'We know now we can just be men': From left: Westlife members Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan
The lads from Westlife would sooner stick pins in their eyes than turn the clock back 12 years. Those early years, says Shane Filan, were 'fecking horrendous.' Manager Louis Walsh was forever on their backs.
There were fights, rivalries and days of deep, dark despair. Not to mention guilt over the sacking of early band members who were their best friends. 'I know the success story seemed to speak for itself,' says Nicky Byrne.
'We were riding the crest of the wave in terms of income and lifestyle. But probably only Take That and Boyzone can ever know what it was really like.
'Louis was always on at you. The first thing he'd say when I walked in the room was: "Your teeth are fecking terrible." What did he want me to do? They were my teeth. I remember saying once: "Your teeth are fecking horrible, too."
He said: "I know but I'm not on TV." I went and got a brace.' Kian Egan chips in: 'We lived in fear of Louis. He was like: "You're done. I'm going to kick you out of the band. I'm going to put you on the next plane home. Only four people can fit in a taxi, not five."'
Shane picks up the thread, breaking into a rather brilliant impression of the X Factor judge: '"Shane, you don't look great. Your hair's terrible. You look fat. Watch yourself, there are only three Bee Gees."
'We were definitely scared of him. He was a very powerful man - only a tenth as powerful as he is now - but the best manager in the world for us.'
In truth, he was. In little more than a decade, Louis, along with Simon Cowell, who signed them to his Sony BMG record label, made the boys rich beyond their wildest dreams, with 14 number one hit singles and 44 million record sales worldwide.
Last Sunday, they appeared with Take That and JLS on The X Factor, as Cowell's last remaining act (boy band One Direction) fought to stay in the competition.
'One Direction have got it all to come,' says Nicky. 'When we look back over Westlife, I'm sure there's a movie in there somewhere.'
Indeed, but not the happy, clappy version that the music industry has long had us believe. I meet the members of Westlife in a swanky London hotel, where they're sprawled comfortably in squishy armchairs, revealing, with astonishing honesty, the truth about their success - and their true feelings about former band member Brian McFadden - for the first time.
The boys, you see, aren't really boys anymore. They're into their 30s now with wives (Nicky, Shane and Kian are married), partners (Mark Feehily, who came out as gay five years ago, lives with his long-term partner Kevin McDaid) and children (Nicky and Shane are parents). Time enough to tell it the way it was.
'We've always had this squeaky clean image,' says Nicky. 'At the start, we were put in these almost feminine white outfits and given cheesy dance routines, but that's not who we were. Eventually you have to say: "This isn't the way I want to do this. That's not the song I want to sing."
'We know now we can just be men. That's a lot more honest. Things like Mark coming out make you realise you have to be. We lost dads.' He gestures to Kian who, like Nicky, lost his father last year.
'You realise that life is too short. When my dad died, it was time to grow up and be a man. Having kids changes you too.'
Kian continues: 'We used to slag each other off. It became abusive to the point where people were hurt. Him over there,' he nods at Mark. 'We used to call him fat lips.
'One Direction have got it all to come': The group pose with the X Factor boyband after performng on last week's results show
'Because he was quiet, we used to pick on him even more. We called him weirdo and used to say: "Go on off to your closet, hang upside down and read your book."
'We went through a huge roll of emotions with each other. We all got upset. We were all in arguments over silly things like who sat in that seat first, and then it would snowball into: "You're fat. You're this or you're that."'
Mark nods: 'Once or twice a week, the public would see us for a few minutes in our perfectly preened and tailored outfits with our perfect hair and make-up, singing this lovely, pure love song that was not urban and not rock. So we'd show this happy, public face, but there's another you when you're in the hotel room.
'Back then, all I wanted to do was go home for a long, long time. It wasn't all bad, but there were a lot of feelings that started to creep into my mind. I didn't want to be there getting picked apart by everyone.
'My weight's always fluctuated from chubby to above normal and I didn't like my bad points being pointed out. I didn't think anyone had the right. There was a time I was very unbalanced.
'I'm involved in charities in Ireland now. One is called Aware and it is based around suicide, particularly in young kids. It's something that's very close to my heart. I'm not saying I ever planned anything, but you go to quite a deep, dark place and there's no one to turn to.
'I'm lucky. I'm living proof it's better to not choose [suicide], and fight your way through it. But it wasn't easy. I buried my feelings of unhappiness deep inside myself.
'We were Westlife, the most famous band in the world, probably, bar America. I couldn't go home. We were the poster children for the big dream coming true.'
Mark was one of the six young lads from Sligo, western Ireland, who dreamed of pop success. For him, he says, it was all about music. He never wanted to be famous. Shane did. 'I wanted the applause, the admiration,' he says.
'I didn't want to just be a pop star. I wanted to be the biggest pop star on the planet.' As did Kian. He was one of seven children and says music was his life. He, Shane and Mark, together with three other local Sligo lads (Derrick Lacey, Graham Keighron and Michael Garrett) put a CD together and sent it to Louis
'We were definitely scared of him': The boys with former manager Louis Walsh
Shane explains: 'My mother was from the same town as Louis. They actually knew each other so she rang him and said: "My son's in a boy band. I think you should see them."
And so the boys met him, only to be immediately confronted by the brutal, cut-throat nature of the music industry. Kian says: 'We handed him the CD with pictures of the six of us. He covered one of the guy's heads with his thumb and said: "Looks much better, doesn't it?"'
That guy was Derrick, the first of the Sligo six to be booted out of the band. 'We were supporting the Backstreet Boys and Derrick was jumping around all over the place on stage. Louis called me and said: "I'll manage you, but you'll have to do one thing." I asked: "What's that? We'll do whatever it takes."
'He goes: "Get rid of the big guy." No disrespect to Mark, but I thought he was talking about him. I said: " Louis, you can't get rid of him. His voice is insane." He was like: "No, no, no. Not the singer. The big guy who's jumping around like a lunatic up there. Get rid of him."'
Derrick was Shane's best friend and it fell to him to break the news. 'It was fecking horrendous,' says Shane. 'It was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to tell somebody. It was like I was saying: "We can't be friends any more because I'm going off to do this band with Louis Walsh and you're not invited."'
Are they friends now? 'No,' says Shane. 'I saw him the other day and he waved to me. We've had a couple of conversations, but I'm sure that he despises Westlife. He's still a nice guy but I don't know if he'll ever get over it.'
Kian interrupts: 'Of course he's upset. They're all upset. You're driving around in Bentleys and Ferraris, living in a castle at the top of the hill and he's working in a pub.' Shane considers this: 'It's like winning the lottery and then getting the ticket taken off you.'
Within a matter of weeks, Graham, Kian's best friend, was also dropped from the band. Michael soon followed when Louis auditioned Nicky Byrne and Brian McFadden, as he sought to create the perfect, clean-cut boy band.
Shane says: 'We began to think there'll be nobody fecking left. We all thought we'd be next for the chop. It was cut-throat.' Nicky agrees: 'When Michael was let go, Louis was in the room.
'The tour manager called out the names of who was going to be in the band. Michael had his head down and Louis was winking at me going, "You're safe." When Michael lifted his head up, Louis would go deadpan.
'Then the tour manager said the five members are, bang, bang, bang, and not Michael. Michael's phone rang and he threw it across the room. We all stood up, slapped him on the shoulder and walked out of the room.
'Louis walked out, head down. The moment the door closed, Louis was bouncing around: "Did you ring your mother? Here, ring your mother," and gave me his mobile phone.'
Within days, the boys were being spun into a wholesome boy band for the teen market.
Louis dressed them in white, sat them on stools and edited Shane's childhood sweetheart, Gillian (now his wife and mother to their three children), out of the mix.
'I had to hide my relationship,' says Shane. 'It was drilled home that girlfriends were not part of the boy-band image. Except for Nicky's.
He was dating Prime Minister Bertie Ahern's daughter, Georgina.' Again, Shane apes Louis: 'Use it. It's a good story.'
The lads all laugh. There is an easy humour and obvious close friendship between them these days, something that was wholly absent in the early years. Kian says: 'We were five 19-year-old guys in a hotel in London.
'What were we going to do with ourselves? We had no money. We were given £15 a day, if that, for food by our record label. We were just doing silly things to pass the time. We used to wrestle each other to the point it would get serious.'
Shane chips in: 'I remember picking up Brian and throwing him across the bed and on to the floor. You start getting aggressive. And with a five-piece band, someone always has to stand in the middle.
'That was a huge issue for us and it's one that One Direction have ahead of them. Louis had already managed Boyzone, and Ronan Keating was the front man with the other four just standing around him, before he went solo.
'We didn't want that to happen to our band. So they certainly didn't want me and Mark standing in the middle. We did most of the singing. If we were allowed to get too big, that would be dangerous. All of a sudden, one member leaves and the band's f***ed.'
Which is of course what happened when, six years after Westlife was formed, Brian, who had forged a high-profile relationship with Kerry Katona, wanted out. This is the first time the boys have spoken openly about his departure.
'We were at a press conference following a music award,' says Nicky. 'Kerry was in the jungle and every single question was directed to Brian about her. When we left the room, we had an argument.
'We said: "We know you had to answer the question, by why didn't you move things on to why we're actually here?" He didn't like that. We'd had a few drinks and Brian slunk off back to his dressing room saying he was leaving.
'I thought: "OK, yeah," and ignored him. The next day he had a photoshoot. The hairdresser rang me up and said: "He's serious." That frightened me because he'd sobered up.
'The next day we had rehearsals because we were touring in three weeks. He turned up and started to rehearse, not mentioning a thing.
'At the end of rehearsals, we decided to meet to talk that evening. He came in, sat down and said: "I want to hang up my boots. I've given six years to Westlife. Now I've got two kids. I want to be at home and can't devote time to both."
'We begged him to stay, offered to go to counselling. We said we're doing something wrong, let's get to the bottom of it. Don't let this great thing go if it's just about a daft argument. These are silly things we can fix." But he didn't want to know. He left and we called Louis.'
Shane continues: 'Louis said: "There were only four in the Beatles." But that night was the first time the bubble slightly burst. No band had survived one of their members leaving - not the Spice Girls, not Take That.
'We said to Louis: "Do you think it will work?" He said: "Trust me. It'll work."' Which, of course, it did. While Brian met with moderate success as a solo artist, Westlife went from strength to strength, with three more number one albums in the UK and numerous awards.
Shane says: 'All of a sudden, the rows over standing in the middle, the slagging each other off, all went out the window. Suddenly these three people became the most important people to me and my career.'
His fellow band members agree. 'We're glad he left,' says Kian. 'We're a better band without him. I don't think we'd be the band we are today if he was still in it. He understands that.
'Now we don't take anything for granted. We just live every day, every album, every song, because you don't know what's round the corner. Now we don't care what you call us - men or boys. As long as we're successful, that's the only compliment we need.'
And what does Louis think? 'Oh we're all fond of Louis,' says Shane. 'Simon's now doing to him what he did to us, so he's gone and got everything done.
'His hair's browner, his teeth are whiter and he seems to be using moisturiser a bit more too.'
Again, he launches into an impression of Louis and, again, his band mates are in stitches. Me too.
Westlife's album Gravity is out on Monday. The band's DVD, The Where We Are Tour: Live from the O2 is out on 29 November.
Source:Dailymail