I'm still recovering from the London celebrations this week as my new band
Westside kicked off their career in the UK with a major party.
We hired out the trendy Cafe de Paris for the super bash and it was jammed
with fans of Westside. I didn't see the likes of it in the early days of
Boyzone. There was many a venue we played around the country where there
were more of us on the stage than in the audience.
The atmosphere in the Cafe de Paris was amazing because it was packed with
real fans as well as the media from the UK an Ireland. For a while, it
looked like the girls were going to storm the stage to smother the new boy
wonders Nicky Byrne, Brian McFadden, Kian Egan, Shane Filan and Mark
Fehily.
Instead, they showered them with roses and blew kisses at them and you
should have seen the faces of the lads - they're still not used to all the
attention.
I am thrilled to be involved with Westside and I'm indebted to Boyzone
manager Louis Walsh who gave me the opportunity to co-manage the group.
Louis was there on Wednesday night and Keith Duffy joined us as well. I've
got a really good feeling about this band 'cause I think they have the
potential to go on and achieve even greater success that we have ourselves.
The boys certainly deserve to be huge and I'm involved with them at
management level. They are genuinely talented, have great voices and have
a really professional approach to their work. Louis and myself sat down
with them when the group was put together and we told them what lay ahead.
The one thing I stressed to them is that there is a lot of hard work
involved in being a pop performer. You can not imagine how much work is
involved. Boyzone didn't know what lay ahead when we started out. Nobody
prepared us for the late nights, early mornings, travelling and never
seeing your family and friends. Maybe we were better off not knowing.
But from working with Westside I can see that they have the right attitude.
They are willing to give up their lives for a few years and be totally
dedicated to making the group a success around the world. And that's what
it takes. DEDICATION. HARD WORK. TEAM SPIRIT. POSITIVE ATTITUDE.
It's also important to be nice to people. As I always say to the boys, "Be
nice to people on the way up because you're going to meet them on the way
down." But they are a very friendly bunch of guys anyway, so that's not a
problem.
As you know, Westside started out in Sligo as a band called IOU. They
teamed up with Louis Walsh who brought me in to work with them and we made
some changes. Kian, Mark and Shane from Sligo were joined by Nicky and
Brian from Dublin after a series of auditions. We now have a class group,
one of the finest you'll see on the pop scene around the world.
Everybody who came along to see them in London on Wednesday night was
raving about Westside. And I'm talking about the big chiefs from the record
company, the editor of Smash Hits and Live and Kicking Magazine and TV
bosses from all the big shows in the UK.
The lads performed several songs including Everybody Knows, Flying Without
Wings, and their new single, Swear It Again. They also impressed everyone
on the venue when they sang, unaccompanied, a Garth Brook song called If
Tomorrow Never Comes. People were just blown away by their stunning voices.
Westside are also working with a great record company RCA/BMG, the people
who launched Take That to superstardom.
I'm sure you'll join with me in wishing the lads all the best with their
first single, Swear It Again, which will be released on March 26th. I'm
confident it's going to be their first Number One hit.