Chapter seven: The power of Louis Walsh

Louis started phoning me to talk about the band, explains Kian, and I would then relay the information on to the rest of the boys. It saved him making five identical calls, I suppose, and I was always very excitable, enthusiastic. I would give him an opinion and be keen to go and tell all the lads whatever the news was. I think he got a buzz off that.

I would never have spoken back to him in a million years. That was Louis Walsh on the telephone to me, here, whatever he says is God, because he'd made the biggest boy band in Ireland. 

Louis Walsh is an A+ in music, he knows every song that's ever been written. That man's a walking encyclopaedia of music.

Minutes after Simon Cowell had left the first audition, recalls Shane, when I'd been drunk the night before and performed so badly, Louis took me to one side and said, "Listen, dye your hair blond for the next time Cowell comes."

"What?"

"Dye your hair blond, then he won't recognize you."

"Are you serious?" I asked.

"Absolutely. Shane, he auditions dozens of people every week. He saw you for about five minutes. He's not going to remember you." 

He was serious.

The next audition for Simon, we actually had mics and backing tracks, says Mark. We'd even got a stylist, a local Dublin woman, who'd made us look like characters out of Grand Theft Auto! This was back in the day when we didn't really know what style we were going to be. I remember Louis saying he wanted us to be a male All Saints.

So the day came when we were due to perform for Simon, continues Kian, this time with the full latterday Westlife line-up: Shane, Nicky, Brian, me and Mark. It was in the Pod nightclub, so at least it was a bit bigger than the last audition. Shane's hair was longer and blond, as per Louis' cunning plan, and he'd been on a couple of sunbeds so he was browner. As we were about to start, Simon pointed at Shane and said to Louis - I swear to God - "Who's the new guy?"

Louis came over to us, laughing quietly, and said to Shane, "He hasn't got a clue who you are. It's worked - he thinks Nicky, Brian and you are the new boys... And I'm not going to tell him either."

We were all extremely rehearsed and ready for this.

The first song was called "Everybody Knows", a really strong ballad. We started it and immediately we were on top form, the harmonies were superb, we nailed it.

Only 30 seconds into that first song we noticed Simon leaning over to Louis and whispering something into his ear.

Later on, we found out what he'd said.

"Louis, I'll sign them."

Although Simon told Louis he's sign us after 30 seconds, says Shane, we carried on and sang about six songs, some Boyzone, some Boyz II Men and some Backstreet Boys tunes. We were half-singing, half-watching Simon, who was nodding with an approving look on his face, exactly as you now see him do on X Factor. Remember, we didn't know he'd already said he'd sign us, so I was just seeing this and thinking, I don't reckon he thinks we're shite...

Afterwards, he came and sat down with us.

"I really like you guys. You've got great looks, good harmonies. You're a bit unique. You're not like Boyzone and you're not like the Backstreet Boys, I see you as a genuine male vocal pop group."

He liked the combination of my vocal with Mark's - mine is a more pop voice, it has an edgier tone, while Mark's has that incredible R&B vibe to it, not what you'd expect from a white Irish kid - and he loved Kian, Nicky and Brian's melodies and harmonies.

We liked the idea of being a male vocal group; we knew we weren't brilliant dancers so we didn't want to be jumping round the place doing body rolls. It was more about the vocal for us, and he'd already kinda seen what we wanted to be. He was saying all the right things as far as we were concerned.

Then he started talking about songwriters and producers he was thinking of, explains Kian, people like Max Martin, Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, all these massive songwriters who'd had huge hits for massive bands.

As soon as he'd left, Louis came bouncing over.

"He loved you guys! He wants to sign you! You were all brilliant!" He was so excited. "Simon's the one I wanted to sign you, he's the man that will make what I want to happen with you happen."

We totally put our trust in Louis.

He knew Simon Cowell was the right man to go with.

The main reason I really committed to doing the band, says Nicky, was because Louis was behind it and we all knew what he'd done with Boyzone. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done it without Louis being involved, but I've been far more sceptical. It just always felt like it was going to work with him involved. One thing about Louis that people don't realize is he does it because he loves it - he wouldn't do it for free, of course, but he doesn't do it for the money. So when he said Cowell was the man for the job, we trusted him.

Mark continues, Shortly after that, they wanted to get us in the studio. I knew Cowell liked my voice and Shane's a lot, but the next step was to see if our live voices worked as well on tape, because that's not always the case - as Cowell says on American Idol a lot, you may not have a "recording voice". So they flew me and Shane to Sweden to make a few samplers. They must have liked what they heard, because the record label Simon Cowell worked for, Sony-BMG, soon confirmed they were offering us a major five-album record deal.

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Kian: While the lawyers got busy, Louis pulled two masterstrokes. We were all still in Sligo and Dublin at this point, so we had to live out of suitcases while this was all being sorted out. What we didn't know is that those same suitcases would soon be our way of life. We had no money, so I think Louis paid for a lot of expenses for us.

One day Louis gave us all £500 each to go and get some new clothes for an important photo shoot we had coming up in the Evening Herald. That was great fun; it seemed like so much money. He'd also got us a photo shoot for Levis and we got a pair of free jeans each. Already the papers were talking about us as "the new Boyzone", so it was a very exciting time.

Louis had kept dropping hints that he wanted Ronan Keating involved in the management side of the band, explains Shane. He and Louis were tight, really close, and Ronan came to see us rehearse and really liked us. Why wouldn't we want Ronan involved? He was a superstar! So eventually we went to a meeting with him. He was a total gentleman. He offered us some advice and then it was agreed that it would be announced that he was our co-manager. Ronan received half of the management commission, but it was a stroke of genius by yer man Louis. It created such a buzz around the band, it was a very clever publicity stunt, and we benefited from it hugely.

You've got to hand it to Louis, agrees Nicky, it was a masterstroke announcing Ronan was co-manager. Obviously, Ronan didn't do the majority of the day-to-day managing; he was never going to, that was Louis. But the impact that had within Boyzone fan circles was huge.

Louis wasn't afraid to play up to "the new Boyzone" tag. He explained to us that when that band had first started, they had hogged Take That gigs in Dublin. They had literally stood outside with photos of themselves, meeting the Take That fans going in, chatting to them, charming them and telling them all about their new band. So, when Boyzone were massive, we did the very same thing, standing outside handing out leaflets and walking up and down the queue until the doors were opened. Very cleverly, Louis and Sony-BMG had these business cards printed with Ronan's details on there as co-manager. The girls would stop and chat and we'd give them our little card, saying we were going to be the next big boy band and, pretty soon, we were having pictures taken with these fans. Of course, if they saw Ronan's name on the card, that made a huge difference. It was hard graft, but we loved it. You have to be into what you do and we loved it. We worked our asses off to be in with a chance. 

Let me tell you about a funny incident during these early days. We were staying at Castle Leslie, County Monaghan, and it was supposed to be haunted. We all had a few drinks then went back to our rooms for some kip. Now we'd already had the hotel tour and they'd said some rooms were more haunted than others. We were all shiteing ourselves, I'm telling you.

Before Shane got to his room, I slipped in there and hid in a chest at the base of his bed. I must have had to wait about 20 minutes - I kept lifting the lid up and doing, Where the fuck is he? - before I finally heard the door handle turn and Shane come in. I peeped out from under the lid, and he was just kind of looking around the room. You could see he was uneasy. Then I just jumped out and went "Aaarrrggghhh!!"

He fell to the floor, shit himself and then he went after me! He didn't do anything, obviously, but he was furious.

Then he said the funniest thing: "Nicky, you bastard, I could have had a stroke!"

That comment made me laugh even more. I was pissing myself - he was only 19, and he was saying he could have had a stroke!

Yeah, says Shane, I was fuming. I nearly killed him I did, I could have strangled him there and then! I said sorry, like... Fucker!

Before Louis pulled his second masterstroke, we changed our name, continues Kian. Simon thought IOYOU was wrong. "If I'm being perfectly honest, " he said, "it's terrible, absolutely terrible." He suggested the name Westside, as he felt it fitted our west of Ireland roots.

Then Louis told us that we would be going on tour with Boyzone. We were so excited.

So excited, we almost died! says Shane. Well, not exactly, but on the way up to their Belfast show I thought my end had come. Mark's dad Ollie was driving us up from Sligo - me, Mark and Kian - and there'd been some really icy weather. The road was black with ice; it was awful. The road of Sligo towards Belfast isn't the best - it's very windy and narrow - and we were slipping and skidding all over the place. There was nothing Ollie could do about it, it was like an ice-skating rink. We were laughing at first because it was comical, the car having a mind of its own. Then there was one particular corner that we skidded towards with a vertical drop of about 100 feet the other side, and we weren't laughing then. I really thought my time was up. I remember thinking, Aaahh! I'm not gonna get to support Boyzone! Aaahh!

We ended up driving at about 15 mph and I thought we were going to die on at least 25 separate occasions! It took over six hours to get there - the longest six hours of my life.

Going on tour with Boyzone in all these massive arenas was insane, recalls Mark. Even though they weren't always full to capacity when we sang, it was brilliant. We did some shows with Boyzone in Europe, quite a few in the UK and then it sort of intertwined with a Smash Hits tour as well.

That was when it started to sink in that I wasn't going to be able to pop back to Sligo all the time. I remember asking one of the girls out of B*Witched when they'd last been home and she said, "Two months." That was a real reality check. But although that worried me, I was having a great time. 

There we were, on tour supporting Boyzone without a record deal, says Kian. Next thing we know, we were on the big Saturday TV show CD:UK without a record deal. Next thing up, we got a slot playing on the Smash Hits Radioshow, which then led to us winning a Smash Hits award for Best New Touring Act - the power of Louis Walsh.

Mark: I remember an incident with Louis way back then that showed me how serious he was about his bands being totally professional. We were doing a TV appearance in Ireland and there was another Irish boy band in the green room beforehand, getting a bit lairy and drunk. They weren't terrible, but they were having a few.

Louis was standing next to us and he said, "If I ever see you doing that, I'll leave in a second. If I see you hanging around in the green room drinking beer before you go on TV, I'm finished."

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Signing the actual record contract was amazing, recounts Nicky. It was in the first week of November 1998, while we were still on tour with Boyzone. A lot of the lads hadn't even been to London before; I was a little more experienced in that I'd been to America, Canada and much of Europe with family holidays and football tournaments.

Louis was travelling to the record label seperately, so it was literally the five of us travelling over on a plane to meet him there. We made our way from the airport to this big office block where the record company was based. I remember that standing there, ready to go in, we were just giddy kids. Looking back, as soon as we entered that doorway, all of our lives changed beyond recognition.

We went into a big meeting room that is now Simon Cowell's private office but back then was just a huge conference room. Sonny Takhar was also there, Simon's right-hand man who has also been instrumental in our career.

We knew it was a big record deal - we signed for five albums on a contract worth several millions pounds, so, understandably at that age, we all thought that once we'd signed this piece of paper, we'd be millionaires. Of course that money is split over the albums and it has to go towards paying for some incredibly expensive stuff like accommodation, clothes, cars, video shoots, recording costs and so on. It's funny, looking back, because we'd all been looking at what cars we could afford. Rather than get proper carried away, I was thinking of buying maybe a Toyota MR2, you know, for 15 grand, say - nothing too ridiculous. That's how you think at that age.

Signing that record deal was all my dreams come true, says Kian. It really was a lifelong dream and here we were, signing the contract, about to record an album, put singles out, travel the world in a band and make music. It was just amazing.

It was the stuff of dreams, absolutely, recalls Shane. All my life I'd been looking forward to this moment. It was one of my major goals in life, but I never thought it would happen. I knew I wanted to get married and I hoped I'd be a father, but I never thought I'd get a massive record deal. It's such a prized achievement for a band.

I can't really ever forget that excitement, that moment sitting in that office, all the thoughts buzzing around my head: We are going to be pop stars! We might have a hit single! Then the teenage thoughts kick in, like Maybe I'm going to be a millionaire! Then, most importantly of all, I can go and buy a new car!

Signing the record deal was a huge decision for me, says Mark. I can clearly remember actually putting the pen on the page where I was supposed to sign. I can see it now, the pen moving in slow motion as I signed my name.

At that precise second, a thousand thoughts were buzzing through my brain. I was excited about the deal, naturally, but I was very nervous about what it meant for my life back in Sligo. I was really scared that it might change things.

Of course it changed everything beyong recognition.

Subconsciously, I must have known this and that is why signing that piece of paper was such a big deal for me. There I was, an 18-year-old country boy, flying into this big corporate office in the middle of London, being surrounded by all these big names in the business, working for this worldwide company, sitting by accountants lawyers, managers - it felt insane. I think in the back of my mind I'd been preparing to go to collage, like a lot of kids do from around Sligo, then suddenly here I was signing a multi-million pound record deal with all the heavy responsibility that comes with that. Maybe for a kid brought up in Camden, it would have been an easy day out, but for me the contrast was so severe. Exciting, thrilling, scary, daunting, all at once. I'm just trying to be really honest here.

As I signed, the noise of the city outside was as far from my idylic country childhood as you can imagine. I could feel that distance sitting there in that room, writing my name on that sheet of paper.

Right there and then, I put a barrier up.

This is not going to change me, this is not going to change my life, I kept saying to myself. It was important at that point to have that feeling. It reassured me. I hadn't travelled like Nicky, I didn't have the confidence of Shane, Kian and Brian. But, ultimately, the draw to sing was greater than the desire for my life not to change, so I signed the contract.

But I just kept telling myself it wouldn't really change anything. 

How wrong can you be?

The business side of it hit us instantly, says Nicky. We had to set up a company, we hired an accountant, Alan McEvoy, and we got lawyers and tour managers lined up, all sorts. It was explained to us that the company, Blue Net, should own the band name because if any member were to leave then the band could continue without legal problems. We just agreed - it sounded reasonable and besides, no onas was going to leave Westlife, were they?

As soon as we signed the deal, we spoke with Louis and he said, "Right, you're going straight into a recording studio."

Game on.

Chapter six: The biggest pub band in the world

Even though I was still young when I left Leeds United, recalls Nicky, I'd become used to a nice lifestyle. Also, I'm a very proud person and I didn't want anyone to think I'd failed. I especially didn't want my mam and dad thinking I'd failed. But I didn't know what I wanted to do next. Ever since I was a kid, apart from football, I'd wanted to be a copper. But I wasn't really sure what was going to happen next.

I did a repeat year at Plunkett College in White Hall and started playing for Shelbourne FC, one of the big clubs in Ireland ("Shelbourne Sign Irish Ace!" read their bulletin headline, then people read it and thought, Who the fuck is he?) But I was doing too much - working, studying, training. It was no good.

I'd landed back in Ireland with about ten grand in my bank account. Despite my disappointment at the way things had turned out, at least the money meant I didn't have to rush my next move. I got a job at Alias Tom's clothes shop in Dublin city centre which paid £150 a week and toyed with the idea of buying a Suzuki Vitara Jeep with mots of the ten grand, but ended up spending £400 to insure me dad's Seat Cordova. Dad loved it because I was able to drive him to his gigs at night and he could have a drink, and I loved it because once I'd dropped him off, usually about 7 p.m., I had a car for the evening.

While I was passing my exams, I'd started singing in karaoke bars. I'd be working late in Alias Tom's, get home, have my dinner, get changed, miss football training and go to karaoke instead. After a while, I was confident enough to enter some karaoke competitions and I did OK, getting to some semi-finals and the odd final. Funnily enough, I was almost always singing Take That and Boyzone songs. I'd played Boyzone a lot when I was at Leeds United. Songs like "Father and Son" really made me miss home. The players used to take the piss out of me and call me Ronan, even. Georgina's dad had met the band somewhere and he'd even got her a signed album, which we listened to non-stop. They were the songs I knew, they were the songs I was listening to. I didn't really listen to the Backstreet Boys. It wasn't that I didn't like them, I just didn't know much about them and I liked backing the Irish boys. A lot of fellas were into Boyzone; it wasn't uncool to like them. 

One day I rang my dad and said, "Listen, if I buy a karaoke machine and some discs out of the money I've got left over from Leeds, will you come around with me when you're not gigging your own shows? We'll try and book a few venues that do karaoke."

He loved the idea, so we started playing shows where I'd present and sing two songs, then he'd do two songs, then we'd start asking the audience to come up and do a song. Suddenly I was working the clubs. 

I got all these "business" cars printed. We were called - genius idea - Father and Son Karaoke.

I was honestly starting to think about going down the road my dad had taken. I was looking to get a band together too and hopefully start working like that.

My normal day would consist of dropping Dad off to work, going to school, finishing there mid-afternoon, then heading up to the suburbs of north Dublin, where I doorstepped pretty much every pub in the area. I'd meet the manager, give them my card, tell them we'd been doing this for years and years, chat about playing for Leeds and just generally use a bit of banter to get work. We got a couple of college socials through friends, then we got our first ever Friday night at the local pub, Gibneys, in Malahide, through a friend of mine and Georgina's at school.

One day Georgina phoned me and said, "My auntie's just heard something about auditions for a new band."

It turned out someone was forming a traditional Irish boy band playing old instruments and singing classic Irish folk songs. I got all the info and it just asked for a picture and a demo tape and stated that playing an instrument would be preferable but not essential.

Georgina's sister, the novelist Cecelia Ahern, had been a big Take That fan, so that meant I'd been listening to more and more of this boy band stuff. I remember watching Take That on Top of the Pops and that's the first time I started to admite to liking the idea of being in a boy band. I sat there and thought to myself, Five lads, touring the world, making loads of money, girls everywhere, they must be having a right craic. I even went to the barbers one day and asked for Jason Orange's haircut.

So now, a few years later, I decided to give it a go. I don't know if it was the fame game or money or success or all of it rolled into one that I craved. I was definitely into the music thing by this point, even though I didn't have a lot of experience.

Funnily enough, I'd recently seen a photo in the Evening Herald of this new boy band - six lads called IOYOU. I didn't recognize any of them and didn't think anything more of it. It just said Louis Walsh had given them a slot supporting the Backstreet Boys. It sounded like they would do well. I thought, Lucky bastards.

Back in the week before my audition for the traditional band, I didn't have a demo tape, so my dad got our karaoke microphones out and set them up in the front room. Dad, Georgina and my little brother Adam were there. They kept laughing at me and I was getting really irate. I kept pressing "Stop" halfway through a song and starting again.

Eventually I got a demo finished. It was a pretty rough recording, but it was good enough. It included "Scorn Not his Simplicity", a pretty sad song about a Down's Syndrome child, and "Father and Son" by Boyzone. Previously, I'd paid £100 to have some photos taken for a modelling agency who then never called me back, so I used those professional shots for this audition package and sent it all off.

Then one day this guy phoned the house and asked me along to the auditions at the Pod. My mam was going for a test on her throat that day, so I was a bit worried about her, and I hadn't told anyone I was going for the audition. So I just got on the train into town wearing a black shiny suit and a royal blue tie, I really dressed smart. I like dressing up for certain occasions and I figured that with Boyzone, every time you saw them they were wearing shirts and ties.

There were hundreds of lads in the queue for the audition with numbers stuck to them, just like you see on the X Factor auditions nowadays. I was number 18, and number 12 was a lad called Brian McFadden. I'd seen this tall, bleached blong guy already - he just stood out a mile. He looked a little like Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys and he just seemed a little more funky than the rest of the queue. I stood there and thought, Shite, he already looks like a member of a boy band. It's weird, because I don't remember anyone else in the whole room.

Brian came over to me - which was equally weird, because I'd never met him before - and said, "You sing out in the Swords Manor, don't you?" It turned out he'd seen me doing karaoke in the pubs out there. "A couple of the lads over there are talking about you. They've heard you sing."

Brian got up and sang before me and he was good. He was very good. He had the look, he was confident and I thought to myself, Jesus, he's good. I wouldn't mind being in a band with him. Prior to Brian, guys had been up there playing violins and pianos, slaughtering Corrs songs, so he stood out a mile.

When it came to my turn, I stood up ready to sing "Father and Son". There's a four bar intro before the opening line; now, I'd sung this a thousand times in karaoke bars, I knew it inside out, but for some reason, I completely fluffed it by coming in after two bars. I wasn't experienced enough to recover it, so I just blocked out the music and carried on singing. I could see a man standing on the judging panel waving his hand at his throat, gesturing to cut the audition music, but I just kept singing.

And the judges kept listening.

Then they cut the music.

I kept singing, a capella.

They kept listening. For most of the song.

I knew it was a good sign, because some of the previous auditioners hadn't lasted a verse before the dreaded, "Thank you very much. Next!"

I'd heard one of the men on the panel was Louis Walsh. I knew his name, but I didn't know what he looked like. He'd been asked by the man forming the traditional boy band to help him, given Boyzone's huge profile at the time. In fact, what Louis had also done was take the opportunity to scout for new talent to complete the line-up for Westlife.

Louis had invited me to these auditions after we'd cut Graham, explains Kian. I was sitting there watching all these lads singing, armed with my Filofax, all organized, taking the numbers of the guys we liked. Louis really liked Nicky straight away. He was dressed in a suit, he looked quite smart and he had a really good attitude about him and a great look. You could tell he knew what he wanted and he came across as being a wee bit more mature than some of the others.

Brian seemed as mas as a hatter - but in a good way! He had these big baggy jeans on and a funky jacket and was all blah, blah, blah, talking 500 miles an hour. Both of those lads were brilliant.

I was walking up the stairs to leave, continues Nicky, when someone said, "They want you to stay behind a while, if you don't mind."

I was taken to another part of the club and there, already waiting, was Brian McFadden. Then a security man came over and explained that Louis Walsh wanted to talk to me. I knew then that I was in with a chance, this had to be a good sign. 

I'd never met Louis before and he came right up to me, talking really fast. I tried to catch what he was saying.

"Hello, Nicky, how are you? My name's Louis Walsh and I'm putting together a new pub band and I'd like you to be in it."

I didn't want to be in a pub band, but this was Louis Walsh, you know, yer man with Boyzone.

"OK, great. Yes."

Louis was off again, speaking like a machine gun, and all I could do was say, "Yes", while all the time thinking, I don't want to be in a pub band. My mates don't know I'm here, there seems to be a film crew outside and I'm gonna go home and announce I've got a job in a pub band.

"... so if you'd wait around please, Nicky," Louis continued, "we'd like to get some photos of you before you leave.

The photographer came over and Louis said, as bold as brass, "This is Nicky Byrne and he's going to be in my new pub band," and with that, he left. It was like a whirlwind leaving the building..

Then Kian Egan walked over and introduced himself.

I didn't know him from Adam. It was the first time I'd set eyes on him.

"Hi, I'm Kian Egan and I'm in a band called IOYOU. Louis is going to manage us and we are looking for one other person."

"Is this the pub band Louis has been telling me about?" I asked.

"No, no, away with ya, we're a pop band."

"Aaahhhh, a pop band. Fucking hell, that's a big difference!"

"Louis really likes you," said Kian, "and we're going to be holding auditions. There are a few other people here he likes, but he really likes you, you're his favourite. What's your plan for the rest of the day...?"

Shane: So Louis had scaled it down to about 60 lads and then we had to go and audition them in Dublin. It was exactly like X Factor - we all sat there in front of these guys who came in and sang for us.

Brian McFadden was the first person on stage and Nicky Byrne was the second.

Every single lad who came on after that, we all just kept comparing them to Brian and Nicky. There were plenty of good-looking fellas, and great singers too, but none of them made as much impact as Brian and Nicky. Louis felt that myseld and Mark had lead vocals, so we wanted two lads who could sing, but also there was a lot of pressure on them to fit in with the look that he wanted. The few that we chose then came and spoke to us and it was still just between Nicky and Brian.

I really got on with Brian while we were auditioning, continues Nicky, so we'd swapped phone numbers. Then he rang and we arranged to meet up. The night before singing in front of IOYOU, Brian and me had done karaoke together at a local pub and he was brilliant. He sang the Backstreet Boys song "Quit Playing Games" and I was after singing Boyzone numbers. I put my money on Boyzone coming up the next day.

So then at the audition all the lads from Sligo - Kian, Shane, Mark and Michael - said to me, "Right, come upstairs, just us lot. We're going to do some songs with you."

I was thinking, Please be Boyzone songs, please be Boyzone songs...

"Right," said Kian, "we're gonna be singing some Backstreet Boys songs..."

Shite

"Do you know 'Quit Playing Game'?

Thank God for that.

I sang melody with them and then Brian went up and he sang too. He was very good. 

Brian had blond curtains for hair, remembers Kian, so he did indeed look like Nick Carter. This was the way we were thinking: we weren't thinking small scale at all, we were thinking of the big fish. I loved Brian's vibe and look, and he could really sing, but I was unsure about him being so lively, "I don't know", I said, "he's mand!"

Fortunately, the rest of the band persuaded me that he could be brilliant - and they were right. I was all for Nicky - he was great, sang well, looked perfect, he was the one as far as I was concerned. It was those two by a mile we wanted to choose the new member from, but there was a complication: Shane and Mark favoured Brian; Louis and myself favoured Nicky.

They were both good-looking lads and Brian gave us that bass harmony while Nicky sang melody brilliantly. We just couldn't decide between them, so Louis suddenly said, "Well, why don't we have both of them?"

Someone pointed out that we'd then be back to six members.

"Well, in that case," said Louis, "we'll include them both and take a vote on the final five."

I spoke to Nicky and said, "What we want to do to make up our mind is this: will you come down to Sligo with Brian and live with us for a while? We'll rehearse, hang out, get to know each other better. Then we'll take a vote on the final five."

He didn't know us at all and I know he'd been with Georgina three years at this stage, but he was very keen. He said yes, and so did Brian.

It's interesting, looking back, because Louis really let us pick to a certain extent. He gave us a lot of power in that decision. I knew why too. Louis had done the Boyzone thing and that was a band that had come together for the project. We were a band that had already started and had this tight camaraderie; we were proper mates. Louis liked that. He didn't want it to be "his" band, he wanted it to be "our" band. He thought that was a better way of approaching it.

So I came back home to me man and dad's, explains Nicky, and tell them that I'm now going to move to Sligo to live with an unsigned boy band. I remember my mam's face. I could sense she was thinking, "What are you doing now, love?"

I got the train down there with Brian. It was quite awkward, because they sent me to live with Michael at his parent's house and Brian went to stay with Shane. I'd heard that Louis was quite keen to get rid of Michael, so I felt very uncomfortable sleeping under his roof, if that was the case. I remember standing outside his sitting room and he was talking to his parents, explaining about these two Dublin boys and what was going to happen. Then I heard his mum say, "Well, are they any good?" You could tell alarm bells were ringing for her. To be fair, Michael said, "Yes, they are both very good."

We all went out for a beer that night and I told Shane it was just too uncomfortable, it didn't feel right being at Michael's. He was really cool about it and afterwards made up some reason why it would be easier for me to stay over at his parent's café.

Louis had said to the lads, "I'm not making that call from six to five, because I've already got rid of Derek and Graham." People might think Louis is a cut-throat music biz manager, but he isn't like that. Because of the family connection with Shane's mum in Kiltimagh, I don't think he felt comfortable being that harsh with them. That's why he said it had to go to a vote. He did have a vote himself, but it was only one of five. He had always given the band a lot of power, which was fantastic for me to see, coming from football, where you were given none.

In the meantime, continues Kian, Louis had organized several showcases for UK record labels and people were flying in to see us. We rehearsed for several weeks and got really tight. Then we all swapped places and left Sligo to live with Brian and Nicky in Dublin (Mark stayed with his aunty in Black Rock).

The label Louis really wanted this time around was Virgin. The Spice Girls were massive at the time with them and on the day we auditioned for them, their act Billie Piper had gone to number 1 and Louis was dead set on getting them.

Michael knew he was under pressure and at that audition he'd pulled a chair up beside the two girls from Virgin and was being really friendly, talking about the Spice Girls and all that. I think perhaps he sold himself a bit too much, though. It was awkward to see, but to be fair he wanted to impress, he knew the pressure was on.

At one point, Louis took Michael to one side and used one of his all-time favourite sayings: "Michael, you're trying too hard."

We did an entire dance routine, says Shane, and then five a capella songs, and I think we sang it all very well.

They didn't like us.

Louis was gutted.

We couldn't believe it, because we were really confident in what we were doing and in our ability. It really bothered Louis.

Although I'd head I had a good chance, recalls Nicky, and that Michael's position was weak, I was still very nervous when the day came to take a vote on the final five members of the band. We met at the Red Box and all went to a room where Louis was waiting for us. He announced that there was to be a vote to decide which one out of three lads were going to get cut. 

"It's between Nicky, Michael and Brian," he said.

We were all sitting round a circular table and it was pretty tense. I would imagine Kian, Mark and Shane were pretty relieved, although it had been fairly common knowledge that they were going to be safe.

Graham, who'd been in the band but then been cut and made tour manager, said, "Right, the majority want Brian to be in the band at the moment."

I kind of knew this was the way it was heading, so now it was down to just me and Michael. Still, I was devastated. Michael was too, he just put his head down. I was looking around nervously, unsure what to think. Shane had spoken to me previously and pretty much said Louis had an issue with Michael but here we were, nonetheless...

Louis said, "I'll leave it up to you, I don't want to make this call, lads."

Michael never moved. His head was still bowed.

So Graham said, "We are going to have a secret ballot in the toilet..." and as he was talking, Louis Walsh was looking at me, sticking his thumb up and pointing at me.

We all voted and then Graham, God bless him, came out with the bits of paper. He stood at the table and then spoke: "The members of IOYOU are: Shane Filan, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Brian McFadden and Nicky Byrne."

Michael just sank. His shoulders fell, he was devastated. Then his phone rang and he just threw it across the room and walked away from the table. Some of the lads went to give him a pat on the back and talk to him, but he was too upset, he wasn't really having any of it.

I went over and said, "Look, Michael, I'm probably the last person you want to hear say this, but I got a proper kick in the bollocks when I left Leeds. You've just got to pick yourself up and move on."

He didn't even acknowledge me. I don't blame him, to be fair - it was a really hard situation to be in.

The atmosphere was really sombre and although I was delighted, it didn't feel right to jump up and down and shout and all that. I shook all the lads' hands and they congratulated me. Then I made for the door. 

I opened it and there was Louis Walsh, grinning from ear to ear like an excited schoolboy, holding his mobile phone towards me, saying, "Ring your mother, ring your mother!"

It was so hard for Michael, reflects Shane. It was difficult for us, but I can't imagine how gutted he must have been. It was so harsh on him. 

At the time, Gillian's best friend Helena was dating Michael and the girls had been on a two-week holiday to America together. So Michael and myself went off to the airport to pick them up and it was so weird, so uncomfortable, like. Poor Nicky was the driver! I was meeting my girlfriend and I was in the band; Michael was meeting his girlfriend and he wasn't. It was terrible. He was crying, he was disappointed, and I can totally understand that.

Michael was a good-looking lad, he was a sound man, he was great, but he probably had the weakest voice out of all of us. We knew it and maybe Michael knew it too. His personality was great - he was a cracking fella - but it came down to him and it was terrible again.

Michael went on to become a copper in Ireland, says Nicky, which was ironic for me. I'd done my school exams and then some exams for the Irish police force, the Gardaí, and I was waiting on a medical to be called when I was chosen to be in IOYOU. My mam got a letter not long afterwards giving me a date for my Garda medical and a start day for training. She wrote back and said I was "otherwise engaged".

Chapter five: Reckoning

"Are you serious, Louis?" I had grabbed Shane's phone, recalls Kian.

"Deadly serious!" He was chuckling, he could hear my excitement.

"Don't be messing with us..."

"Kian, I am not messing, get yourself on a train!"

I can't tell you how exciting that was. I used to say, "I don't want to be ina Boyzone, I want to be in the next Backstreet Boys," because they were the ones I really looked up to. Them and Take That, mainly. Same for the other two lads.

Before I even try to explain the state of absolute shock, joy and bewilderment that came over us all, let me backtrack six months to a street in town, with a ticket booth about to put tickets to see the Backstreet Boys on sale. Me and Shane had queued from the middle of the night to get those tickets. The booth didn't open until 9 a.m., but we were there from 4 a.m. just to make sure.

When Louis called about the support slot, remembers Mark, I'd just been in McDonald's with a girl called Avril and Gillian, talking about how exciting it was that we were going to see the Backstreet Boys concert at the weekend.

When we got those bits of paper saying "Backstreet Boys + Support", recalls Shane, it was like finding Willy Wonka's golden ticket, we were so please. So fast-forward to the pub around that table when Louis had told us he'd got a slot for our band supporting the Backstreet Boys. I'll never forget it - it was one of the best moments of my life. Gillian was upstairs waitressing and we all ran up there screaming the news, jumping up and down, crying, laughing, shouting! It was crazy.

After we'd calmed down, I remember thinking, How is this going to work? I'm going to meet the Backstreet Boys. I'm going to shake their hands, maybe even talk to them. It was just so surreal. And we don't need those tickets that we queued for anymore...

I'd just left college, where I'd been doing a business and accounting course which I hated (maths and accountancy were the only two things I did very well at in school - I got As in both). It was in Limerick and I badly missed home. I didn't like the course and I just wanted out. So I came home and got a job at a builder's provider called Buckley's, just lifting boxes around, odd jobs. My father knew the man who owned it, Stanley, and one of my best friends, Paul Keaveney, worked there too. I used to go out the back singing these Backstreet Boys songs and they used to rip the piss out of me. Now we were going to be supporting them.

I felt like we'd won the lottery. I knew we were a long way from being a success yet - we weren't that naïve - but if nothing else it was confirmation that Louis Walsh was going to be involved, and as far as we were concerned that was the winning lottery ticket. We'd struck gold - not just the support slot, but having Louis on our side. Even that early on, we just sensed that something was happening. There were too many things going our way. We felt that our winning number had come up.

At the time I was working in our local jeans shop, says Kian, called EJ's Menswear. You can imagine the reaction of the owner, Eamonn Cunningham, when I said, "I could do with some decent clothes this weekend. We're supporting the Backstreet Boys!" He was very helpful and let us all go round on an evening and try out all this Sonetti and Firetrap gear, big orange jackets and white jeans. It was exciting.

So, anyway, we had three days to the Backstreet Boy's support slot. Three days!

Luckily, we already had several routines well rehearsed, so it wasn't as bad as we first thought.

On the day of the show we met the Backstreet Boys and there was absolutely no hint of us acting cool - we were just proper fans all excited to meet them. We got them to sign albums for us and said thanks for offering the slot - they could have said no, they could have asked for a band with a record deal, for example. Plenty stars do. 

The Backstreet Boys loaded up on the Friday night and we were already outside, too excited to stay away. I vividly recall standing at the windows, peering through. There we were, all our faces squashed against the glass, and the Backstreet Boys were inside playing basketball. We couldn't believe we could actually see them with our own eyes, that's how famous they were to us.

At that window, looking in, remembers Mark, I was phoning my friends, saying, "I can see AJ, he's got two eight-foot tall security guards walking with him. He looks really small... Oh, now I can see Brian!"

We were suck wide-eyed fans, But within a few hours we were chatting to the band and eating with them. It was so weird - but brilliant weird!

The night of the gig came around, says Shane, our little slot came up and we walked on. There were about 6,000 people in the audience. The most we'd ever played in front of before was a few hundred. We did "Together Girl Forever", "Everlasting Love", complete with Graham's little rap, and "Pinball Wizard" by the Who. It was mental, a real laugh. The crowd were roaring and screaming. They went mental for us because we were an Irish band. They just loved it. I'll never forget it.

For those shows, we were staying at the Mount Herbert Hotel. It was like a massive B&B. There was the six of us packed into one room. We had no money; our parents were even paying for the room. We literally didn't have a bean between us.

That first night was Paddy's night, so we had a few beers. It just seemed too good to be true.

Then one of the Backstreet Boys said, "Hey, Mark, we're going to the pub tomorrow after the show, You should come," and we were like, "Are you for real?"

So next thing I know, we're at this club chatting with Howie and Kevin over a pint. It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest with you.

Kian remembers that it was about to get even better: That night at the gig, Louis took me to one side and said, "I want to manage you."

What we hadn't known was that Louis had been pretty much auditioning us at the show, to see whether he wanted to become our manager or not. He did and we couldn't believe our ears.

However, there was a catch.

"I think you have something special, Kian, but I want you to lose the big guy."

I said, "You can't cut Mark!" At this point Mark was a big lad - not overweight, he was just a big lad.

"No, Mark's amazing. I'm talking about Derek."

Derek was six foot tall and muscular, in really good shape. I thought he had a good dark look, personally. But Louis still didn't want six members in the band and, worse still, he said that the didn't think Derek was suitable. There was no compromise, it had to be just five.

Even though we'd all agreed to go forward knowing someone might get cut, it was still devastating when it came to it. Derek was probably Shane's best friend in the band at the time, so he was gutted.

It was a big shock, agrees Mark. Even though the group was slowly morphing itself into a professional, "real" band, it was still literally made up of childhood schoolmates. So it was a very strange and difficult situation.

Louis has always been brutally honest. I've long since got used to that, but at first the way he spoke about the situation with Derek seemed so harsh to me. I was used to the country life near Sligo and there everyone was very friendly. If you went into the groce's and he was grumpy, rather than think, Wanker, you'd think, he must have had a bad night's sleep. It was all very pure. It wasn't like Alice in Wonderland, but everyone was really genuine. So then Louis Walsh turned up and started saying things like, "You're a bit fat, and you should get your hair cut," it took me back. I wasn't equipped to deal with that approach. I was never taught how to deal with people speaking to me like that.

I've got to point out here that this isn't just Louis, it's basically how the record industry operated. It is very direct. I'm jumping ahead of the story a little here, but I remember there was a girl who worked on reception at a record company office and she was morbidly obese. I'd go in and she'd be on the phone saying, "Right, Mark's going to the gym now..." and I'd feel like saying, "Are you going to the fucking gym?" That's the nature of the industry and I understand that now - the point was that she wasn't on TV and she wasn't the face in a boy band, but at the time I took everything personally.

When Louis said he didn't think Derek was suitable, it was a major problem.

I was the one who told Derek, says Shane. I felt that I should be the one because he was such a good friend. All the band were there, sitting around, and I said, "Louis want's five in the band and he just thinks you're not suited to the group."

It is probably the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. It was awful.

Derek was visibly upset, understandably, and walked out the room. I'm sad to say that we didn't speak for the longest time after that - not for years. He obviously felt he couldn't be my friend anymore. It got worse when Westlife went on to be a big success - that must have been tough for Derek to see. I personally would have hated the band, I would have hated Westlife. He probably did for a long time and I don't blame him.

I hope he doesn't now. I do chat to him occasionally and see him now and then. I've even been out with him a couple of times. But for a long time nobody talked. It was a tough call. Derek is a great guy.

I didn't say much at all when Shane told him, recounts Mark. I think I went and put my hand on his shoulder at the door. But I've spoke to him since and I've cleared things up as much as I can. It's always going to be pretty awkward.

                              *               *              *

Shane: About two months laters, I thought I was next for the chop. Louis had arranged an audition for a man from Sony-BMG. We travelled up to Dublin and had a few beers the night before to settle the nerves. Well, actually, that's not strictly true. We'd all agreed to go easy in the pubs, but it was a night out in Sligo and you don't want to miss the Friday night, you know. We met up with some people and there was a big party and, anyway, look, the long and short of it s, I was a bit steamed. The night before an audition, with an 8.30 morning train, what was I thinking?

We got on the train and met Louis at the audition. We went into this room at the Westbury hotel and then this man came in with black hair wearing really high-waisted back trousers. I didn't know him at all.

"Hello, I'm Simon Cowell. Pleased to meet you."

Mark: I was like, God, he's a bit posh, a bit cocky. I didn't even know what "A&R" meant. I just thought he owned Sony-BMG.

I was nervous at that audition, remembers Shane, but now because of Simon. He wasn't famous at all at this stage, he was just a successful A&R man from Sony. His big hand of the time was Five, so we knew he would be great to work with. The room was tiny, we were standing pretty much next to him and Louis.

I performed terribly.

The rest of the lads were great, but I knew I hand't done the job. 

Simon seemed unimpressed, spoke briefly with Louis and then Louis gestured us into another room.

As I came out of the audition room, Louis grabbed me and kinda half-hit me - not a slap or punch, just in exasperation.

"What the fuck was that, Shane? It was shite. He doesn't like ya."

Louis was really made at me. I'd never seen him like that before and I was so shocked. He was so passionate about the band and he was so into what he was doing, he couldn't believe I'd been so poor for Simon Cowell.

"I was counting on you and you let me down. You look terrible, what's up with ya?"

"Well, I had a few last night and..."

"What?!"

He was just raging at me and I was apologizing, because I knew he was right.

He told us that Simon actually only liked Kian and Mark and particularly didn't like me. I later found out that when Simon had said he didn't like me, Louis had said, "Well, I think he's a star," to which Simon had replied, "Well, he wasn't a star here today, Louis."

Louis had then spoken with Simon in private and told him he'd get new members in, he'd work on the band and sort it all out and if Simon would come back one more time, he'd love it.

"OK, but only becuase it's you, Louis", said Simon, and then he left.

My whole future flashed before me. I thought, It's over, it's over. Louis is going to tell me to get back on the train and piss off.

"I know you can be a star," Louis said to me. "I believe in you too much, so sort your life out and don't come up here looking shite again."

His reaction sounds harsh, but d'you know what? It gave me the biggest kick in the arse that I've ever got. I thought I'd blown everything and then for Louis to say what he did, I felt like I was being give a lifeline. 

Louis wasn't about to let the momentum stall, explains Kian, so he sent us to London to record some songs with an up-and-coming songwriter called Steve Mac. He told us this guy could write brilliant pop songs and we were all very excited.

When we got there, we all sang. He listened to each of us carefully and then we recorded three songs, "Everybody Knows", "The Good Thing" and "Forever", all Steve Mac/Wayne Hector songs. The idea was that we'd have some good strong material for our next phase of showcasing for labels.

There was such a buzz around Steve Mac, you just knew he was going to go somewhere, recalls Shane. We'd done those songs in the small studio back in Sligo, but nothing like this - it looked like a spaceship in there.

We were really nervous going in, obviously. We were new to the game and I wondered, What's yer man gonna think of us? After all, the whole industry was talking about him. I thought he'd soon be talking about us, saying, This lot are shite. 

As it turned out, he was very complimentary. It was great. He loved our singing.
That was the first time we'd had such a nice things said by a professional in a studio at that level and it did us the world of good. For me personally, that was a massive boost.

Then, BANG, another shock, explains Kian. A sort while after the disastrous audition for Simon Cowell, Louis said to me, "Listen, Kian, I don't think Graham is right for the band either." 

I was like, "Jesus, no."

Louis explained his concerns and I asked if he was certain. He said he knew what the music bussiness wanted and that Graham didn't quite fir into that.

I was devastated. Graham was my old mate, we were really good friends. I was like, "Oh, Louis, don't be doing this, please." But at the end of the day, what could I do?

I did try to keep Graham in the band for as long as possible. It was very hard for me, that phase. We even put on a gig at the Sligo Arts Festival, videoed it and sent the tape to Louis to prove that Graham was good enough to be in the band. It was at my local community hall and I thought Graham was great.

I don't know whether Louis watched the video or not, but he hadn't changed his ming the next time I spoke to him.

Graham knew this was all going on, he knew what Louis had been saying, but it was still really hard.

Shane had been really upset telling Derek and he didn't want to do it again, so Louis agreed to make the call, which he did one night when Graham was round my house. Graham went upstairs to my little brother's box bedroom to take the call. Louis was very careful how he said it. He told him, "Graham, I think you should step back from this, I don't think you're right, I'm afraid, but I want you to be the tour manager."

That was nice touch and I was pleased that Graham could still be involved. I didn't actually know what a tour manager was; I was just please Graham was still around.

You have to take your hat off to Graham for his reaction to it all. Bear in mind we'd already supported the Backstreet Boys and Louis was one of the biggest pop managers on the planet. Graham knew there was a very good chance it was going to go big. And yet, despite all this, when Louis mentioned the tour manager's role, he was like, "Great, I'll have a crack at that." Brilliant reaction. I'd have said, "Stuff your fucking tour manager's job!" but Graham was bigger than that. Fair play to him.

The problem was, now we were only a four-piece again: Michael, me Mark and Shane.

Louis was already on it. He wanted to hold auditions for a fifth member.

I know this might sound really callous, but to a degree, we would have done almost anything Louis Walsh asked of us at this point. He was the man, the was the biggest boy band manager in Europe and here he was working with us. We were kids, we felt that something was happening and, don't forget, we'd all agreed that we would carry on, knowing that things might get difficult and there might be casualties. So we'd have done almost anything. 

Although I don't think, says Shane, I'd have worn shiny hot pants, to be fair with you. 

Chapter four: Larger than life

The phone rings.

"Hello, Shane, it's Mam. How are you?"

"Fine, Mam, thanks. Are you OK?"

"Good, thanks. Listen, I've been on the phone with Boyzone's manager, that Louis Walsh, and..."

"What?! Mam, go away, will ya?"

I thought she was joking. I hung up on her.

The phone rings again.

"Shane, listen, I've been on the phone with that Louis Walsh. I've been phoning for months trying to get hold of him and I just finally spoke to him about your band."

She wasn't joking.

It turned out that she had indeed spoken with Louis Walsh, manager of Boyzone and one of the most powerful men in the music business. Mam came from the same small village as him, Kiltimagh in County Mayo, and to her, there was no reason why she shouldn't phone this famous manager and tell him about her son's band. They didn't know each other personally, they'd never met even, but her family knew of his family, it was that kind of village, literally in the middle of nowhere. So she's just gone straight to the top of the food chain.

She'd rung for months and he hadn't answered - not surprising really, given that Boyzone were absolutely massive at the time. But eventually, one day, Louis just picked the phone up.

"Hello?"

Mam had introduced herself then had charmed her way through. "I can't believe you're on the phone, I've been trying for months..."

"Sorry, I'm away on business a lot. What can I do for you?"

"It's my son," explained Mam. "He's in this boy band called IOYOU."

"I know, I've heard of them," said Louis.

When my mum told me all this, you could have knocked me down with a feather. He'd seen us on Nationwide.

Mam explained all this to me then said, "You've got a meeting with him tomorrow night."

Jesus.

"A meeting with Louis Walsh?"

"Yes"

"As in Boyzone's fuc..." I nearly swore, "... manager."

"Yes, Shane."

"Are you after having me on?"

She wasn't.

Me and Kian went and met Louis Walsh, as in "Boyzone's-fucking-manager". I'd never even seen him before because, although he was well known in Ireland, he hadn't yet been on X Factor or the telly in general. I expected some great big manager with a ponytail, the sort of guy that, as a teenager, I'd imagined looked after Michael Jackson.

My mum had just asked if Louis would meet up with us and give us some advice, which he very kindly did. He said he wasn't looking to manage a new band because Boyzone were exploding all over the place and he was too busy with that. I gave him our CD, he looked at the cover and said that six lads in a boy band was too many.

We explained that we'd been offered a management contract by Mary and he asked if we'd taken legal advice and who from. It was great stuff - really good of him to lend us his ear and give us some direction. Then he gave us his phone number - Louis Walsh as in "Boyzone's-fucking-manager" 's phone number - and said to call if we needed any more advice.

A few days later, my phone rang. It was Louis.

"Hey, Shane, I've got an invite for you and one of the lads to Ronan Keating's 21st birthday party..."

At the time, aside from Bono, there was no bigger name in Irish music than Ronan Keating. So along with Michael, I went to Ronan's party. This was only two weeks after my mum had finally spoken to Louis on the phone. We met Ronan - he came in on a big Harley Davidson motorbike with his soon-to-be wife Yvonne on the back. Louis was there, too, obviously, so we also spoke to him again. 

After a while, I needed the toilet so I went to the gents and was amazed to see Ken Doherty, the snooker world champion, standing at the loo. I nervously stood next to him and was going about my business when I heard a voice say, "Hey, Ken, how you doing, man?" I looked across and Alan Shearer was standing there taking a piss.

We had a band meeting not long after, all six of us sitting around in my parents's café, which was our meeting spot. We were discussing what Louis Walsh might or might not do to help us. The main topic of conversation was that he didn't see a future for a boy band with six member. We all talked about it and agreed we couldn't turn down the chance of Louis Walsh being involved in some way, even if it was just to find us a good manager somewhere else. We just sensed Louis might be involved somehow and that it was too big an opportunity to miss. So we agreed, there and then, to just go for it. If one of us had to go, then so be it. We kind of all knew somebody would get cut - Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, Take That, Five, there were plenty of examples - and we were all happy with that decision.

Looking back, I think Louis genuinely didn't want to be involved in a boy band with six members, but I also think he was fishing to see how much we wanted it and whether we would be good to work with. Remember, he hadn't even seen us perform live at this stage.

By now we kinda knew that the contract we'd been offered by Mary McDonagh wasn't going to happen. At the same time, being in contact with Louis Walsh made us feel that we might only have one shot at it and we wanted it to be brilliant. So we ended up not signing the first contract and obviously fell out with those people over it. We didn't want to fall out with them, but they obviously weren't happy about it and, looking back, I totally understand that.

When we had meetings about Mary's contract, says Mark, I sort of sat in the corner and hoped that the majority would make the decision for me and that it would be the right choice. I didn't want to get into a fight because I've always hated confrontation. But when we said we didn't want to sign, that relationship was pretty much over.

It's a very difficult subject because I have an awful lot of love, respect and admiration for Mary. I always looked up to her and wanted her approval, but there was the situation with Louis Walsh developing and also we were not all happy with the contract.

That was a tricky time, because at such a young age it was the first real time we'd had to confront a situation like that, the first big, major, adult decision outside school or family life.

I sometimes think about and still feel bad for Mary and the other people, says Shane, because she was a good friend. I see her around town from time to time now and I go to productions of my cousin's back home. Sadly, I haven't talked to her in ten years, though, not a word. I have great respect for her and view her as a person who did a lot for me when I was younger - when it came to my performance, she helped me a lot.

What I will say is that, as Mark mentioned, this was the first time that the music business lunged into our cosy little Sligo life. Making the decision not to go with Mary and then working with Louis later, it was like, Jesus, this shit is cut-throat.

When we said we were sorry but we couldn't sign the contract with her, they were very sore about it for a long time, but it was just a decision we had to make. I had to make it for my life and my family and any future family. We weren't saying no to Mary to go instead with any old manager, it was Louis Walsh. I'd like to think they would have done the exact same thing if the tables were turned the other way around. He was probably the best pop manager in Europe at the time. We just couldn't turn down that chance. 

By the time Louis Walsh got involved, says Kian, I was ready to walk out of education, I was ready to give it up. I was "Let's go, go go!"

For Mark and Shane, it was a little trickier. They wanted it every bit as much as me, but they were good at school and they had their exams to consider. I was like, "Forget about exams!" I never had any interest in class, I wasn't into the studying and learning languages, all that. I went to school for the activities afterwards - the sports, the drama, the acting and the singing. All I wanted in life was to be on a stage, singing in a big band.

The phone rings.

"Is that your phone, Shane?"

We were all sitting in the pub, having a pint and a laugh.

We'd all only just got mobiles, so no one knew whose ringtone it was, and we were scraping around trying to find the right phone.

It was mine.

Hardly anyone knew our numbers yet and I could see it was a Dublin number and I thought, Who the fuck is this?

"Hello?"

"Hello, Shane, it's Louis Walsh. Listen, are you guys doing anything on Saturday night?"

"Ern, no, I don't think so, Louis. Why? What's happening?"

All the lads gathered around me when they heard me say his name.

"Well, how would you like to support the Backstreet Boys in three day's time?"

"What?!"

"For two nights."