Ryan Confidential Transcript (Part 2)

Here's the second part of the Gerry Ryan interview. In this part, the lads talk about Louis, breaking up, and their tendency to record covers.

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Nicky: We’ve grown up with Louis, we’ve become…

Gerry Ryan: But you control Louis, he doesn’t control you

Nicky: Well no, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, no. I think, ehm…

Kian: He has a lot of control

Nicky: I think, I think, we’re… It’s almost like he’s a…

GR: Okay, can I just say something? I don’t believe that. I believe you call the shots.

Nicky: No, well then… you’re not right there, Gerry, you’re not… I think it’s ehm…

Mark: Together. It’s like he’s a fifth member, or…

Nicky: That’s what I’m saying, he’s like a fifth member of the band

Mark: He’s got as much input as any of us, as anyone…

Kian: If something doesn’t happen that Louis wants to happen…

Shane: Really wants to happen

Kian: …really wants to happen, he will make it happen. And he will make it happen by constantly badgering us, to the extent…

Shane: Badgering you. And then you badgering us.

Kian: …badgering me, and then badgering all of them…

GR: So him first (points to Kian)

Kian: Badgering me and then I badger the others.

Nicky: What he has with us that he said he didn’t have with Boyzone, which we’ll never know obviously, we weren’t there. We’ll have it out with Louis. D’ya know what I mean? We have the relationship with Louis where if he’s been… if we feel he’s been a little bit too harsh or whatever, you’ll say it to him. And he’ll give us just as much of a bollocking as we’ll… as we’ll give him. And every single one of us sitting at this table have sworn, shouted and… y’know, fallen out with him, might not have spoken to him for a week or two, but what the good thing about us is you don’t read about that. Louis doesn’t say those things and we don’t say those things.

Shane: I honestly don’t know what it is but I think he has a genuine love for Westlife, I think… I think he has a genuine respect for each of us individually for different reasons. Honestly, I think… I dunno

GR: (shakes head)

Nicky: Well what do you think it is?

GR: I’ll tell you what it is. You’re in charge, you’re on top, you’re more mature than anybody else he’s every worked with, you’re making money, he won’t go round with you.

Kian: Maybe.

Nicky: I don’t necessarily agree with that. If Louis wants to… to really get to us, he knows how to do it.

Kian: And he won’t be shy about it.

Mark: And I think maybe other people may have let him do it, but he knows also we… we wouldn’t let him away with doing that.

Kian: I also think that the biggest…

GR: Did you hear that? ‘We wouldn’t let him away with doing that’.

Shane: No but it’s true, though

Mark: No but if he said something we wouldn’t…

GR: Isn’t that what you just said?

Mark: No but he wouldn’t let us away with it as well. It’s like he’s the…

GR: No but all I’m saying is that I think you’re in charge of your own destiny.

Nicky: I think we’re more in charge than probably the other artists he said those things about, maybe. But he won’t say it about us. He might say it about us when we’re finished. But then we’ll say things back and…

GR: When you’re finished…

Kian: Well everyone goes ‘when are you breaking up’, well I mean I don’t ever see Westlife breaking up.

Nicky: We’re breaking up on the 22nd of December…

Shane: We’ll always be a member of Westlife. As in… we’ll always… we’ll never say… we’ll never have that press conference.

Kian: We’ll never say it’s over.

Shane: It’s over. We might take two years out or three years out sometime but… we’ll probably always make another album until we… just don’t make one anymore. People are still waiting for a very long time.

Kian: We will get to a point in our lives where we will turn around to each other, whether it’s public or not, we’ll turn around to each other and say ‘lads, is that it? Are we gonna make another album, are we gonna make another thing’, and it’ll get to a point where everybody goes ‘nah, we should let it go now, lads’

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Nicky: Everytime we go to make an album we always want to make studio songs, you know, original songs. That’s the first thing. First and foremost.

GR: Why, though?

Nicky: Well…

GR: And this is an argument that lots of websites have. I want more original songs from them. I want more original songs and one or two covers.

Nicky: You know, we don’t have the luxury of writing our songs.

GR: Do you suffer from not doing that?

Shane: Not at all, not at all. We haven’t, at all. It’s… that’s one thing that’s…

Nicky: I think what it does do, not that we care about this, by the way, I suppose an element of us deep down inside of us cares. But it would stop you from… being recognised and winning certain award shows.

Shane: It’s not that we have to do it, it’s just that every now and then we’d like to do it. We’d like to have a song that nobody else has done before, and literally that’s the only reason. Just for our own sake. Just for us to feel like this is the first song… that this is the first time anyone in the world is gonna hear this song, and it’s gonna be from Westlife.

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Stay tuned! Tomorrow: Mark talks about coming out.