About A Boy
He was the cheeky chappy in Boyzone, the cheery one with the boy next door personality. Then the band broke up and he didn’t know what to do with his life. So Keith Duffy did what nobody expected: he became a well-regarded actor and soap star. As he prepares to make his debut with the acclaimed Druid Theatre company, he speaks frankly about his quest for meaning in life, the controversial break-up of Boyzone in 2000, their successful reunion and Stephen Gately’s tragic death.
Olaf Tyaransen, 16 Nov 2011
As coincidence would have it, Hot Press’ interview with Boyzone star and actor Keith Duffy happens the very same day that Westlife announce that they’re breaking up. Relaxing on a couch in a luxury suite in the Westbury Hotel, the immaculately turned-out 37-year-old Dubliner denies having any advance knowledge of the split.
“I’d genuinely no idea,” he says, with an indifferent shrug. “But to be honest if you look at any boy band, or going back to the fuckin’ Sex Pistols or The Beatles or anybody, they usually run out after about six or seven years. Westlife have done 14 years. I thought they’d have broken up a few years ago and had a break for a few years and come back. The fact that they’ve maintained it, I take my hat off to them because it’s not easy.”
Having joined Boyzone aged 19, Duffy certainly knows what he’s talking about. “I’ve lived that life, man,” he explains. “It gets so tiring. You can burn the candle at both ends when you’re concert touring. You’ve all day to recuperate. You can lie in bed, go to a sauna, get in a jacuzzi, get yourself ready, go on stage, and then go on the piss again. But promotional touring is different because you’re up early doing the live radio shows at six in the morning. Then you’re doing photoshoots and magazine interviews, live TV in the afternoon. You might even be on midnight radio that night.
“Eventually, you don’t know what country you’re in. You can’t see the wood for the trees,” he continues. “You get tired, and when you’re tired you make bad judgements. You take things for granted, you don’t appreciate the success you have. And you can start being unprofessional. To go through 14 years of that and still manage to keep it successful and sell albums, they’ve done a phenomenal job. But you have to ask yourself as well – they’re breaking up yet they release the dates of when their new album is coming out – November 19 – and they released the dates of the tour next year. That’s only going to help the sales, isn’t it?”
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