SMASH HITS/SEPTEMBER 19 2001

When you're asked out by two gorgeous blonds you just can't say no. We go looking for double trouble in Dublin with Kian and Nicky.

Filled with sleek black furniture and sharp-dressed drinkers, the Spy Bar is a gathering point for Dublin's hip and beautiful. It's normally heaving with - as one punter puts it - "the fittest girls in the city", and it's the perfect spot for a SH night out with two of Ireland's favourite boys, Kian and Nicky Westlife.

HANGIN' TOUGH
We find the boys in a corner of the relaxed VIP area. Laughing and messing with each other, they're clearly closer than two coats of paint - not always the case with band mates in pop. And in a hangout like the Spy Bar, with its cool clientele, they can chill out without worrying about being harassed. "We have to choose where we go carefully, because there are some places we should avoid," says Kian. "Rough places where people will pick on you just because you're in a boyband."

Kian knows the hazards more than most. It's only a matter of weeks since he traced punches with a couple of lads outside a chip shop in his hometown of Sligo. Singing in a successful band is, it seems, enough to earn you a smack from some people.

"I didn't press charges because I didn't want my younger brother to get a brick though his window at night when I'm away," he says. "At the end of the day, I'm still here and those lads are the ones who'll be sitting on the streets drinking cans of lager at three in the morning." He continues, smiling, "I gave as good as I got at the time and there were two of them - so that satisfied me. You saw the pictures of me with a black eye in the papers but I'd like to have seen the pictures of them."

It sometimes takes more than a smooth voice and a pretty smile to survive in pop. When having a quiet drink turns you into a target for abuse, you have to have an incredible level of self-control. No surprise, then, that the boys often take a bodyguard with them on nights out. "People get drunk and come over shouting, 'Can we sit with you lads?' or girls you've never met come on to you," explains Kian, while he mimes, gently fobbing off the advances of an imaginary groupie.

"It happened to me the other night," says Nicky. "I was in a restaurant having a drink with my ma and this drunk guy comes up to me saying, 'You're rubbish, there's loads more talented bands than you. Why don't you do dance music?' I just said ''Cos I can't dance', which I thought was really funny, but he got really offended. What do you do? In the end I said, 'Just move. I don't want to talk to you'. If they're really having a go, you want to smack them. But you can't - hit them first they'll sue you.

"I don't blame J for smacking the guy who was winding him up a while back," adds Kian, remembering J's arrest in Dublin. "We wouldn't have done it but maybe that's because we got a higher level of tolerance than him. But this guy was really slagging off Five and I can totally understand where he was coming from when he lashed out. He reached the point where he snapped."

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© 2001 Pami

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