Westlife Westlife - Westlife - Our Story

HarperCollins Publishers

We dedicate this book to our parents

To our manager and friend, Louis Walsh

Cover Page

Title Page Westlife Our Story With Martin Roach HarperCollins Publishers

Dedication We dedicate this book to our parents To our manager and friend, Louis Walsh

Prologue PROLOGUE ‘So, Westlife, what do you think of Brazil?’ We were sitting on the top of a shaking tour bus, being interviewed by a well-known DJ in Rio de Janeiro, live on radio. Around the tour bus were 3,000 Westlife fans, all screaming and chanting. Back home, we’d already seen our first seven singles go straight in at number 1, a feat no band before us had ever achieved. We’d sold millions of albums around the world and gone from being unknowns in an aspiring boy band from Ireland to the front of every pop magazine in the world in just over a year. Westlife was a phenomenon, without a doubt. We’d been due at that Rio radio station, but there’d been so many fans waiting for us outside that we were unable to get anywhere near and our personal safety would have been at risk – had we tried to get off the bus we’d have been pulled apart. As we’d pulled around the corner, the screaming crowd had surrounded the vehicle in a heartbeat and started banging on the sides, rocking the bus, chanting and screaming. It was mental. Several of us actually pushed our backs and shoulders up against the glass because we thought the windows were going to cave in. We were loving it. We got our cameras and handycams out and were filming the fans as they were filming us. It was great. The security men made us climb up through one of the bus sky-lights onto the roof and do the interview there. There seemed only one thing we could say in reply to the DJ’s question: ‘We love Brazil!’ The screaming was so loud we thought our eardrums were going to burst. It is a long way home to the gentle pace of rural Ireland, Sligo and suburban Dublin from Rio de Janeiro, but the journey to the roof of that bus – and beyond – would see a lot more twists and turns than any of us could ever have imagined. Here’s how we did it.

Part I Part I

Chapter One Town Of Plenty

Chapter Two Warm Evenings, Crisp

Chapter Three A Game Of Two Halves

Chapter Four Larger Than Life

Chapter Five Reckoning

Chapter Six The Biggest Pub Band In The World

Chapter Seven The Power Of Louis Walsh

Part II

Chapter Eight The First Of Many

Chapter Nine Buzzing With The Queen Bee

Chapter Ten Too Much Torro Rosso

Chapter Eleven Souvenirs For The Soul

Chapter Twelve Celebrity Skin

Chapter Thirteen Supercar, Super Careful

Chapter Fourteen The Wider World

Chapter Fifteen Strange World

Chapter Sixteen Brian

Part III

Chapter Seventeen ‘All The Best Bands Are Gangs’

Chapter Eighteen While We Are Being Frank…

Chapter Nineteen The Human Instinct To Find Love

Chapter Twenty ‘A Madcap Stroke Of Genius’

Chapter Twenty-One Family

Chapter Twenty-Two Good Distractions

Chapter Twenty-Three Stage

Chapter Twenty-Four Keeping The Dream Alive

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘So, Westlife, what do you think of Brazil?’ We were sitting on the top of a shaking tour bus, being interviewed by a well-known DJ in Rio de Janeiro, live on radio.

Around the tour bus were 3,000 Westlife fans, all screaming and chanting.

Back home, we’d already seen our first seven singles go straight in at number 1, a feat no band before us had ever achieved. We’d sold millions of albums around the world and gone from being unknowns in an aspiring boy band from Ireland to the front of every pop magazine in the world in just over a year.

Westlife was a phenomenon, without a doubt.

We’d been due at that Rio radio station, but there’d been so many fans waiting for us outside that we were unable to get anywhere near and our personal safety would have been at risk – had we tried to get off the bus we’d have been pulled apart.

As we’d pulled around the corner, the screaming crowd had surrounded the vehicle in a heartbeat and started banging on the sides, rocking the bus, chanting and screaming. It was mental. Several of us actually pushed our backs and shoulders up against the glass because we thought the windows were going to cave in.

We were loving it.

We got our cameras and handycams out and were filming the fans as they were filming us. It was great.

The security men made us climb up through one of the bus sky-lights onto the roof and do the interview there.

There seemed only one thing we could say in reply to the DJ’s question: ‘We love Brazil!’

The screaming was so loud we thought our eardrums were going to burst.

It is a long way home to the gentle pace of rural Ireland, Sligo and suburban Dublin from Rio de Janeiro, but the journey to the roof of that bus – and beyond – would see a lot more twists and turns than any of us could ever have imagined.

Here’s how we did it.

For 35 years, my parents, Mae and Peter Filan, ran the Carlton café right in the middle of Sligo, on the west coast of Ireland. The whole family – all nine of us – lived in the house above it. We loved living there.

I was born on 5 July 1979, Shane Steven Filan, the youngest of seven children. God knows how my parents looked after all of us. As well as myself, there were my sisters Yvonne, Denise and Mairead, and my brothers Finbarr, Peter and Liam. Dad was the cook and Mam ran the restaurant. They worked very hard and we didn’t go without a thing. We weren’t rich, don’t be getting me wrong, but if we needed something, they managed to get the money together to buy it. There was always a few quid there.

That house above the café gives me my very earliest memory. When I was three, I burnt my hand on the cooker in our kitchen. I remember as if it was yesterday reaching up to put my hand on the ring, then roaring and crying when it burnt me. I can still see the dog outside the room looking in at all the commotion. Mam calmed me down and put cold milk on the burn to soothe the pain. It’s a strong, vivid, first memory.

I loved having so many brothers and sisters around. My parents had had four kids back to back, with only a year between each. Then three more children followed with a two-year gap between each. My mum had her last baby, me, when she was 42. For some reason she’d always wanted seven kids and I think she just kept going till she got them. Back then it was very common to have at least four kids, to have just two kids wasn’t the norm. There were a lot more big families then than there are now, certainly in the west of Ireland anyway.

I never got picked on because I had those older brothers, so that made my life a lot easier than some. Maybe I got a little spoiled occasionally, as the youngest, but to be honest because there were seven of us Mam and Dad didn’t have time to spoil us, they were so busy just looking after us and feeding us and all that. It was a good life.

What we did have was a lot of chips! Perhaps I’m remembering wrong, but it seemed like we had chips five or six nights a week. No wonder really – now I’ve got my own family I’ve learned how much looking after kids costs, so perhaps it was cheap and easy. Chips and cans of Fanta and Coke – whenever I see those it reminds me of my childhood. I loved it; the café was busy and there was always something happening and interesting people coming in.