My Side of Life/by WESTLIFE.CN

by Shane Filan

  In the early months of her pregnancy, Gillian got sick a lot. She lost weight even though she developed a chocolate craving. Those things aside, the pregnancy was largely trouble-free as we both eagerly awaited the life-changing arrival.

  Before that, there was the little matter of a Westlife tour – and it was looking extremely ominous.

  The next jaunt was to be called The Red Carpet tour and it was not selling as quickly as our previous ones. Sales weren’t terrible, but they were sluggish. It seemed that a lot of our fans assumed that they would be sitting down all night listening to Rat Pack songs, and they didn’t fancy it.

  We were starting to think that the whole Rat Pack concept had been a blunder by Cowell, and were moaning that he was getting too distracted by being a superstar in the States – because you obviously always look for a scapegoat – when our live agent, John Giddings, saved the day.

  John is a smart operator: he came down to a band meeting and simply said, ‘Look, why don’t we change the name to the Number Ones tour?’

  We did exactly that, and sales started to pick up once fans realized it wasn’t a Rat Pack-only show. It was our smallest-selling tour to date, though, and we were just doing two or three nights in arenas where we had usually done four or five. Nevertheless, the gigs still went down grand once we hit the road in spring 2005 – including the Rat Pack section.

  Even so, it wasn’t the most enjoyable tour we had been on. We knew that the album and ticket sales had been massive by most bands’ standards, but we were Westlife and we were used to everything being off the scale. We had a huge reputation as the band that always got to number one and sold out every show and we didn’t want to lose it.

  Mark, in particular, liked Westlife most when we were doing fresh, original material, and recording an album of 1950s covers was never going to please him. It was clear on the Number Ones tour that he and Kian were pretty discontented with how things were going.

  Nicky and I were the total opposite and desperate to keep things going – as ever, I was scared shitless at the thought of Westlife ending. Mark and Kian never said they wanted to quit, but on that tour a lot of our chats in dressing rooms and on tour buses found them declaring, ‘I think things are going south,’ or asking, rhetorically, ‘Is it over, lads?’

  The Rat Pack project had been fun at the start but it wasn’t fun by the end. We had spent too long pretending to be middle-aged men and at least half of the band was sick of it. We had a meeting with Louis and Mark spilled out what was on his mind.

  ‘Louis, we’re going down a slippery slope here,’ he said frankly to our manager. ‘We’re going downhill, and if we go any further we are going to be f**ked. We need a miracle.’

  Louis, of course, was ever the man with the optimism and the wisecracks. ‘We’ll find a miracle!’ he told him.

  Mark wasn’t convinced and kept trying to tell Louis how bad he felt things were. ‘We’re sick,’ he said. ‘As a band, we’re sick. It’s like we have cancer.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Louis. ‘I know a doctor!’

  ‘There is no cure for cancer,’ said Mark.

  ‘We don’t have cancer, we’re just a little bit sick!’ chirped Louis. ‘We’ll get better because I’m going to find a cure!’

  Eventually, even Mark had to laugh at Louis’s relentless, limitless positivity – but I think we all knew that our next move, and what Mr Cowell decided to do for our next trick, would be crucial.

  Simon had toyed with the idea of a second Rat Pack album, but abandoned it pretty quickly when Louis told him about the mood in the band. When we all trooped in to see him a few days later, he had a better idea: ‘Let’s go back to what we do best. Let’s go back to being Westlife.’

  It’s important to say that at this stage, Simon Cowell did not need Westlife. His astronomical fame and success in the US and around the globe was ludicrous. He was still the love-to-hate figure of American Idol, he had just launched The X Factor at home, and he was earning at least £20m per year.

  Simon could have decided we were old hat and left us in his dust – but he didn’t, because he still cared for us. He had helped to shape us from the start, and he definitely didn’t want us just to fall apart.

  So he agreed that the next album – which would be called Face to Face – would comprise textbook Westlife original ballads and pop songs, and he sent us off to our usual studio haunts in London and Stockholm to make it. For me, though, it was to prove anything but the usual recording process.

  Gillian was due to give birth in August and there was no way I was not going to be there. There was a good chance that we would still be working on the album then, so I went into the studios early to record all of my vocals on my own.

  It was like making a solo record. I would turn up, be given the songs by the producers and sing all of the vocal parts so that they could choose what to use later when the other lads had done their bits.

  I found it a weird way to work, but the album was coming together nicely – the Swedes wrote us a great song called ‘Amazing’ and we were excited to learn that we were going to do a collaboration with Diana Ross, ‘When You Tell Me That You Love Me’. But as the weeks went by, Simon was telling us that we still didn’t have the big single – and he was right.

  That was until Louis came to the rescue. Our manager had said that he would find the miracle to save the band, and he did it. He cured our sickness.

  At first, it seemed unlikely medicine. For a couple of years, Louis had been banging on about a song called ‘You Raise Me Up’, which had been a minor hit for its authors, Secret Garden. Brian Kennedy had sung it with them in Ireland and Josh Groban had recorded the track in America, but even so it was still very obscure in the UK and not many people had heard of it.

  Louis was always giving out that Westlife should do a cover of it, but we were never convinced. We thought it was a beautiful song, but it sounded kind of churchy, like it could be a hymn. We had never thought it was right for us.

  Louis started on about the song again and at first I was like, ‘Ah, not this again!’ But this time, he was really persistent. He kept phoning, asking me to give it a go, and eventually I said, ‘Oh, f**k it! What have we got to lose?’

  There was certainly a feeling at that point that Face to Face could be our last album. The Rat Pack experiment had not been a total success, and if we had followed it up with an OK, middling album with no big song in it, we might very well have called it a day. The cancer might have won.

  I went into the studio with Steve Mac to put down a guide vocal on ‘You Raise Me Up’. As I sang it, I realized for the first time just what a beautiful song it was – a f**king serious tune. The words of the chorus really hit home to me:

  You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains

  You raise me up to walk on stormy seas

  I am strong when I am on your shoulders

  You raise me up to more than I can be.

  The lyrics made me think of my parents, of how they had always supported me and been there for me, and as I sang I felt I was saluting them. It made me feel quite emotional; it was a way more powerful song than I had first thought.

  I was converted to Louis’s brainwave but I wasn’t sure how Mark would feel about doing another cover, so I phoned him. He wasn’t jumping up and down for joy but he agreed to give it a go.

  I think, like me, he knew that Westlife were nearing the last chance saloon.

  Simon and Louis both loved Mark and my vocals on the song, and they sent the whole band back into the studio to do it properly. With Steve Mac we really threw the kitchen sink at it, with strings, pipes, gospel choirs, the whole shebang.

  When Steve played it back for us at the end of the session, we all had tingles going down our spines. Hey, this one was special! The last time we had reacted this strongly to a song was for ‘Flying Without Wings’. But lightning couldn’t strike twice… could it?

  Simon had no doubts and immediately proclaimed that it would be the fir
st single from the album. We didn’t know if he was right or not – we were just glad it wasn’t us making the decision. And, Rat Pack aside, he normally got these things right.

  We were still nervous about what people might make of ‘You Raise Me Up’, but it was nice to feel that we had the big single in the bag at last. For me, I just wanted to get it sorted so that Gillian and I could focus on the main event: the baby.

  The two of us had been trotting off dutifully to all of the tests and scans but had asked not to be told what the sex was. I thought it would be a boy; Gillian was sure it was a girl. We were at a scan at Sligo Hospital more than three weeks before the due date when the doctor dropped a bombshell.

  ‘There is no amniotic fluid around the baby,’ he said, peering at the fuzzy shape on the screen.

  My heart missed a beat. What?

  ‘What does that mean?’ we asked him, worried.

  ‘It means you’re going to have a baby tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I strongly recommend a planned Caesarean in the morning.’

  Over the next couple of hours we had a few more detailed scans that confirmed the original diagnosis. There was no real decision to make. Gillian was tearful because she had wanted to give birth naturally, but obviously we were going to do what was best for the baby.

  The doc booked us in for eight the next morning, and then we headed off in a daze. We stopped off for a pub meal at a local pub we liked, the Fiddler’s Creek, then told our parents the news that had still not sunk in for us.

  When we got back to Castledale, Gillian went to bed early for the dawn start the next morning, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while. I went outside and walked around the drive and garden, trying to grasp it. My life is going to change tomorrow. I’m going to be a dad! The alarm went off at 6 a.m. and I leapt out of bed like the Duracell bunny, feeling like a kid at Christmas. I think that I might even have said, ‘Woo hoo! Today’s the day!’ Gillian was more level-headed and apprehensive – understandably, as she was the one being cut open.

  The medics and midwives wouldn’t let me into the theatre while they made the cut – husbands can find it upsetting, and I’m sure I would have. When I went in, looking an eejit in a surgical gown, all that I could do was stare at Gillian. She didn’t seem in pain at all; she couldn’t feel a thing.

  Inside ten minutes, the doctor said, ‘I can see the head,’ and then as I heard the baby cry and the doc pronounce ‘It’s a beautiful girl!’ my legs went to jelly. It was a wonder that I didn’t pass out.

  The midwife wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to me. I looked into her big blue eyes and gave her a kiss before holding her by Gillian so she could kiss her. I had never known that life could be so magical.

  Here was our child. Our daughter.

  We had chosen the name Nicole Rose the night before. We loved Nicole Kidman’s name and thought Nicole sounded cool and had a lovely ring to it, and Rose was a big name in Gillian’s family, including her mum and grandmother.

  Nicole was a little jaundiced and needed to recuperate, and as I wheeled our new little girl down a corridor in an incubator, I was bawling my head off with happiness. What a wonderful, amazing moment.

  Becoming a dad was such an adventure. Like every new, young father, I was full of joy and terror. Nicole would sleep in a Moses basket on Gillian’s side of the bed and I used to wake up in the night, go around and put my finger by her mouth, to check she was breathing.

  Nobody can know what the sleep deprivation bit of having a baby is like until you go through it. Nicole would wake up at 3 a.m. most nights and I’d be changing her nappy or feeding her like a zombie.

  You worry more about kids than about anything else in your life, but you also love them more, with a deep, profound love. Nothing compares to parenthood – and Gillian was a natural, just a brilliant mother from the start.

  Interestingly, just after Nicole was born, I sold my share in the helicopter. I had been fine choppering back and forth, but I didn’t like the idea of my little baby going in such a precarious form of transport.

  We spent all the family time we could in Castledale, but Gillian and I had also bought an apartment on the Fulham Road in London for when I had to be in the capital for any length of time.

  Nicky and I were staying there the night that Mark told us he was gay.

  It wasn’t a huge surprise, to be honest. Kian, Nicky and I had speculated about it, simply because Mark was hardly ever with girls and never had serious relationships. We knew he was a shy person, but we were 90 per cent sure he was gay.

  We were in London for a photo shoot, and at the end of it Mark asked, ‘Lads, do you want to go for a drink tonight?’ Kian was busy (plus Mark had told him already) but Nicky, Mark and I headed off to a bar.

  We chatted away and Nicky and I sank a few beers, but Mark was throwing down vodka and Cokes; looking back, I guess he was probably nervous. After a couple of hours, we decided to go back to my flat and watch some TV or a DVD.

  We got in, sat down, and Mark told us, ‘I’ve got something to tell you – although you probably know already.’

  ‘What?’ we asked him.

  ‘I’m gay.’

  We jumped on Mark and hugged him. We could see the relief in his face from finally unburdening his secret. ‘Yes!’ we laughed. ‘That’s amazing – we’re so f**king happy for you!’

  ‘Did you know already?’ he asked us.

  ‘Of course we knew – but we didn’t know until you told us,’ I said. It was a strange statement that made absolute sense.

  It was a lovely moment. I had always been close to Mark, but I guess there was always a sense that there was something he just wouldn’t talk about. Now he was out, and I was a dad, it felt like we were growing more mature – and it helped our friendship become even closer.

  In that autumn of 2005, Finbarr and I got more heavily into Shafin Developments. We received the planning permission on the expanded plan for the estate at Dromahair and spent time with the architect and McInerney’s to ensure that the building could start early the next year.

  Things were also looking up for Westlife – because it was rapidly becoming clear that ‘You Raise Me Up’ was going to be a phenomenally huge song.

  It was a dream to sing. I sang the first verse and chorus on my own, and I loved how the song started so low and built up through my part and an instrumental section to where Mark came bursting in with his amazing, enormous voice.

  It was just so powerful – it affected us every time, never mind the listeners.

  Simon had had the idea that we should all sit on our stools to sing the start of the tune and then stand up when we came to that huge, swelling chorus. It could easily have looked corny as hell, but somehow when we rehearsed it with Priscilla, it didn’t seem that way. It seemed rich with emotion.

  We first realized how big ‘You Raise Me Up’ could be when we previewed it at the Tickled Pink gala at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a big charity show to raise money to fight breast cancer, and we were headlining it over Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Sugababes and Simon’s latest project, Il Divo.

  We totally nailed the song from the first note that night. You could have heard a pin drop during the quiet, poetic opening verses. We had a full gospel choir with us, and as they came in for the dramatic, towering chorus, and we got up off our stools as one on the big key change, the Albert Hall erupted. Jesus. We had goose bumps on goose bumps!

  We hadn’t felt as charged and powerful as a band for a long time. We knew we had the crowd in the palms of our hands, and the applause as they gave us a standing ovation at the end was deafening.

  Backstage after the show, we all knew that something spectacular had just happened. Sonny from Simon’s office came running in. His eyes were wide. ‘Wow, what was that? It was like the crowd was under a spell!’ He was right.

  ‘You Raise Me Up’ was such a powerhouse and it was about to give Westlife the new lease of life that we so desperately needed. It was like ‘Flying
Without Wings’ all over again. It was such a massive song – when it was released as a single a few weeks later, it simply obliterated the opposition.

  It was the best cover version we ever did, and to this day ‘You Raise Me Up’ is my favourite Westlife song, even over ‘Flying Without Wings’. The day Louis persuaded us to sing it was the day he saved the band.

  Our manager had done what he’d promised. He had found our miracle cure.

  We even broke Australia purely off the back of that song. It totally rebooted the band. Occasionally Simon will claim it was his idea to cover it. It’s typical Simon, and Louis and the lads just laugh because we know exactly where the credit lies.

  One great thing about the success of ‘You Raise Me Up’ was that it pulled the Face to Face album along in its wake. Our LP leapt into the chart at number one on its release in October 2005, selling more than twice what the Rat Pack album had in the process, and quickly became our biggest record since Coast to Coast.

  It was an amazing turnaround. Suddenly we were as big as we had been five years ago and Sony BMG wanted to hang on to us and keep us happy. They extended our contract by two years, on improved terms. Everything in the garden was rosy.

  We hadn’t met Diana Ross when we did ‘When You Tell Me That You Love Me’ with her for the album. We had recorded our vocals separately. But we did meet up when the label decided to shoot a video and put the song out as a Christmas single.

  Before the shoot, one of her many people came in and told us we had to address her as Miss Ross. I thought it was daft. I mean, f**k that shite! When she appeared, though, she was pleasant, professional and not at all diva-like, which was a good thing as the video shoot took fourteen hours. She didn’t even seem to mind at all when I called her Diana.

  The single did great and even seemed to have a chance of being the Christmas 2005 number one – but we lost out to our boss. Simon had turned The X Factor into a monster by then and we finished up being number two, behind that series’ winner, Shayne Ward.