It's not every day that a guy gets to hang out with one of world's most stunning women
Hi Bryan here,
IT'S time to keep our fingers crossed again for another Number One as we team up with female superstar Mariah Carey on our latest single, Against All Odds.
The song, which was originally a Number One for Phil Collins, finally hits the shops next weekend and it's been a long wait as we recorded it several weeks ago.
I'll never forget the experience of hanging out with Mariah on the beautiful isle of Capri. She had a magnificent luxury boat there and we were really in awe of her when we first arrived and she welcomed us on board.
But although she's such a major star, Mariah couldn't have been nicer. She made us feel totally at ease and we had a great laugh with her. The fact that she's so beautiful was an added bonus.
Capri is a stunning place and Mark and myself were determined to see every inch of it. So we hired two mopeds and headed off on a sight-seeing tour by ourselves. It was fantastic fun with the sun shining and the wind blowing in our faces. The weather was so good we wore T-shirts.
We went up little paths and stopped on hills to admire the views. It was a real paradise. I'll definitely go back there on a holiday whenever I get the chance.
MTV Awards
We had been in the middle of a busy American schedule when the Mariah video came up but we didn't have to think twice about dropping everything and flying off to shoot it.
After all, it's not every day a guy gets the chance to hang out with one of the most beautiful women in the world. I had to pinch myself to actually believe that we were singing with Mariah Carey. A couple of years ago if anyone had told me this would happen I'd have laughed in their face.
Mariah was in great form and we laughed our way through the video. Of course her mother is Irish so she felt that we had a lot in common and we talked quite a bit about home and what it was like growing up in Ireland.
Mariah told us how she brought over her mother during the MTV Awards to show her the country. She flew in a few days before the event last November and took her to see several cities as well as the countryside.
"My mother really loved it there," Mariah told me. Who knows, maybe one day Mariah will come and live there herself.
Dream
I guess Mariah has fallen in love with Westlife as well because originally she had recorded Against All Odds herself for her Rainbow album. But after meeting us in Los Angeles and hearing us sing, she suggested that we should record the song together.
We all loved the idea of recording with Mariah Carey, but it is a real dream come true for Mark, as he told you in the Westlife column some weeks ago. He must be the biggest Mariah fan ever, so to get the chance to sing with her has left him in heaven.
Mariah paid us a real compliment by telling the media that our singing took the song to a whole new level.
That's saying a lot coming from Mariah who made chart history last year when her single, Heartbreaker, became her 14th US number one hit single. It also broke the record set by the Beatles for the amount of weeks spent at the top of the charts.
Top spot
Mariah was also the best selling female artist of the 90s with a staggering total of 128 million.
Now we're hoping that we'll both continue to make history with Against All Odds as it will be Westlife's sixth number one if it hits the top spot.