From the phone call in the pub from Louis, saying he'd got us a slot supporting the Backstreet Boys, remembers Shane, to our first single, which was released in April 1999, it was just 13 months. The pace of it all was insane. And it was about to get much more insane...
Next thing we know, says Nicky, we're on a plane to Sweden to being recording our debut album. It was moving so fast. It seemed that even before the ink was dry on the record contract, the pace of our lives flipped to light-speed.
There was one more name change to come: we discovered that there were several overseas acts already using the name Westside, so we altered it once again, this time to Westlife. It was between this and West High, which I preferred, but all the other lads wanted Westlife.
We made our way to the Cheiron studio, all incredibly excited. All the big American pop bands recorded at that place in Sweden. The Backstreet Boys had been there a week before we flew out for the debut album sessions. Fans would circle around the reception and entrance to the studio and when we walked out they'd be like, "Who are you?!" But instead of laughing or taking offence, we would introduce ourselves and tell them we were Westlife, what we were doing and that we were going to be a big new boy band, and that's how we started building up our fanbase.
Other than that, I remember those first album sessions to be full of sickness. It was freezing cold in Stockholm, absolutely bitter, and in fact I got so sick I was eventually flown home.
Our first single was to be a song called "Swear It Again" and it was due for release in late April 1999. I remember that earlier Shane came back to the house we were all staying at in Dublin and excitedly played us this demo. It was a version of "Swear It Again" sung by session vocalist. I think it was maybe even Mac's co-writer, Wayne Hector, singing. I distinctly remember thinking, Wow, this is a great song. It's a big chorus, great harmonies. This is exactly what we want to be recording.
We shot the video for "Swear It Again", explains Kian, and Cowell hated it, he tore it to pieces. He'd spent £150,000 on it and he just threw it in the bin. We reshot the video completely and did five or six different photo shoots with five or six different stylists. It was really a case of no expense spared by Simon and the label.
Between them, Simon and Louis got us on all the front covers of magazines before we'd even released a single. We were the first band to ever be on the front cover of Smash Hits without releasing a single.
In the lead-up to the single's release, remembers Shane, we were hearing good things from the record company. Radio was loving it, the record shops were ordering good numbers of copies... It sounded good to us, but to be fair, we had never done it before, so we actually had no idea what it all meant.
As the week of release approached, they kept saying, "Lads, it's going to be a big song." They told us that all the signs were there for a Top Ten. Top Ten! We thought this was brilliant. We'd have taken number 10 any day of the week.
Then it came to the actual week of release and we were all sitting in Peter Waterman's studio doing more work on the debut album.
The phone rang and it was Louis with the update.
"Lads, you're going to be number 1."
It was incredible. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. We were jumping up and down, hugging each other, shouting, just hysterically happy. Pete Waterman came down with a bottle of champagne. It was mental. When we finally heard the official charts and we were indeed on top, I know this sounds silly now, but I remember looking out of the window and pointing at all the streets, going, "We're number 1 there, there... and there... and there!"
It got better. "Swear It Again" stayed at number 1 for the next week too.
We got to do Top of the Pops two weeks running, which was brilliant, a dream came true. It was a fairytale. I don't want to sound clichéd, but it literally was the stuff dreams are made of.
Within just over 12 months, our lives had been totally turned upside down. We'd wanted to be a famous band, we'd wanted a record deal, we'd wanted to be number 1, and now it had all happened. And it had happened so fast. From being six in the band to being five, to meeting Simon, signing the record deal, officially becoming Westlife, recording a single and the hitting number 1, it was a year and two weeks - as quick as that.
Unbelievable.
The single didn't stop there either - it was a massive hit all around the world.
Suddenly, everyone was talking about Westlife.
From that moment, it was pure insanity, says Kian. We were in Tenerife a week later shooting a video for our second single, "If I Let You Go", and then we came back and released that and it went to number 1 as well. Then we went to Mexico to shoot another video and in between all this we were doing all the TV shows, promo in and out of Europe and the Far East, and flying everywhere, just go, go, go, go, go!
That opening single started a record-breaking run of singles going in at number 1. It stretched from April 1999 to November 2000, when our seventh single, "My Love", hit the top spot. It was only with our eightg single, "What Makes A Man", and certain kids' TV character, that we failed to enter straight at the top. But we'll come to that.
For now, it was sheer pandemonium. After our second single had gone straight to the top, next up came one of Westlife's biggest ever song: "Flying Without Wings". There's a story to tell behinf that massive track.
We've always enjoyed a great relationship with Simon Cowell, explains Nicky. Back in the day, before X Factor and American Idol, before he became a huge celebrity, he was an A&R man at a record company working 9 to 5 (and then some). At that point, when he was intimately involved, there was no one to touch him. He'd call you up on your mobile out of the blue and say, "Nicky, I just didn't like what you were wearing on GMTV today, have a word with the boys." He'd also call the other lads at times and say stuff like "You looked tired, you looked overweight, you seemed uninterested" and so on. That might sound negative, but what he was very clever at was making you all feel special, because he'd comment on your performance or appearance in a way that was constructive. It was more of an observation than a criticism. We knew he was trying to get the band to sound its best, look its best, perform its best.
You'd sit in a meeting and I noticed after a while that during the course of the discussion he'd make direct eye contact with every single one of us, or maybe give a nod, a look or a friendly wink to each of us. No one felt left out. In complete contrast to the public perception of "Nasty" Simon Cowell, he's an expert at making people feel special.
He was the character with the high waist-band and low-necked T-shirt, says Kian. You know, "Darling, look..." We used to rip the piss out of him, we'd sit in meetings and just be like, "Love the shoes, Simon. Love the trousers. D'ya want to pull them up a wee bit higher?" But do you know what? He's not wrong very often. If you're like me, you'll sit there and watch these talent shows where he's knocking people, and if the truth is known, it's what most of us are thinking.
In terms of being your A&R man, which is, after all, what our relationship with him is, I think he gets what people like. That's the only way I can describe it: he gets what people like. We wanted to learn and I think he taught us well. Without him, we wouldn't be Westlife and we wouldn't be where we are today, in my opinion.
In those very early days, and I'm very honest here, we were, "What do you want us to do? Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir." That sounds terrible, but actually we liked what they were suggesting. We weren't puppets who did stuff against our wishes, we wanted to do these things, so it was a happy partnership. Later, we wanted more involvement in all sorts of decisions, of course. I guess that's natural, but at first that's how it was.
Simon is a perfectionist. If he doesn't like a video when he sees the final clip, he'll just say, "Reshoot it," almost regardless of cost, just as he did with "Swear It Again" and has done many times since. One time we did a big awards ceremony and he'd asked one of the stylists not to glisten us up with loads of glitters and stuff. He did, so Simon sacked him the next day.
He knows how to get people excited and interested and involved and to make an idea feel like their baby. He has the amazing power to sit in that office and make you feel like you are the man, and then you walk out of there and do it the way he wants it done! He is a clever, clever man. We've gone into so many meetings with Simon saying, "Right, we can't let him do that to us again," and 30 minutes later, he's won us round yet again.
Back then, we knew that he was a big hitter, says Shane. There's a famous music business story that shows the lengths Simon will go to for his artists. As we were starting our careers, his boy band Five were very big news. Simon had heard of a song written by the pop songwriting legend Max Martin, who has penned tracks for the likes of the Backstreet Boys, N*Sync and latterly Kelly Clarkson. It was a track called "Hit Me Baby, One More Time". We all know this now, of course, as Britney Spears's breakthrough tune, a very famous pop song. But back then, Simon wanted it for Five. The rumour went that he was so keen to get it that he even offered Max Martin a Ferrari.
Max didn't take the gift and didn't give Five the song, but it shows you how passionate Cowell is about getting the right songs for his artists. We knew that he knew he would get us the songs we needed to make it big.
And when he heard "Flying Without Wings", he had to have it for Westlife.
So he did, simple as that.
We first heard the song in demo form in a meeting with Simon, Sonny, Steve Mac, his co-writer Wayne Hector and Louis. It was obviously a great tune, even in that early form. We'd heard that several singers were after it, including, I believe, Stephen Gateley. Steve Mac knew the potential Westlife had at this point - we had become massive within just a few months of 1999, so he could see the sense in giving it to us. It must have felt good for him to sit there with that monster song up his sleeve.
Simon made all sorts of fantastic offers to secure this song. I think it was part of the package that Steve and Wayne were made executive producers on the album alongside himself, not least because so many of their tunes were on the album. Thankfully, they chose to let us record it and in doing so gave us one of our signature tracks.
In the early days, that song presented me with a little bit of an issue, recalls Mark. There's a part in "Flying Without Wings" which everyone calls "the high note". It's not actually that high, but everyone goes on about it. For the longest time when we were singing it live, I'd be like, Oh, here comes that bastard note, I'm going to have to try and hit it and everyone is waiting to see if I can do it live and... here we go, here we go, here it comes...
It was becoming a real issue, even though I knew I could hit this note in my sleep. Eventually, Shane sat me down to talk about it. He just said, "Stop thinking about it, just shout it out and who cares if you fluff it, whatever". He was so confident about it, so practical, it was brilliant advice. It was only after I stopped worrying about that note that I was able to sing it properly on stage.
It's probably fair to say I sometimes suffer lows more than I enjoy highs. When something good happens, I think, Great, and move on quite quickly, but if something bad happens, I tend to dwell on it. I don't actually think that's a bad thing, though, especially when you're talking about singing, because it drives you on to be good and keeps you on your toes.
Shane: "Flying Without Wings" sold 350,000 copies on its way to number 1 and was a massive international hit. It was on the radio everywhere. A sign of how it is now seen as a pop classic is that when we released a live version in 2004, it became the first ever download number 1 nearly five years after its original release. Perhaps most importantly for us at the time, "Flying Without Wings" was a definite turning-point in our career. It took us from being seen as a pop boy band to a vocal group.
* * *
Before our next single, we released our self-titled debut album in November 1999, Shane continues. By this point, Ronan had stepped away from the management side of Westlife. He was a great adviser and a good friend, but he was happy to move away now we'd become a big concern.
One of the biggest misconceptions about Westlife, explains Nicky, is that we are a covers band. Our first three singles were originals. The first cover we did was the double A-side "I have a Dream/Seasons in The Sun" in December 1999. It felt right to do a cover at that point, because Christmas is that type of market. That release went straight in at number 1 again, the fourth time we'd done this. Plus, it kept selling for several weeks after Christmas, making it the last number 1 of the old century and the first number 1 of the new millennium.
Just before this, we were nominated for Record of the Year for "Flying Without Wings"... We couldn't believe it.
We were in ridiculously high-profile company: Ronan Keating had "When You Say Nothing At All", and Shania Twain was also nominated; it was mad. We thought we had no chance of winning the thing, we were just naïve and very excited to have been nominated. To be totally honest, we assumed we were there to make up the numbers and have a piss-up.
As long as we don't come last...
We performed the song and Simon Cowell and Sonny Takhar were really on the ball, as always. They put us on stage with a gospel choir and a beautiful set, no expense spared.
Then, when everyone had perfomed, the vote counting began in the various regional centres, much like on Eurovision. At first, Ronan and Britney were streets ahead and we were down in fifth, still happy to be there, still happy to be having a piss-up. Just happy to get some free drinks, really ... As long as we don't come last...
Then we went to Northern Ireland and we cleaned up.
Then we went around parts of the north and were cleaning up again. Suddenly, we weren't fifth, we were fourth, then third, then second. Manchester loved us, so did Newcastle, and we were drinking free beer. It was great craic.
Then, bang, we were in first place and it was all over.
We'd won Record of the Year.
We've won it a further three times since.
I know Ronan well now and I still take the piss out of him about this first win, but to be fair, he must have been gutted.
We couldn't believe it. Brian picked Denise van Outenn up on his shoulders and spun her around when she handed us the trophy. I was made up. I love winning trophies. I'm very competitive - it doesn't matter if it's a game of tiddly winks or an arm wrestle or football or PlayStation. The lads will tell you. I remember winning Best Goalkeeper at quite an important European tournament for the Home Farm team in Dublin, and I have a picture of me and my parents at Dublin airport, hugging and holding on to the trophy like it was the World Cup. So to win something like this with Westlife was amazing.
Brian gave me the trophy, a lovely gold statue of a woman holding a glass record aloft above her slender shoulders.
We had to sing the song again,, then as soon as we'd finished, I jumped off the stage and ran over to Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, who'd written the winning song.
I threw my arms around Steve and smashed the trophy in half across his back.
I'd only had the thing five minutes.
When we went home that first Christmas, we realized our lives had changed forever, continues Nicky. I walked home, went to the local pub for Christmas Eve, and bang, it literally hit me. Let me explain.
I had this thing with my mates which dated back to when I was 16, coming back from Leeds and wanting to makde sure I saw them all at Christmas time. We'd all go for a pint at the local and have a laugh. This Christmas Eve, I noticed straight away I was getting a lof ot attention.
I was with the lads in the International Bar in Dublin and we were actually starting to think about going home when this girl came up to me. She had a tattoo on her arm, but it was one of those that looked very DIY, home-made even. It was pretty rough. Some of the letters looked blurred, a bit scribbled out, so one of my mates, just being cheeky, having a laugh and said, "Did you not like your tattoo? Why don't you get some Tippex?" This girl took offence, but instead of answering back to my mate, she turned around and slapped me!
In the early days, we used to get a fair bit of verbal too. Blokes on the street would shout "Queers!", all that sort of crap. At first, you're a bit taken aback, but you get used to it and, to be fair, it doesn't happen anymore.
One time we were doing a photo shoot on an open-topped bus in Dublin and it was attracting quite a bit of attention. We stopped at some traffic lights and a white Transit van pulled up alongside us. The bloke driving it looked up at us, all dressed immaculately for the shoot, shouted, "Westlife! Arse bandits!" and drove off.
We fell about laughing. Not a lot you can say to that, is there?!
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