It all started in Sligo
- a little town in the north west of Ireland.
Three lads, Shane Filan,
Kian Egan and Mark Feehily, were in a local play
- Grease. They played the
parts of Danny (Shane), Kenickie (Kian) and
Vince Fontain (Mark) with
great success. This was in December 1996.
One night, at a party, the
three friends were having a sing-along, when
someone suggested that
they should take it a bit further and start a band.
After graduation, in the
summer of 1997, the lads started their own band with
three other guys, Graham,
Michael and Derrick, called IOYOU.
IOYOU soon became popular
among the locals and the band got to
make their own single.
It was a song that Shane and Mark wrote called
"Together Girl Forever".
To cut a long story short...Shane's
mum Mae Filan got in touch with
Louis Walsh, Boyzone's
manager, and he agreed to manage the lads.
But in order to get a record
deal, some rather drastic changes had to be
made. Three of the band's
members were forced to leave the band (and
their dreams...) and auditions
took place to find two new members to fill
the vacancies. Nicky Byrne
and Bryan McFadden, both from Dublin,
joined the band and the
name changed to Westside.
A namechange later the band
was called Westlife, and Ronan Keating
was now the band's co-manager.
The first single "Swear It Again" was a given
success and immidiately
made it to number one in the charts in Ireland and the UK,
as well as the rest of
Europe. Now the lads faces were on the cover of every magazine.
The next two singles "If
I Let You Go" and "Flying Without Wings" also
went straight to the top
in the charts, making the lads the only boyband to have
their first three singles
top the charts in Ireland and the UK.
Now the brilliant debut
album "Westlife" is here and the success is a known
fact! Three young, talanted
lads from a little town called Sligo, in the north
west of Ireland, and two
very special lads from Dublin have made it big!
Westlife! Live it!
Mark, Derrick, Kian, Graham, Michael and Shane
Bryan, Mark, Nicky, Shane
and Kian