It all started back in May 1997 in a small town called Sligo in the North West of Ireland. Shane Filan, Kian Egan and Mark Feehily were appearing in a production of Grease in their local theatre. They got together with some of the other guys from the cast and formed a band called IOU. The first place that they played in was Schooners night club which is on the high street in Sligo, next to the Ark bar pub.
They cut a couple of hundred CD's which they sold via local record shops. Then they got big break when Louis Walsh saw them perform on a local TV News Show. He then managed to get them the job of supporting the Backstreet Boys when they performed in Dublin.
After this, Ronan entered the picture. He and Louis saw that the band had potential, providing that there was a band line-up change. As with a lot of bands who have formed themselves, there will be members who don't always fit in with the direction of things. So, two of the members of IOU were dropped and auditions were held for two new singers. This is where Nicky and Bryan came in. They both passed and were now part of the band too. Incidentally, these two had know each other for some years.
The band changed their name from IOU to Westside because that was where they were from. Unfortunately, they had to change it yet again some time later because an American band with the same name threatened legal action at a crucial point in the bands launch programme. "It was fortunate that the name changed before our first single was released", says Nicky, "It would have been disastrous if it had happened after the single had come out". In the end, they decided to change their name to Westlife.
Their first single was called Swear It Again and in the UK it went straight in at number one. It also went gold, selling more than 400,000 copies. With this classic ballad, Westlife had arrived and had succeeded in conquering the charts when there was some tough competition around.
(Text taken from Star Shots - an independant publication - 1999)
When asked how he would like Westlife's career to develop over the next couple of years, this is what he said:
"Well, obviously I'd like them to be the biggest band in the world! It's taken a lot of hard work and hopefully they'll keep their feet on the ground, but I think there's a lot of potential there!"