Musik Week Magazine

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Ronan Keating: 10 years of excellence

Ronan Keating has made the transition from Boyzone to a successful solo artist and, in the process, won an Ivor Novello award, performed alongside his heroes Pavarotti and Sir Elton and penned a US country number one. Selling more than 33m records over the past 10 years is a feat few achieve, writes Hamish Champ

For some of the industry's older hands, 10 years in the business may seem like little more than the blink of an eye. After all, it used to take that length of time for some bands merely to claw their way into the public's consciousness.

But for the frontman of a boy band, who exploded onto the scene with hit after hit, and has since gone on to do the same with his solo career, a decade of success is no mean feat. Such is the lot of Ronan Keating.

The combined record sales of the boy from the wrong side of the Liffey River in Dublin - albums and singles, Boyzone and solo material - amount to 33m worldwide. His solo hit and number one single, Life Is A Rollercoaster, sold more than 400,000 copies in one week in 2000, no small achievement at a time when single sales were heading south at a rate of knots.

Career highlights for Keating over the past 10 years have included Boyzone's Smash Hits' Awards, group and solo appearances on Top Of The Pops - an early dream for the wannabe pop icon - singing alongside Pavarotti at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and performing Your Song with Elton John at Madison Square Gardens in New York. And then there was the Ivor Novello Award for Picture Of You and the BMI gong for The Long Goodbye.

Now a family man with two children, Keating has entered a new phase of his solo career, because despite his previous success during five years as a solo artist, to some observers Keating is only now truly coming into his own as a creative force. He has developed into a successful songwriter as well as a singer, penning The Long Goodbye, a number one country hit in the US for Brooks & Dunn, while his US exposure continues with his duet with LeAnn Rimes, Last Thing On My Mind. He is always on the lookout for new styles and fresh approaches to his work.

Indeed, his international appeal continues unabated. Keating has retained the support of markets that had previously lapped up Boyzone's material, including Germany, Scandinavia, Australasia and the Far East, while his commitment to such overseas markets is illustrated by a heavy international promotion schedule that will be undertaken to lift the forthcoming Polydor-issued 10 Years Of Hits retrospective which features, among other material from his solo career and hits with Boyzone, a re-recording of Father & Son with Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.

In the beginning

It is all a very long way from the teenage kid from Dublin who, in the early Nineties, auditioned for an Irish version of Take That being put together by then-manager Louis Walsh.

The new group found considerable success in their homeland, and a string of promotional appearances were followed by a sold-out nationwide tour. Once Ireland had been conquered, the group's - and Walsh's - eyes turned to the nearest big market: the UK.

Sam Wright, then head of Polydor UK's TV promo department - and now in charge of SeeSaw PR, which oversees Keating's solo TV appearances - first met Ronan and the other lads from Boyzone when they were just another group to work on. "I met them in Deal's restaurant in Hammersmith Broadway before Love Me For A Reason came out, exactly 10 years ago."

They were quite grown up "for such young boys", says Wright. "Ronan was 17 then. When you're told that you're going to meet five 17- and 18- year-olds who you're going to be working with, you do have a bit of an internal groan, but they were really keen. They were having a hit in Ireland at that time - they'd been to London probably twice then and they were just charming. Ronan was the silent type and, at that point, Boyzone were just a group you were meeting who had a record coming out."

But the blonde one had something different about him. What made him stand out was that he was not so much a "rabbit caught in the headlights" as the others, Wright says. "He would always turn up first and, when the others were really knackered or losing the plot, he would still find it in him to come out with the right thing or stay that extra hour longer," she adds.

Putting in the extra time has always been Keating's approach, observers say. Ask anyone about Ronan and they will commend his work ethic. Indeed, it almost becomes a mantra. For the cynical it might appear a publicity ploy, but the basis of his professionalism appears to be the simple fact that he recognises that treating the media and the public well brings its rewards in time.

Admitting to a degree of bias, Keating's manager, Mark Plunkett, says such an attitude counts for a lot. "He's never been afraid of hard work. We come across a lot of artists when we travel and I don't think anyone has as good a reputation as Ronan. When it comes to every performance, every TV appearance, every interview, he treats people with the respect he wants to get back from them."

Getting the image and the message across is crucial and here too observers note that Keating is up to the mark. "He wants to be successful and he's prepared to put the work in and to make it happen," says Stuart Bell, head of press at The Outside Organisation. "From a PR's point of view, he's a good client because he listens to what you have to say. He's open to ideas and willing to listen and take risks. There are many sides to his personality; he's literate, he's into music, he likes cars, motorbikes, he likes sports. So there are lots of avenues down which we can go with him. Something like former Jack magazine with a driving feature, for example, through to doing something for Marie Claire, which is more his audience. With Ronan there are lots of different angles to work with."

With Boyzone the scope was clearly enormous, says then-A&R man and now Polydor UK joint managing director Colin Barlow. "After that we really just built them into a worldwide phenomena. Ronan's appeal during the Boyzone years was a unique style on the part of their ever-increasing frontman, according to Barlow. "In Ronan they had an iconic pop star who you could build and groom. He had a more organic, earthy voice which gave the thing more appeal. Certainly when he did ballads there was an earnestness to it, there was something about his voice that made it sound believable, less manufactured than some of the other records that were made in the boy band era." The real turning point, says Barlow, was Baby Can I Hold You Tonight. "That was a record that people other than pure pop fans could like. You heard on that where Ronan could go. And it was also the first time they worked with Steve Lipson."

Building on the voice

Steve Mac, long-time Boyzone and Ronan Keating producer, also believes the secret of the singer's success has been the way his voice sounds, both live and on record. "One of the reasons I'll keep going back and working with him is he has something that seems quite rare nowadays, which is character. His is a unique voice. I work with a lot of singers and the majority of them come in and do an impression of Ronan Keating, which says a lot. Some of the biggest voices, Sting, Bryan Adams, whoever, they don't necessarily sing every song in tune but they don't have to; their voices have a unique sound to them and nobody else sounds like it. As soon as Ronan starts singing you know who the vocalist is."

When it came to performing, Keating also sang live from day one. Well, almost. As Mark Plunkett explains, the job of tour managing a boy band was a new experience for him. "I played in a band called The Little Angels, who were signed to Polydor, and we'd do gigs with a load of gear and equipment, play, come off and get the money. I'd been offered the job of tour managing Boyzone and at the first gig I did with them, in a club in Reading, someone put a DAT in my hand and said just press play'. Then they mimed along to a couple of songs and we got paid pounds 10,000. I couldn't believe it.

"But from very early on I turned the mics on and it was very obvious to me that Ronan could sing," Plunkett adds. "I pushed him to sing live from the start, and at a time when there were a lot of boy bands and a lot of negativity surrounding boy bands, rightly or wrongly, people realised from a very early stage that Ronan could indeed sing. Every single TV show he did and every single live show he did, he sang live. That showed that he had something and stood him in good stead when he was doing stuff like Top Of The Pops."

Plunkett continues, "Because he's been singing live for 10 years now, he's a great singer. He and I are still amazed by the number of people who don't sing live. And whatever you think of Ronan's music, he's got a great, great voice."

Going solo: a natural move

All the while Keating was the one who stood out and would be the band member most likely to have a solo career. It didn't happen amid a great fanfare or after a period of intense deliberation about which way it should go.

Boyzone, after all, have never officially split, although Keating has flatly ruled out any chance of his getting involved in any reunion of the band.

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"He was asked to go and record When You Say Nothing At All for the Notting Hill film soundtrack," recalls Sam Wright. "It was the first thing he'd properly done on his own. We were at a Royal Variety performance in 1998 or 1999, and Boyzone had done some cheesy Frank Sinatra medley and, when they were in the dressing room, we played them a first mix of When You Say Nothing At All that had just come in." The reaction said it all. "You just knew that things were going to change after that. It was like, he's off on his own. It was a class above what we'd heard before. And it was quite natural, really. He didn't go into two years of a drug stupor and come out a different person. The Ronan from Boyzone went on to become Ronan Keating, because he always had been."

For some it was clear that Keating's early solo material was aimed at a different audience altogether from the following Boyzone had found success with. Smash Hits editor Lisa Smosarski says, "He was going for late-20s women, which was quite a conscious shift and one which I think he had to make really. That shift went hand-in-hand with him getting married, so his personal life was mirrored in a lot of those decisions. He made a very conscious shift from boy to man, which is no bad thing. People who come out of boy bands and still try to be a boy don't tend to cut it. Ronan obviously thought about the music he wanted to do and had a different attitude when he came to do it."

It wasn't a happy time though. During the last years of Boyzone, Keating's mother Marie died of breast cancer, a tragic event which saw the singer not only throw himself even harder into his work, but also set up the Marie Keating Foundation, a cancer charity. Things brightened up when he married his girlfriend Yvonne and soon became a father. All this and he was still only 21. "At the end of Boyzone, Ronan as a human being was in a different place," says Sam Wright. "His growing into a man came quicker than it did for the others."

All of which might lead one to consider that going out on his own at that time would be even more stressful, but Colin Barlow believes Keating bridged the gap between group member and soloist with ease. "If you look at the history of boy bands and members who go on to become solo artists, it's never an easy transition to make, but I always believed Ronan had a strong identity of his own anyway. And as long as we ended up putting him with people who brought that identity out, I thought we'd be fine."

Barlow adds, "Baby Can I Hold You Tonight also proved that he could carry a record on his own. He's been comfortable doing the group thing and the solo career. Look back to Father & Son; his vocals make that record. The signature of Ronan was that he'd worked in a band, set up and dueted with Stephen and so on, but the vital thing was always his interpretation of songs."

He also knows his way around a recording studio, says Steve Mac. "I don't get in the way of what he does. He's been doing it for 10 years now and he knows his voice better than anyone else. You let him get in there and do it and if something doesn't feel quite right you move it a bit, but not much. He's very quick in the studio, which is another sign, for me, of a great artist. He does it in three, four, five takes. If he hasn't captured it in those takes, then the song's not right for him."

While he can cut it in a recording studio, where technology can mask many sins, there is no hiding place on a stage in front of thousands of people. Here too, Keating just gets on with the job. "I saw him in Boyzone when he was looking at going solo and his agent had just died, sadly, of cancer at that time," says Solo managing director John Gidding, Keating's live agent. "I met him and he reminded me of Paul Young in the Eighties. He had the will to work. He was really up for it, plus he was ambitious and polite. He always said please' and thank you'. He was very kind and came across as a good bloke, just like Paul."

Such politeness and attitude are highly valued in the live business. Gidding says, "When you're an agent for somebody, it doesn't matter how hard you work, if the artist doesn't want to do it you are completely and utterly wasting your time. So it was obvious that Ronan wanted to be a successful individual who was prepared to do the hard work that goes with it."

Keating is prepared to put everything into a live performance as well. "He gets a buzz from live work," adds Gidding. "On stage, in Belfast on the last date of his most recent UK tour, he lost his voice. Mark Plunkett was in his in-ear monitors urging him on, and the audience was willing him on. And he finished the gig. Where he got the voice to carry on I don't know, but it was one of the most amazing feats of strength I've ever seen. He didn't have to do it. And he delivered. He was dead afterwards of course, but he'd done it. I was so impressed, it was frightening."

Yet, however successful Keating is, there have been moments when he has had to almost pinch himself, such is the distance he has come over the years. "We did Parkinson with Elton John," says Sam Wright, "and we went into the rehearsal studio and I could see Ronan shifting about and even I was thinking ****, this has come a long way from the Smash Hits Awards'. Elton was clinking on the piano doing the opening of every classic he'd ever done and we were all pinching ourselves, but trying to look nonchalant about it. And afterwards I went that was a bit odd wasn't it?' and Ronan said I can't ****ing believe what has just happened; that was like a dream'. There will have been moments when he'll have stood outside himself and looked in and thought how does some boy from the ****-end of Dublin get here?'. It's nice that he's still noticing that sort of thing. When you're not noticing what's fabulous about it anymore you might as well pack it in."

He's unlikely to do that any time soon.

The future's bright...

So, singing live with his heroes, making records, writing hits for US country superstars. What does the future hold for Keating? Everyone is agreed that he can have a career for as long as he wants to carry on doing what he is doing. But behind this is the general feeling that the guy should take a break and kick his heels for a year or so.

Manager Mark Plunkett thinks he deserves some time off. "He's been working flat out for the past 10 years. He needs to have a bit of a breather and decide what kind of album he wants to make next. His first three solo albums have been of a style that show that he's great at those country crossover ballads, yet at the same time he can have a hit with Rollercoaster, which was a massive up-tempo party song. He just needs to decide where he wants to go next. We've no definite plans for next year other than to record the next album."

Colin Barlow agrees, "Maybe there needs to be a gap after the Best Of to allow him to do that, go off to craft the next stage of his career. We've always sat down with him over the years and it's really important for his longevity that he finds a different side to him and maybe challenges people a little bit. We'll take our time on the next record. There's no rush. These 10 years that we've had have been a magnificent and exciting period of his life and the next album is a really critical one."

Steve Mac thinks he can carry on regardless. "He doesn't need to change what he's doing, as long as the songs are good. I'd like to see him do more up-tempo stuff. He hit the nail on the head when he did Life Is A Rollercoaster and Loving Each Day and there's a place for that in the market. A good ballad will always win through for a certain audience and if it's sung in a heartfelt way, as I know Ronan can sing it, he can go on for as long as he wants to."

Ronan Timeline

1994 Boyzone's first single, Love Me For A Reason, goes to number one in Ireland and number two in the UK.

1995 Boyzone's first album, Said & Done, debuts at number one in the UK. Boyzone win Best Newcomer at the Smash Hits' Awards.

1996 Boyzone achieve their first number one UK single with Words.

1997 Ronan Keating presents both the Eurovision Song Contest and the MTV Europe Awards, which is held in Rotterdam. The singer wins Irish Entertainer Of The Year and an Ivor Novello songwriting award for Picture Of You, which featured in the Mr Bean movie.

1998 Keating's mother, Marie, dies of breast cancer. Together with other members of his family the singer established the Marie Keating Foundation in her memory.

Keating marries girlfriend Yvonne.

1999 Keating's first child, Jack, is born.

He helps launch boy band and fellow Irish compatriots Westlife. Boyzone release a greatest hits album, By Request. It becomes the group's fourth number one album in the UK and the country's biggest selling title of the year. Keating releases his first solo single, When You Say Nothing At All from the hit film Notting Hill. It reaches number one.

2000 Keating's second child, daughter Marie, is born. His first solo album, titled Ronan, is released and reaches number one in the UK, as does his first single, Life Is A Rollercoaster, which sells more than 500,000 copies. His first solo tour of the UK

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sells out in two days. Keating is invited to perform Your Song with Elton John at Madison Square Gardens.

2001 Keating has another single hit, Lovin' Each Day and his autobiography, Life Is A Rollercoaster, is published.

2002 Keating's second solo album, Destination, is released and debuts at one in Germany. A 30-country world tour follows. US country duo Brooks & Dunn, have a number one country hit in the US with Keating's song,, The Long Goodbye.

2003 Keating's third solo album, Turn It On, is released and he wins a BMI award for US airplay of The Long Goodbye. Keating walks the length of Ireland and raises more than e150,000 for the Marie Keating Foundation. Later, he performs for the Pope at the Vatican.

2004 Duets with LeAnn Rimes on US hit Last Thing On My Mind. Asda and Breast Cancer Care select Keating's single I Hope You Dance, which was released on September 27, as this year's Tickled Pink charity campaign single. Keating's Polydor-issued 10 Years Of Hits is released on October 11.

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Ronan Keating talks exclusively to MW

BY HAMISH CHAMP

In one of his most candid interviews to date, Ronan Keating talks openly about his new path and the team behind him, the impact of his mother's death and his desire to collaborate with George Michael and Bono, plus much more

What drives you, creatively and professionally?

"A passion for music and for songs and songwriting. And to get the opportunity to do this. That's why I joined the band, to record songs and sing. And do it on the world stage. That's all I've ever wanted to do, and it's the only thing I know how to do. I'm crap at everything else."

People speak of your admirable work ethic and approach, but do you ever lose it?

"This has been a tough year. My health has been at me. I had a bit of a scare recently when I collapsed in Vienna and then I had a massive infection where my whole face swelled up and I spent 10 days in hospital. The thing is, I've never been sick, maybe colds and flu and that sort of thing, but never heavily ill. And I've never been in hospital. It turns out my immune system was run down and my body was weak because I'd be working so hard. Lots of people get this thing and it doesn't affect them that much, but it hit me hard because I was run down. So it was a real scare for me. Maybe it was a sign to slow down, because I haven't stopped for 10 years."

You have talked about there having been changes in your life in the past year or so, that you were at a crossroads and might have packed it all in. Was it possible that you might have called it a day?

"No, what I meant was pack in the way I'm working now. I'm constantly touring and doing promotion. It was getting to me. But it was more the way everything was moving. It wasn't the business itself that was getting to me, so much as the way I was being guided by the people around me at the time. I just felt that I was on a production line, you know? Just churning out the same thing over and over, people expecting the same things.

I wanted new, fresh things. I didn't need new people around me, just a fresh start. I haven't changed anyone. Louis's moved on, I've moved away from Louis."

What have been your career highlights?

"Being here after 10 years. I can't believe people still want to hear my songs. There are loads of other highlights, awards and number ones and that's all fantastic and brilliant and I love it, but to have the opportunity to continue doing this and still have the support of my friends and family around me and the fans still wanting to hear the songs and come to the shows... I'm very lucky."

What have been the low points?

"Losing my mother when I was on the road was the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with. When she got sick I dived into work even harder. I don't know how I would have got through it without the band. When she died I worked even harder. Then I cracked and hit a wall."

Who are your favourite recording artists and what are your musical influences?

"Growing up, I listened to people like George Michael, U2, and I listened to my brothers' and sisters' stuff, so a lot of Cat Stevens, Queen, Squeeze and then a lot of country stuff because of what my Mum and Dad listened to."

And who have been your industry influences?

"People who've championed my work have been Mark Plunkett, my manager, who was tour manager for Boyzone. He's always believed in me, he always pushed me, he's never let things fall away from me or ever been complacent about my career. Lucian Grainge, chairman and ceo of Universal UK, has guided me along the way. And all the writers and producers I've worked with. People like Steve Mac, who see through all the politics of this business and just get on with things."

Who would you like to record with and write for?

"I'd love to work with Bono or George Michael, but I'd be too embarrassed to go and ask them. I'm afraid they'd say no."

What are your interests outside music?

"Cars and motorcycles. Harley Davidsons. I've got a Heritage Springer, an 883 Sportster, a Fatboy and a V-Rod, which I'm offloading. It's not very loud and not really for me. I get out and about on them at the first sign of any sun. And rain. I'm not a fair-weather biker. The thing that gets me is the traffic."

You auditioned for Boyzone with the song Father & Son, and recently re- recorded the track with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens). The significance of that journey is not lost on you, presumably.

"It was a lifetime ambition to work with Yusuf. I brought Father & Son to Boyzone and he's always been a hero of mine. Yusuf came down with his son to see us performing the song eight or nine years ago on Top Of The Pops and that was incredible. We stayed in touch over the years and it was only recently when we thought of the 10 Years Of Hits concept that I realised the perfect duet to do would be Father & Son. This song makes sense for me to do. In the studio he was a very peaceful, quiet man, decent and honest. Hecame in and he didn't really want to do the father thing and me do the son, but before I knew it there he was singing the father bit and I'm going This is brilliant.' It was a magic moment."

You have said that Stephen Gateley and the rest of Boyzone should get together without you. Is that the final nail in the coffin of your returning for a Boyzone reunion?

"We did hook up a couple of months ago and we had a get-together, but not musically. It was great to see the guys again and I'm talking to them all and that's wonderful. But it's not my time to get back with them. I wish the guys the best if they want to do it, but I'm not ready."

Do you now feel that you are entering a new phase of your music career?

"My kids have started school and I really want to focus on my family and on getting my next album absolutely right, for me. I feel that my last album, Turn It On, was my best album so far, but some people didn't and, from a sales point of view, it was my least successful. So I really just need to think about where I'm going and what I'm about. As a person as well as - and I hate saying this word - an artist. I'm a musician, a singer and asongwriter. I'm going to take next year out, I'm going to relax, I've builta studio here at my home in Dublin. I want to spend quality time with myfamily and write and make the best possible album, for my fans as well asfor myself. The road I want to go down is Last Thing On My Mind and The LongGoodbye; those two songs are the kind of material I want to do more of. Ihope I can do that, write 10 of those."