I didn’t want to sound cheesy. I hit on an audacious plan: I would sing to her.

  I wasn’t totally sure about doing it – was it even more corny? – but my groomsmen, my old school friends Keith and Brig, had urged me on and said I had to do it. Even so, all through my speech, I was wondering: Is this stupid? Is it going to fall on its arse?