CityLife

Boyzone back as a man-band

BACK ON THE ROAD: Boyzone

THE term “man band” may at first have been a dig at boy bands reforming in their 30s, but Stephen Gately happily embraces this notion of the mature pop pin-up.

“It’s so much better,” he says of Boyzone’s second lease of life after eight years apart. “There’s less hassle, less stress. All our fans have grown up, so you don’t have screaming girls running after you any more. It’s lot more laid-back, and I have to say I’ve never laughed so much as I do with the guys.”

After a short break to allow Ronan Keating to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for Comic Relief, the “boys” – all now in their 30s - will put the finishing touches to their first full album of new material for over ten years.

“We’ve got loads of songs,” says Gately. “It’s a new direction. We’re trying to find uptempo original songs. I don’t think there will be any covers on this album, possibly one.”

They are writing together and aiming to finish the album by August. But before then, they will have hit the road with a show bigger and better than anything they have done before.

“Last year’s was the biggest set we’ve ever performed on. Now the production’s a lot bigger, the medley is really big and fun and quite camp. And then we have little Eoghan Quigg with us,” says Gately.

“He’ll probably come and sing Picture Of You with us, like he did on X Factor. He’s good. I hope he does well with his solo career because he’s a really nice kid and he’s got a good voice.

“We’ll pull out all the stops on this tour, people will expect it to be better than last year’s and if it’s not people will be disappointed, and you can’t disappoint the fans, people who are paying good money to come and see you.”

Gately enthuses about the styling of the fivesome for the show, chatting vaguely about a “nautical look”.

The band have not exactly been conservative with their image-making since reforming. The last tour saw them trotting, topless on treadmills, like boxers in training, and Boyzone did the Full Monty in a photoshoot for Heat magazine... although they did leave their hats on, strategically placed to avoid any embarrassment.

It is now over 15 years since the fivesome were created through an advertisement and auditions staged by Louis Walsh, now of X Factor fame. They were widely regarded as an Irish answer to Take That, who had sprung to fame the previous year.

In one of TV’s most excruciating sequences, the just-picked members of Boyzone were wheeled on to Ireland’s The Late Late Show, dancing furiously for a bemused public.

Slice of TV gold

“We love it!” Gately now says of that slice of TV gold. “And we re-enacted it when we did a Christmas special on The Late Late Show in December. I still have the waistcoat I wore 15 years ago.

“It’s fun to laugh at yourself. You have to start somewhere. We had been together 24 hours. What else could you expect?”

I ask Gately what he would now say to that 17-year old version of himself if he could go back in time.

“I’d tell him not to break up in 2000,” he says quick as a flash.

Boyzone did indeed break up in 2000, After 15m record sales, and seven years in the public spotlight, Boyzone split up in 2000during which Gately had come out as gay, pre-empting what he feared may be a newspaper story to “out” him.

Keating went on to a successful solo career, Keith Duffy went into acting, appearing as barman Ciaran McCarthy in Coronation Street, Mikey Graham worked as a songwriter and producer and Shane Lynch as a racing car driver and contestant in reality TV shows The Games and Celebrity Love Island. Gately released a solo album and then went into musical theatre, appearing in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Godspell.

But the 32-year old singer did not take easily to life away from Boyzone. “I was clinically depressed,” he says. “I felt lost. You have all this admiration and life is fantastic and then all of a sudden it’s gone. I had my album out but I just felt really weird being on my own. I missed the guys.”

In coming back as a man band, Boyzone are again emulating Take That.

“We love Take That. Ronan’s been climbing Kilimanjaro with Gary (Barlow), because they’re friends. Mikey’s been friends with Gary for a long time as well. I love Take That and I love their music,” says Gately.

!I can’t stress how lucky we are to have a second opportunity. It’s a very difficult industry, even more now than it ever has been. I’m gobsmacked that people still want to hear us and the support is still out there.”
 

Boyzone play the M.E.N. Arena on Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20. £32.50. Call 0844 847 8000.