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Issue # 3, 1st - 7th November 1999
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-The Boys' Own Stories- |
| Pop sensation Westlife will today storm straight
to No.1 with their new single Flying Without Wings, but they'd still be
in the wilderness if it wasn't for band member Shane Filan's tough-talking
mum.
Mae Filan knew that her son and his pals needed the best boy-band manager in the business. He was Louis Walsh, the man behind Boyzone's phenomenal success - but he was impossible to get hold of. Then suddenly Mae knew she had an edge. "My family used to live in the same road as Louis and his family and I remember him as a little boy running round the house", she said last night. "So I picked up the phone...and hoped." WL's three No.1s from their first three singles is a record unequalled by any other boy band. Not even BZ managed it - and their star Ronan Keating is now WL's co-manager. Writer Rob McGibbon has chronicled their rise to fame in the lads' official biography, 'Westlife, our story'. And with his help, over four fact-filled pages we reveal the astonishing truth - including the day Leeds United's manager kicked one band member off his team and another cried himself to sleep for six months after a lover broke his heart. KIAN Kian is clearly the most experienced ladies' man in the band. He first got 'married' when he was seven! "The 'wedding' was at the back of an old house in the street where I lived," he smiled. "All us boys used to do it as a way of getting to kiss a girl. My first 'wife' dressed up in a white communion dress and I put on my bow tie. It was a serious thing for us in the street - I even had a best man." Kian has a habbit of doing things early. He first performed in public at the age of four. "I went in for a talent competition", he explained. "I recited a poem called Whispers at a hotel in Sligo. I won and I still have the trophy. From then on I wanted to be on stage the rest of my life." "I started doing musicals at school and eventually did shows like The Pajama Game, West Side Story, Annie Get your Gun and Oliver. The big turning point came for me when I saw what Take That were doing. I loved songs like Everything Changes and Pray. I thought, 'A boy band? Yeah that's for me.' " So what about true romance? "I fell seriously in love when I was 15 and met a girl called Sonya," he sighed. "I went out with her for a year and a half and we spent pretty much every day together. After about four months I told her I loved her. Then one day, she asked me to come around to her house and said, 'I want to break up with you'. She broke my heart to pieces. I cried in bed every night for six months." "I saw her on a disco in Sligo a while back and I told her I still loved her. She said, 'Shut up Kian, you're drunk.' She was right." MARK Mark shudders with dread each time he hears the BZ hit Words - because it reminds him of mopping out toilets! "I worked in a restaurant where they always played that song", he said. It always brings back memories of cleaning the loos. Mind you I've also worked in Burger King which was my worst job. It was a new place and it took us ages to learn how to clean everything at the end of each day, so we were kept working until 5am on a Saturday morning. I couldn't cope with the lack of sleep so I chucked that job in." Mark's mum Marie is a civil servant and works in Ireland's department of agriculture. His dad Oliver was brought up on a farm just outside Sligo. "That's where I still live", Mark continued - though he might have become a tennis hero rather than a pop star. "I was dead serious about my tennis and would play every single day and enter competitions", he explained. "For a while I wanted to be a professional player, but we don't have that coaching in my area to take you to a higher level." "Besides, for as long as I can remember I loved singing, I used to jump up and down pretending it was a microphone and singing Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. Every Sunday evening all my family would go to my grandparents' house and everyone would do a party piece. That's when I realised I liked performing." "I feel really comfortable when I'm on stage. I'm not the same person as I am off stage. A lot of my inhibitions go." BRYAN Bryan might be coining it now he's struck stardom - but first royalty was paid in chocolate. The eight-year-old budding star was at Billie Barry stage school in Ireland along with an array of future Irish stars when his big day arrived. "That's when we started doing the shows and really getting involved in the dancing," recalls Bryan. "The first thing I won at Bille Barry's was a singing competition - the prize was a Cadbury's Easter egg." And competition for the eggs was certainly hot in those days, with the cream of Irish talent pouring into the school. "Sinead from B*Witched was also in that show," said Bryan. "And that's where Shane and Mikey from BZ went but they were four years ahead of me." Stardom was always in young Bryan's destiny chart. "When I was a kid I used to sing in the shower or pose in font of the mirror pretending I was Michael Jackson or Jason Donovan," he added. The whole family is no stranger to success, either. Sister Susan was a household name in Ireland from an early age. "She was probably counted as one of the biggest child stars in Ireland a few years ago and was the lead in shows like Annie and Beauty And The Beast with Lionel Blair", smiled Bryan. "People would say to me in the street: 'Are you Susan McFadden's brother?' It was cool." Now the tables are turned and Susan is the one who gets asked if she's Bryan's sister. But the modest star insists his sibling would be a worthy record rival. "Susan's a really good singer-better than me - I'm sure she'll have a good career as a singer if she wants it." NICKY The night Nicky played at Wembly with Westlife all his dreams came true - for he grew up hoping to play there as goalie with Leeds United. "When I was 15 I went for trials at Derby, Everton and Leeds", he said. "I chose Leeds. I was very excited - and very homesick. The first time I rang my mum I cried." "Then at the start of my first season I was selected for the first team squad because of injuries to other players. I was only 16 and I was on the bench for the third Premiereship game of the season, against Southampton. I didn't get to play but I thought it was the start of big things..." "But near the end of my contract the new manager George Graham told me they weren't keeping me on because I was only 5ft 10in. He only wanted big keeoers. I was devastated and went home to Ireland." As many fans know the great love of Nicky's life is Georgina, daughter of Irish premier Bertie Aherne. "I met her at school and we've been together five years," said Nicky. "I'd do laps of the school corridors between classes so I could pass her again. I came home that day and said to my mum, 'I've found the girl for me'. Georgina stuck by me through all my problems at Leeds and I owe her a lot." "I still have a very strong faith and pray every night for God to look after my family and everyone I care about. My Nana is also very holy and she gave a special prayer a while ago. I know it off by heart and say it every night before I go to sleep." SHANE As if it was yesterday, Shane remembers the moment his world changed: "I was nine," he said, "and Michael Jackson brought out his Bad album." "He took over my life," Shane smiled. "I'd push back chairs in the room and learn his moves - I even had the gloves and hat. "The first time I was in a proper stage show was in Grease at the Hawkswell Theatre in Sligo when I was 12. There wasn't really a role for someone as young as me, but the producer created a special part for me and a girl called Olwyn Morgan to sing a duet called We Go Together. I couldn't believe the reaction we got. For a few seconds I thought I was Jacko." "When I was 14 I went to an all-boys school. We sometimes did musicals. I was in Annie Get Your Gun, but had to play a girl. I was dressed up in a skirt and bonnet, but there were other lads dressed as girls, so we could see the funny side." Horses were also a major part of Shane's childhood. "I start riding properly when I was nine and every weekend the whole family would go to shows all over Ireland and sometimes to England. It was a massive day out." "The only other sport I'm passionate about is rugby. I played at fly half and when I was 18 I had trials for the Irish team, during trials, me and the guys were preparing a show and I realised I might get injured and not be able to sing. That scared the hell out of me." "I realised that all I wanted was to hear my songs on the radio." |