Westlife, but not as we know it!

How did Westlife become the worldwide phenomenon they are today? How did five teenagers – three from Sligo Town and two from Dublin – arrive seemingly from nowhere to conquer the teen market and become one of the best-selling acts of all time?

Despite constant media coverage of the individual lives of the members of the band, relatively little is known of their early days. Now, for the first time the full story of how the nascent Westlife emerged from the theatre and music scene in Sligo has been told. In his book Karaoke No More – The Real Story Of The Beginnings Of Westlife, Padraig Meehan provides a fascinating insight into the fledging boy band in the context of mid-1990s Sligo.
Meehan, a former member of 1980s Sligo outfit Those Nervous Animals was invited to produce some songs for IOYOU, an early incarnation of the band and he witnessed their initial rise on the local scene. He describes in impressive detail how the original line-up first came together through local choreographer/producer Mary McDonagh who encouraged them to start a boyband. What inspired him to write his account?
“I just thought it would make for a great story,” he says. “If you made it up it would be a great yarn but it just happens to be true. It wasn’t what I expected to be writing to be honest. I’ve done a couple of radio plays in the past which were broadcast on RTE but I started writing the book and it came together quite quickly.”
He recalls his first meeting with the band in the summer of 1996 when he got a call from Mary McDonagh to check out her new charges.
“I went up to her studio to have a look at this boyband she was putting together,” he explains. “Mary was great, she regularly put on shows around town and she’d been involved in a school version of Grease which some of the guys were in. They did a couple of numbers – Backstreet Boys stuff which was popular at the time. They were pretty good, full of nervous energy and a lot more edgy and ballsy than people might think now. I remember being struck by how much effort they were putting into the dance routines. But to be honest if somebody said to me they’d be huge in a few years I would have laughed. I thought the boyband thing was on the way out.”
Meehan worked on recording demos with the band (including a version of The Who’s ‘Pinball Wizard’) and witnessed their growing popularity on the local scene. Their subsequent success he says had a lot to do with them being in the right place at the right time.
“A lot of things fell into place for them, there’s no doubt about that,” he says. “If they’d come to Mary McDonagh at a different time she mightn’t have had the time to work with them. Then they went to Louis Walsh at the right time just when Boyzone were beginning to tail off and he was looking for someone else to manage. They were talented obviously but timing had a lot to do with their success.”
The book is as much a history of pop and rock music in Sligo town since the early 1970s as it is the tale of Westlife. He also goes into detail on his own career with Those Nervous Animals and their experiences with major record companies.
“I don’t know who the book is aimed at to be honest,” he says. “Maybe it’s a cautionary tale about the music business. It shows that there’s a downside to it and that it can be a tough life. But I think it was a worthwhile exercise and I’m glad I did it.”

Karaoke No More – The Real Story Of The Beginnings Of Westlife by Padraig Meehan is published by Brandon Books