"Bryan was my favourite member of Westlife, ever since I went to see the band in concert a couple of years ago. Beforehand I'd been a Mark fan but at the concert itself Mark seemed to lose all sense of melody and sang his own versions of the songs. All the other guys in V thought Shane's voice was best, but for me Bryan was the one who had the big personality, and the voice. I first heard his new single 'Real To Me' on Capital FM a few weeks ago. We were in the car on the way back from a gig and as the song started we pulled into our driveway, so I ran inside and listened to it in my bedroom. I have to admit that until I heard the song I didn't even know whether to believe the rumours that he'd signed a solo deal, because like everyone else I thought he'd left Westlife to spend more time with his family. But there it was blaring from my radio.

There are three things I really like about the single.

1. It's got great ad-libs at the end. All boyband members love ad-libs and I am no exception.
2. My two favourite bands are The Goo Goo Dolls and The Calling, who are both really good at doing ballads with guitars, and that seems to be the sort of vibe Brian's going for.
3. In the video he has sunglasses on, and the 'Hey Whatever' video, in which the band wear sunglasses, is my favourite Westlife video. Which is a bit of a rubbish reason, but these things have to come in threes don't they?

Plus, Bryan has a nice wife, a nice beard, and at one point in his career had nice bleached curtains like I do now. But the most important thing about his new career (and please bear in mind that I am a fickle and superficial member of a pop group) is his change of name from Bryan to Brian. I can almost imagine the meeting now - "I know - I'll remarket myself!" Very strange.

But names are worth spending a bit of time over for pop stars, I think. I remember when I was 14 and I was contemplating a life in boyband city, I was thinking of dropping an "a" from my name, so it would be Aron, and with my surname Buckingham it would be Aron B, which sounded a bit like R&B. I thought that was really clever, but then I realised that I didn't actually like R&B music anyway, and looking back on it now it was basically a really shit idea I suppose it's just as well Brian didn't do something similar or he would have been Bri M, which would make him sound like the edge of a hat. If I was Bryan I would have either changed my name completely, like Garth Brooks did when he decided he wanted to be Chris Gains, or left it as it was. Although as is quite obvious I'm not Bryan, so that's all academic. While the single took me a few listens before I'd made my mind up about it, I'm looking forward to the album. Like I say he was my favourite member of Westlife and I think he's got a really distinctive voice, plus he seems really relaxed in interviews now. It's good to see him being happy with what he's doing, and although his new song isn't a massive departure from a Westlife ballad maybe he's just being sensible and easing his fanbase into his new sound gradually. Although I don't think I approve of popstars being sensible - do you?"

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