It's Westlife's Tot Of The Pops Album
CHART-TOPPING boy band Westlife are heading
for the record books with the release of their new single Fool Again a week today.
The Irish five-piece have already scored four No1 singles in a row.
And if Fool Again follows suit, the lads will earn themselves a place in pop history.
No other band has ever scored five straight No1s - not even The Beatles, The Rolling
Stones or the Spice Girls.
Today The Sun begins an explosive series revealing the secrets behind the band -
managed by Boyzone's pop svengali Louis
Walsh and Boyzone's frontman Ronan Keating.
We kick off with their memories of schooldays and early teens when the lads came together
to become Westlife.
Our picture above shows the lads - Shane Filan, Mark Feehily, Bryan McFadden, Kian
Egan, and Nicky Byrne - in the same order as they appear as children below.
A new book, Westlife In Our Words (Mainstream, £9.99), by Eugene Masterson,
hits high street shops next week.
Shane Filan
SHANE, 20, confesses he preferred a series of flings to a relationship as a teenager.
The heart-throb says: "When I was about 15 or 16 I was in a serious relationship for about a
year and a half. But I always wanted to be free and to have more than one fling. I was
shifting from one girl and moving to another.
"I wasn't the babe puller in the town or anything like that. I once went out with one
girl because I fancied her best mate."
But Shane doesn't have fond memories of his early school years.
He says: "Th e first school I went to was Scoil Fatima in Sligo. I remember my first day - my
mother leaving me there and me bawling my eyes out. I will never forget it, it was a horrible
day.
"Then I went to secondary school where the teachers and the headmaster, who was a
priest, helped me to where I am today.
"On my first day there I remember taking a huge bag of 15 books. It was almost bigger
than I was and everyone was laughing at me.
"I was tiny when I was 12. I didn't really get bullied but I got teased for singing."
Shane's big break started with the band IOU, which included Mark and Kian and three others
- Michael Garret, Derek Lacey and Graham Keighron
Shane recalls: "I remember mum telling me that she had spoken to Louis Walsh, Boyzone's
manager. He had already seen us in IOU and said he would put us on with Boyzone. I just
couldn't believe it.
"Louis told us we had to give up the other three in IOU and go for it with him as manager.
It was unfortunate because one of them, Derek, was my friend.
"If I see them we'll say hello and talk but otherwise they don't call us and I can hardly
blame them.
"Nicky and Bryan came through the auditions after that. We then had eight record
companies offering us deals. The RCA/BMG
offer was definitely the best.
"At that stage Five were really big and we were really small."
Mark Feehily
MARK, 19, remembers the day he had his first romantic kiss. He says: "It was on holiday. I
was no more than 11 or 12 on a French exchange trip.
"She was Irish too. It was really weird, not what I expected at all. It was disgusting for
about two seconds, then I went, 'Wait a
minute, this is lovely,' and kept on doing it. I can't remember her name."
Mark got a taste for snogging after he went to secondary school which Kian and Shane also
attended.
"When I got to know all the other lads, I'd hear about discos that would be on at the
weekend," he says. "I started getting into
going to the discos and meeting girls, hanging about and having a laugh.
"One Hallowe'en night, my mates and I got talking to this group of girls and we all snogged
one of them. Then we went off and we
bumped into another group of girls and I snogged this girl who I later found out was the
first girl's cousin. Then I went on to a
nightclub and I snogged another girl - she wasn't connected, thank goodness!"
Mark adds: "I'm afraid I broke my confirmation pledge, which meant I took a drink before I
was 18. I obviously knew right from wrong and I'm not the type of person who would jump
into a fire if everyone else did.
"I'd make my own decisions. Now at this point in my life I wouldn't make a pledge to God if I
wasn't going to keep it."
Mark says his interest in music was sparked at primary school by his headmaster Padraig
Foran. He says: "He used to lead the choir at the parish church where I sang."
Bryan McFadden
BRYAN, 19, is set to stun fans after admitting he actually DATED one of them in the early
days.
He reveals: "When the band started out I actually went out with a fan. It went on for a
while but it's too personal to reveal why we
split up. It was a mutual decision.
"I definitely want to settle down and have kids.
"When I hit 17, I got taller and leaner and found it easier to chat up girls."
But Bryan is coy about his first kiss, saying: "I can't tell you who she was, nor can I tell you
who my first girlfriend was. I like to remain a bit secretive.
"When we started out in the band me and Kian would go to the nightclubs and chat up the
girls.
"Now it's me and Mark going for good-looking girls, not to settle down but to look for
friendship and maybe a kiss or two.
"I sometimes prefer chatting up English girls than Irish girls, because if you chat Irish girls
up they always know somebody who knows somebody else.
"But I do love Irish girls, they're so friendly. You could meet a complete stranger and soon
be lifelong friends. Irish people are like that.
"The first thing I look at in a woman is her eyes.
"Piercing eyes amaze me. I like women like Jennifer Lopez and an ideal situation would be
to get married to her."
Bryan, 19, says he will never forget his first day at school . . . because he was chucked
out.
He says: "I got thrown out of my class for throwing an elastic band at the teacher.
"When I was growing up I got a lot of hassle because I was overweight. The abuse I got for
being fat was unbelievable. That's why I was always cheeky as a kid, giving smart answers
back.
"After being put down time and time again and being called Fatso, I gradually got more
confident.
"I think young people in school who are getting the same type of abuse at school should take
no notice of it. Look at how I've turned out."
Kian Egan
THE 19-year-old singer says he started his
first day of school with a punch up!
He recalls: "I started off in a primary school called Scoil Ursula in Sligo.
"I remember my first day. I had two best friends and I wanted one of them to sit on my
left and the other on the right. But my cousin wanted to sit where I was and I remember
fighting him.
"When I was in fifth or sixth class the teacher, Mr Mulhern, introduced me to Gaelic football
and I played a lot of that.
"He also knew I liked acting as I was going to drama lessons. We used to do plays every year
and I got the lead part in my first play, which immediately gave me confidence.
"I was never a studier. I did my leaving certificate (A Levels) but I wasn't a study
freak.
"In secondary school I set up a band called Scrod. I played guitar and sang. The school
put on a rock concert that year and we were actually good enough to play.
"We used to sing Wild Thing but changed the lyrics to 'You make my balls swing.'
"I was a big fan of Bon Jovi and Guns n' Roses. I wasn't into the heavy, heavy stuff but I liked
rock music.
"Originally there were six of us in the band which led to Westlife, and we called it IOU.
Mark and Shane were in it too."
Despite all the energy he put into his music, Kian still had time for girls. He says: "My first
kiss happened when I was nine at the back of the Mervin community centre in Sligo. When I
was 15 I had my first long-term relationship, with a girl called Sonia.
"As far as I am concerned I was in love with her. She broke up with me when I was 16 and
it broke my heart. She felt we were too young to be going out with each other."
Nicky Byrne
NICKY missed the first three days of his school life after being knocked down by a bicycle
outside his house the day before.
He soon recovered from his cuts and bruises but he still remembers the trauma of turning up
days late.
Nicky, 21, says: "When I did go I remember crying and I didn't want me mam to leave me."
But he was a quick developer and Nicky remembers his first kiss - when he was NINE
years old. He says: "It was with my mam's
friend's daughter.
"I had about three or four steady girlfriends when I was very young - each for a month or
so, nothing serious.
"I also remember a night in The Furnace disco in Dublin when I was about 15. It was one of
those nights when everybody goes mad.
"I must have snogged about 11 girls - I don't think it was any more than that!"
Nicky excelled at sport and music. He says: "In my secondary school in north Dublin - I used
to be in the school choir but I was also a goalie and played for the Dublin side Home
Farm and Ireland."
He soon attracted the attention of several Premiership teams, and, after a successful trial
at Leeds United, he left school at 16 to live in Yorkshire.
He says: "My first job was as a professional footballer and I spent two years doing it."
Nicky's break in music came when he came back from Leeds and heard an advert on the
radio asking for singers to send in audition tapes.
"I sent my tape off and they called me in, Louis Walsh called over and introduced himself
- I couldn't believe it.
"Bryan and I both went to the second audition and they couldn't choose between us. We
weren't the best of friends but I did know him fairly well.
"They couldn't choose so we went down to live in Sligo for two or three weeks with the other
guys."
The rest is history.