From Polydor Germany

[Helen]

Polydor Germany

Ronan Keating - Ten Years Of Hits interview Part 1

"Well it's 2004 and it's ten years since I first started recording professionally with the band Boyzone. The idea was to look back over the ten years, all the videos, all the singles, all the albums, put it all together and I thought I'd bring it out as a Greatest Hits, so here we are.

It's been a blast. I was 16 years of age when I first saw the advert for Boyzone in a newspaper and I followed that advert up and went to the audition and there was about 300 guys there. I mean I'd been in a band before Boyzone but I'd never imagined something could happen so quickly and catapult you so fast. Now it's something that happens all the time because we're… you know, we see Pop Idol and Pop Stars, it happens overnight. But when I started in the band that didn't happen, that sort of thing. We were kind of… well definitely in Ireland anyway for sure… we were the first of its kind.

It was crazy. The next six years were absolutely crazy. We travelled the world, stayed in the fancy hotels, private jets, but at the same time - I mean I'm not complaining - I saw home 14 days a year if I was lucky, you know. But we loved every bit of it, it was magical and from day one for me the most important thing was the music. That's why I joined the band, and not for the celebrity or fame - because I didn't even know what that meant really - I joined it to make music, to be a singer, to better myself as a singer.

Never thought of myself as a front man. I mean I was happy to sing the songs, didn't bother me.

Then after six years and four albums you need something different because Boyzone started to get stuck in the mud so I needed something fresh, we all needed a fresh start. It was the healthiest thing for the band to do at the time 'cos otherwise it would have exploded. But luckily we went out on top, you know. We went out with a number one album and a number one single but sadly then, you know, other stuff got in the way and we drifted apart as a band and as people more importantly.

I was luckily enough to bring out 'When You Say Nothing At All' while I was still in Boyzone and that wasn't planned in any way. Richard Curtis came to me and said 'I have a song for a movie called 'Notting Hill' and I want you to sing it.' Didn't say he wanted Boyzone to sing it, nothing like that, he came to me and said I want you to sing it. And I wasn't planning on making any records at the time on my own - so I said yes, fantastic - I mean we were about to go on this worldwide tour four months later. So I did it, I did the song and the guys got a few weeks off and I went and I brought out the song, promoted it, went to the premiere and it was a massive hit and a number one single and it was huge.

And all of a sudden then the record label's asking me 'well, you know, how do you feel about making an album?' I says 'let's, you know, see what happens, I'm going on tour.' So I went on tour, that all happened, it was fantastic, got to the end of the tour, everybody's burnt out, everybody had had enough. So I said well yes, I'll take them up on that offer, if everyone wants to take some time this is a perfect time for me to take the label up on it. Happened to be a big deal with a lot of albums involved, everything changed for me!

Julia Roberts loved 'When You Say Nothing At All', the song, and at the premiere of the movie she came to me and man, she picked me out of a crowd! I'd never met the girl before: she picked me out of a crowd and she came over to me and she whispers in my ear that it had made her cry first time she'd heard it in the movie which, I thought, this was amazing, I couldn't believe… Julia Roberts, I mean first just to meet her, you know, I was a bit star struck.

One thing I will always remember is coming around the corner in Notting Hill when we were shooting the video and there were all these trucks parked on the road and, you know, when you're with Boyzone there's five of yous, you know. All the cars turn up, or a helicopter picks you up or you're… you kind of accept it, not accept it but it's easier to deal with when you think there's five people here that this is for, it's not just for me. And I remember coming around the corner and seeing the catering trucks and the production trucks and I remember having this feeling in my stomach like you know what the hell's going on here, is this for me?

We shot the video for 'When You Say Nothing At All' in the actual park where the big kiss in the movie in 'Notting Hill' happens between Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts on the bench that they use, and it's also at the end.

It rained in the video, it rains in a lot of videos that I make in the UK. I mean it's like when you make a video in England or Ireland you have to bank on it raining 'cos it happens, rain. I was lucky enough to make one video in LA, it didn't rain, that was good… two.

I've done some strange versions of the song for sure. There'd be TV shows where they just want their local star to sing the song with me. I was working with people, you know, that are huge stars in their own country when it came to doing these duets on 'When You Say Nothing At All', massive stars. In Brazil there was a lady called Deborah Blando.

So we did that which was fantastic and I went to Brazil. We all went to Brazil to shoot a video out there. Then there was Paulina Rubio who's from Mexico and she's a bit of a sex symbol, from what I gather, in all the men's mags from what I hear - not that I read them or anything!

I mean there's versions all over the world of different songs that I've recorded that people know as my singles but I've done differently. I did a French version of 'Je T'aime Plus Que Tout' - 'I Love It When We Do' which I sang in French and English."

[Helen]

Ronan Keating - Ten Years Of Hits interview Part 2

"What happened was with the second single - which was actually my first solo single really released - was `Life Is A Rollercoaster'. It had been such a large gap between the two because `When You Say Nothing At All' was still when I was in Boyzone and then nearly a whole year later I came out with the second single which was the first single from the album `Ronan', simply titled. I was out in LA writing the album and I was working with a guy called Patrick Leonard who had written and recorded the first three or four Madonna albums and he's an incredible producer. And I was out there recording with him and writing and I came back to the hotel one day and there was a message on my phone from this guy called Greg Alexander who I did not… I hadn't got a clue who he was. He starts singing down the phone `You Only Get What You Give' which was his big hit, (sings) `you got the music in you…' he starts singing this down the phone on my message. And he said he had this huge record for me that he'd just written and you have to come and listen to it. So I called him back and said `yeah man, I'm here, I'm in the hotel,' he said `I'm coming straight to you.' So he comes over, over to my hotel room, CD player in the room, put it on and it was immediate. I just thought I need this song, I have to have this song. So he had written the song with me in mind and it was an incredible launch pad. It was not what people expected at all from me because `When You Say Nothing At All', you know, could have been a Boyzone song, I mean it wasn't a million miles away from the songs' sound. So when I came out with `Rollercoaster' everyone was like `whoa', you know, this was different, it was fresh, it had that summer feel, the piano was alive, the guitar was on fire, it was brilliant. It was an exciting time to be involved with that song and for it to be a number one record across the world

From that moment that you hear na na na at the start it's just boom, straight away - it's immediate, straight in your brain - everybody knows it

Yes, I shot the video for `Life Is A Rollercoaster' in Los Angeles. I'd been out there recording and writing again for just other stuff and other people and we decided while we were there to use the time to do the photo shoot for the album and make the video for the first single `Life Is A Rollercoaster'. So we hooked up with a guy called Marcus Nispel who had done a lot of Janet Jackson videos and a lot of pop videos - very famous in the US. Very short video, fantastic, I'm not a lover of making videos; it took, I think, eight, ten hours. We shot around Los Angeles: we started under this kind of flyover downtown LA, funnily enough I've seen that flyover in so many movies, you know, in `24', all these like American big soaps and stuff you see them and there's a tunnel that I used in a photo shoot while I was there and there's obviously these guys on…. these location guys over in LA that just book the same places every time for everything. But anyway they'd rigged up this big crane and they'd put me on a wire and I was flying, it was incredible, I was just flying around and around, this camera was on it, it was doing an opposite turn, it was on this kind of revolving… so I was kind of going with [the idea of] `Life Is A Rollercoaster' just movement all the time. Then we get onto this 40 foot truck and we just drove around Los Angeles on this thing and it was amazing and it just looked like I was kind of moving really fast through the streets. Then we went into the woods in LA, up into the mountains, and we shot some stuff on the crane again. I remember coming off the harness - the next day pretty much was when I really felt it - but I was black and blue, the bruises all around my hips and here the harnesses came inside my legs in the groin, I was just black and blue, I was in bits. And I remember actually the first thing we did in the morning was get up in the harness and I'd had a big breakfast you know because you can't help but have a big breakfast in LA. They just love it, you know, waffles, everybody eats waffles, so we all had waffles, you know, and milk shakes, smoothies, whatever the hell it was - bad idea! You know I was as sick as a dog for the first hour and a half, bad idea.

I guess I had a sound, it became my sound, like `Lovin' Each Day' and `Love The Way We Do' and, you know, with songs now like `Turn It On' and `Lost For Words' and all those other singles that were up tempo that now fill out the show and make it even better for the fans.

`The Way You Make Me Feel', Bryan Adams had approached me with this song he had written and he... He'd written it for me in mind you know, I mean I'd grown up listening to Bryan Adams, `Summer Of 69', `Run To You', all those brilliant, brilliant songs. He's
somebody that I admire the way he approaches his career, I'm not into the whole celebrity fame thing and he stays back out of it too. Like Sting as well, he's another one that, you know, just comes out with the music and then goes away - something I would like to try and do more and more.

I remember being in the studio and Bryan did the backing vocals on

the song and he was trying to sound like me and I was trying to sound like him, so we started to sound like each other. And we're going to actually… hopefully going to write next year when I'm writing.

`The Way You Make Me Feel' we shot in England again - it didn't rain this time - in this big old stately home. And the idea was kind of a big party in this house, you know, lots of young cool-looking people having a party and I guess I was the owner of this house because I had this Rolls Royce that I was pulling. And I remember going around and around in the garden then I decide to go right off into the lake, I drive the car into the lake, this big Rolls Royce. It's funny actually because I was driving the car around in donuts, I had locked the wheel and I was just putting my foot on the accelerator and I was pulling and the owner of the house comes out and he starts screaming at me. I didn't know, I mean we were tearing up his garden you know, I had no idea that we weren't allowed to, I didn't know. But then we drove the car, which was a lot of fun, and dropped the car into the lake and then I climbed up onto the roof of the car, and I mean the shirt's hanging off me and it was fun. It was bizarre because we were in this like… all these divers were all around the car under the water, scuba divers, in case I fell in which was hilarious - like some swat team or something in the water.

`Lovin' Each Day' was very much the song that bridged the two albums.

So I was out in LA again writing and recording for the second album when I came across this song.

And we just came up with this kind of young funky kind of video, very cool, where I was getting to put my input into the video. I love motorcycles and there was a bunch of us on motorcycles just riding through the desert in Los Angeles upstate near the Mohave Desert. There was a lot of energy, the sun was shining and all these cool-looking people, guys and girls on bikes, sexy women, guys on boards - mountain boards or something they were called, they were like skate boards but huge.

And the best thing of all which was really cool, we had this little helicopter that had a camera on it and all those shots of us on the bikes… and it's sweeping down with this little remote control camera and this guy was just controlling the whole thing. It's unbelievable,you want to see the way he handled it.

I love country music, I listen to country, I don't listen to the "duh durdle durdle duh" you know, stuff but I do like the ballads. My parents would play a lot of country music in the house and that's where I guess… I guess it kind of rubbed off on me.

`If Tomorrow Never Comes' was just a beautiful… simple, beautiful song and I decided to record it and got huge, huge attention so it became a single.

It was originally recorded by Garth Brooks, it was a hit across the US and Ireland funnily enough, but nowhere else. It's about a guy saying, you know, he's turning around here and he's going I love this girl so much, I need her so much, have I told her enough, you know? It's kind of like `Have I Told You Lately That I Love You' the Van record, it's quite similar to that. Does she know how much I love her, does she actually know?"

[Helen]

Ronan Keating - 10 Years Of Hits interview Part 3

"The video again I made with Kevin Godley and Kevin's idea was that you… basically like `If Tomorrow Never Comes' was me leaving home one morning, I leave this girl behind and she's in the bed and she's asleep but she's having this nightmare of me being in a car accident and it was a bizarre video, it was a lot of fun but I mean… I did all my own stunts may I say.

(Behind The Scenes: `If Tomorrow Never Comes')

We're on the second day of shooting the video for `If Tomorrow Never Comes',Kevin worked with on `You Needed Me' with Boyzone, the Comic Relief record `When The Going Gets Tough' and also my first solo single `When You Say Nothing At All'. He also directed `The Sweetest Thing' video for U2.

This is Kevin Godley

Kevin Godley: How do you do?

RK: You know he understands what I want from a video and I know what he can do so it works. Most of the camera trickery will be shot today. Inside, you've probably noticed green screens and stuff like that where we have to superimpose my head on my body. We take the track and we speed it up to eight times its normal speed so it will be (sings) "If tomorrow never comes, will she know how much I love her…." you know, basically that's what I'll be doing. And then when all … when the shot is slowed down to 500 frames per second, literally you hit slow motion.

But I'll be falling all the time, really, really, really slowly but I'll be singing in normal speed. There's a stunt man here who's doing the driving because obviously I can't be in the car and fall over at the same time so… `cos I would like to crash the car actually, it would be a lot of fun but they won't let me. They might let me when the video's over!

At the end of it then she controls the car, the car goes around me, hits a parked car, I get up, look at the car, go phew, what could have been - end of the video.

(Behind The Scenes: `I Love It When We Do')

1st A.D: Guys keep yourself dry now it's started to rain a bit. So here we go, and…, playback.

RK: Now you see the weather, hasn't dampened anyone's spirit.

The idea of the video was to kind of shoot it like one take so we did it in Temple Bar in Dublin and it was like it was one shot and I was walking through the streets meeting all these different women.

I recorded my first single upstairs in that building there – `Father & Son', 500 quid!

I'd walk down one street and I'd be arm and arm with this woman, I'd walk through the door and walk into like a library and there'd be another woman. I'd take her arm, then I'd go around the corner and I'd see these… this other girl and I'd take her arm and walk down the street with her. It was like one shot all the time and it was very cool and was kinda… it was just boyish.

Great – finished 10 minutes early. I think it's the first video that I've ever finished early, on time, during the day and it's warm. The rain stopped: it was a great day, the sun shined all day after this morning. Everyone was brilliant to work with. Julian (Temple) was fantastic to work with, it's one of the easiest videos I've ever made. It's always very strange coming home to Dublin and doing a video but the people were brilliant, you know, they hung out in the streets, they watched, they clapped when we were doing the performance. It was a lot of fun – it was a real, real buzz. So nice one – what can I say? That's it – a wrap. Thank you.

It's quite a sexy song, it's a song about two people getting it on and it's it's one of those songs on the tour that the fans love as well and I love to perform it.

I've been lucky enough to work with some of the biggest artists in the world like Elton John and Lulu, Zucchero - I mean, you know, fantastic people with incredible talent.

One of my favourite all time duet love songs was `We've Got Tonight', you know the Sheena Easton, Kenny Rogers, brilliant song. There was a guy managed me at the time called Louis Walsh who was managing Lulu. Lulu was making a duets album with Samantha Mumba and Westlife and Sting and I went in one day and recorded it. Lulu came in the next day, she put her vocal on. So I put it on my album, she put it on hers and before I knew it, it was a single and we were making videos again and it was all going on. Kevin came back, did another video with Kevin Godley, the video took about four hours to make, it was fantastic. Lulu's so good to work with, she's so easy, she's got a great voice. We did the TVs, we worked… we did everything live together.

And I did a German version and I did an Italian version of `We've Got Tonight' and that was a lot of fun actually working in Italy with this wonderful girl called Georgia - she was fantastic, what a voice.

I did this track in Germany with a girl called Jenette Biedermann who's a soap opera star as well as a singer.

I definitely believe that there's some sort of relationship between country music and pop music. I've written songs like `The Long Goodbye' and before I even recorded it I sent it out to the US and a band called Brooks & Dunn who are probably the biggest country duo in the world, picked it up, recorded it, had a number one with it. And then I've taken country songs and I've recorded them, turned them into pop songs. So I wrote `The Long Goodbye' as a pop record and it turned into a country record. They wrote those songs as country songs and I turned them into pop songs, so there's a nice relationship between country and pop which works very well, especially for ballads.

`The Long Goodbye' for me was a very, very important time in my career because I was at a crossroads. I'd come off the back of `We've Got Tonight' and I didn't really know where I was or where I was going and I felt a little lost and I guess that just happens, I was feeling sorry for myself, probably it was my own fault.

I'd written this song with Paul Brady, I loved the song. Paul had had a number one in Ireland with it, Brooks & Dunn had had a number one in the US with it and it became, whatever, number three in the UK charts which was fantastic, and a hit across Europe. So it worked and it just…I guess it was a confidence booster for me, I needed it at the time. And it gave me confidence to go on and just keep writing for other people as well as myself and it was probably the best thing I ever did.

I mean I tend to write sad love songs, that's kind of what I write, a lot of. `The Long Goodbye' was a song about two people who were together and were trying their best but it just ain't working. And I've seen it in friends of mine that it's happened to where they're, you know, they're trying their best, but they're just… they're going nowhere. You know they break up, they get back together, they break up, they get back together, but it was breaking the two of them down so it's just kind of, you know, let's just face it, you know, this is the long goodbye here. This is… this started a long time ago this goodbye, you know, we've got to get to the end of it, it's over."

[Helen]

Ronan Keating - 10 Years Of Hits interview Part 4

"For me to work with Norman Watson, I think he's an incredible photographer. I mean when I heard he'd started making videos I jumped at the chance to work with him `cos I just think he's brilliant. So not only did I get him to do the video but he also did the shots surrounding the single and the album, the third album after that as well. It was just fantastic to work with him, he's incredible, he's got a great sense of lighting, textures, of tones, of colours and beauty, you know. I'm not an icon but he makes me look like James Dean looked or Marlon Brando looked, he makes me… I don't look like that but he made me look like that.

I mean as long as he wants to work with me I believe I'll always work with Norman.

`Lost For Words', I love this video, I love it, I think it's cool. You know I get the chance to drive again…

I'm in a beautiful Super 80 stunning silver 1961 Porsche. I'm outside of Milan, a hour north of Milan up near Lake Como driving this car. There's this gorgeous girl, she's driving a car and she meets me at this gas station and we hook up. And Norman nailed it again with his brilliant images, great colours.

(Behind The Scenes: `Lost For Words')

We're wrapped at eight o'clock tonight. Italian union rules say that they can only work so many hours a day and it's fantastic! I'm going to make all my videos in Italy from now on. Usually videos drag on to maybe two, three, four in the morning, you never know, but they have to finish at eight o'clock and go home which is a good rule. I like it!

`She Believes In Me' was a Kenny Rogers song that I came across quite a while ago and I'd heard the song numerous times and thought I can't sing that, the words are all wrong. It's about this guy who's a failed singer songwriter who keeps coming home from being on the road, puts his guitar away and things aren't great in work but at least, you know, she believes in him, you know - so I thought no. So it came to the third album and I thought, you know, I'd like to have a go at that song, I really do like it, but I've got to look at it again. So we got permission to rewrite the verses so the lyrics are now very different, it's quite positive, you know.

A beautiful video we shot out in London, it wasn't raining, it was very cold, but they got these… they got so many rose petals but they weren't real rose petals, they were material – I don't know what it was but they cut out these red things and then they had boxfuls full of them, boxes all around full of them and they were shooting them out of canons on the street, very impressive.

(Behind The Scenes: `She Believes In Me')

Video director: I'm Lindy Hayman, I'm directing the video and we're here shooting petals falling from the sky which is what the video's about. The story is, Ronan is driving in a taxi cab, taking a journey and as he drives along he gets caught in some traffic and he notices red petals falling from the sky. He gets out to investigate but it's kind of… it's just meant to be a magical kind of video, it's kind of romantic.

RK: It's been a cold, long day so far so we're getting there, we're flying through it now. This is my 36th video – it's quite weird, we were just talking about it earlier on. The vibe is good, it's looking fantastic and it feels great so I'm very excited.

(Behind The Scenes: `Last Thing On My Mind')

RK: We're here on the shoot of my new video, `Last Thing On My Mind' with none other that the brilliant Leann Rimes. She's just back there, she's pumping petrol at the moment, times are bad!

The idea of the video is that I'm a radio DJ and it kind of flicks between Leann who's on a journey in her truck towards the studio and she turns on the radio and she's listening to me.

OK I'm joined now by the brilliant Leann Rimes. Here she is in all her splendour.

Leann: Hi everyone.

RK: So what have you been doing this morning because I just got here?

Leann: I have been riding in a truck all day, all morning long, I've been pumping gas all by myself…

RK: I think it's terrible, isn't there a good man around here who could do that job for you? I think it's terrible, it's a downright shame!

Leann: We're going to change locations now.

RK: Yeah, we're moving, now it's my turn. We're going to the studio so we're doing all the interior shots there.

Yeah, we're 12 hours on it now – well Leann is! (laughs) It's terrible, I mean it's terrible, it's not fair, it's not right. But it's going really well and we just did the money shot – the two of us did the performance together at the microphone and it was very emotional, it was good, yeah - there wasn't a dry eye in the house. And action…I wrote this song… it wasn't written as a duet, it was really written just as a song and Leann was making a `Greatest Hits' so we sent a few songs over and she fell in love with this song. And it's probably my favourite song on the album, one of my favourite songs on the album – definitely, easily. I was chuffed that she liked it so I said `let's do it, let's make it a duet if you're up for it.' She loved the idea and we just talked and it all came together and it was great, it was just a very natural thing, you know. I think we're two artists, or two people, who are very similar in our lives, in our careers.

Ah, it's been a laugh, I've really enjoyed it. The madness set in about two or three hours ago – we all went a bit crazy, I think it was too much coffee and sugar but…

Leann: We're tired but we're good.

RK: We're going to the pub though.

Leann: We are…

RK: We're off to the pub…

Leann: Bye

And that video was probably the best video I've ever made I have to say, I love that video. The idea was that I was a DJ and she was this girl driving across country, you know, to find me and that I was missing her.

I wrote that song with the idea of two people living together and they're in love but they're just so busy in their life that they're forgetting what's real, you know, and they're just going to have to re-evaluate things. They're in love and it's all going to work out fine but they've just…they've kind of lost touch a little bit and started to drift apart. They live in the same house but they're starting to just go separate ways so it's quite a cool song and I like it – it's not a million miles from `The Long Goodbye' but it's got a positive ending, this one.

I think she's a great singer. I think she's fantastic, I've admired her for years, I think she's got a great work ethic. She's pretty similar, I guess, in that the audience that she sells to and performs to would be very similar to mine. We do pop country very well, you know, I think Leann's wonderful.

I was a bit wary initially about re-recording Boyzone songs for this, but I can't bring out an album that's ten years of hits without including the songs that got me where I am today. So I decided on picking three songs that meant a lot to me, that were my songs that I brought to the table.

They were cover versions, `Father And Son' - Cat Stevens, `Words' - the Bee Gees, `Baby Can I Hold You' - Tracy Chapman, and they're my three favourites that meant a lot to me so that's the reason I recorded those songs. I had sung `Father And Son' at the auditions for Boyzone and for me it's a very important song because it's great memories of childhood and growing up because my brother used to always play Cat Stevens records in the house and that was the one song I knew all the words of. So that's why I sang it at the auditions - probably one of the only songs at the time… no, I knew a few others, but it's one I knew I could sing half decent.

So we recorded `Father And Son' and it went on the album and I remember it being a very rushed thing. The video had to be made, we only had a few days. Made the video, single went to radio and all of a sudden boom, up it went and it all took off and it was… of the first two albums, it was easily by far the biggest song Boyzone had ever released - the biggest single. And I was lucky enough to meet Cat Stevens, he came down with his son to Top Of The Pops when we first performed `Father And Son' and showed his approval and loved the version. Now I've been lucky enough to actually sing with him on this version for the album. He hasn't recorded anything in a long, long time and his name is now Yusuf Islam and he's a wonderful man who I have the utmost respect for, who I've looked up to in the music industry.

I was really scared about working with him to be really honest because I didn't know what to expect. I had so much respect for him and sometimes they say that, you know, your idols you shouldn't meet them because you can be disappointed. I had met him numerous times but I'd never worked with him and he came to the studio with his son who he'd brought to Top Of The Pops and it's nearly eight years later and his son is now a man and, I mean, you just think God, I've just lived in this time warp, you know, everyone else has grown up and I'm still the same size, you know and it's bizarre. And he was just brilliant from the moment he walked into the studio: we talked, we had a chat, we had a cup of tea, and he just… we got straight into it. I played him what I'd recorded and what we'd produced, he loved what we'd done, so what I had ideally wanted was for Cat to do the… Yusuf to do the lower key and I would do the higher key, the father and the son. And before I knew it he was doing it, you know. So it was unbelievable, it was really, really magical and I just couldn't take the smile off my face."

[Helen]

Ronan Keating - 10 Years of Hits interview Part 5

With all the songs that we've revisited, I mean the idea was to just make them new and fresh and with `Father And Son' it's… I mean it's not too far you can go with `Father And Son' because it is what it is, it's guitar and voice, very simple. With `Baby Can I Hold You'- but more so with `Words' - we've changed it, it's become a lot more simpler; we've brought in a beautiful Spanish guitar and very soft, warm strings and it's just beautiful, it's simple, just sits there, it's right.

I was invited to work with the Bee Gees when they performed in Dublin at the stadium, to sing with them. So I stood on stage with the three Bee Gees and performed `Words'. I couldn't believe it. And then Barry and his family invited me out to work with the brothers and write with them in Miami and that's become a very important song to me because of all of those reasons. I knew Maurice personally, I'd only seen him just before Christmas 2003, a wonderful guy with so much life and so much energy, very sad to see him go. Wonderful family - and I would like to work with Barry and Robin again, you know I can't imagine what it would be like but I'm sure it will never be the same again.

I'll only ever do a cover if I feel it's the right song for me and if I can make… you know, if I can do justice to that song. Got to make it my own, I got to make it great but never try and better it because you never will from the songwriter's point of view. I give it my all, I enjoy it, I make it my own and hopefully it works.

I think it's important to give the fans something new as well when you bring out a Greatest Hits, rather than just giving them the same songs - they already have them on other albums. So not only have I revisited three Boyzone songs and changed them - not dramatically but I've changed them - but I've also picked, you know, recorded two new songs that are something fresh, a new reason for them to want this album.

`Somebody Else' is a new original song - worked with Wayne Hector, Steve Mack on it. It's a love song but it's a song about this guy who's broken hearted because another man has stepped in his place with his girl. But when you listen to the lyrics a second time around and you're told what it's about, it's about a man talking about his love for his child, newborn child that has just been born. Somebody else, somebody else now, somebody else in her life. "And I know when you hold him tight, he's the best part of our lives, of our life," you know, is the lyric. And you know when you first listen to it and you don't really concentrate and you just think it's about this guy who's broken hearted `cos this other guy's stepped in and taken away his girl, but it's actually a beautiful song about a newborn baby. And now that I'm a parent, you know, I can understand these things more than ever.

`I Hope You Dance' is… I mean anyone that doesn't know this song - I mean I presume a lot of people will know it - it's a Lee Ann Womack track. Again it's a country song, my favourite of all of them - beautiful song, originally a woman's song. And again when you listen to it, it sounds like… you could take anything from it, it could be someone talking to a partner, a parent talking to a child, whatever it is. But in this day and age this is a very positive song, a very simple positive song about life.

"I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean, whenever one door closes I hope another one opens". It's such a brilliant lyric, you know, if I can ever write a song as good as any other song in my life, I hope I write one as good as this.

Over the ten years that I've made music I've had the big, big ballads, some of them country, some of them not country, but mainly the big country songs and I've had the up tempo `Rollercoasters' and `Lovin' Each Days' and I thought a great way of kind of almost closing this chapter of the ten years was to finish off with one more of these big country songs and `I Hope You Dance' is that song. It's a beautiful big ballad.

(Behind The Scenes: `I Hope You Dance')

We shot the video for `I Hope You Dance' in Windsor Royal Park near the castle, Windsor Castle. Katie Bell directed it and it's a very simple video, not unlike `When You Say Nothing At All' in its colours and feel and I'm very much just on my own in the forest.

That's Katie there, hiding behind the camera. I've worked with Katie for years.

But it happened to be the wettest coldest miserable August day in the last 100 years I would imagine in that park!

What is it with this rain! I think it just comes with the video budget, you know, when you book the video you get rain, especially in London or Dublin.

The rain came down heavy all day, it didn't let up at all and it was miserable but when you're shooting the video, when you look at the video you can't see it but by God we could hear it, all day you could hear it just beating away, beating away on the roof of the car, beating away.

My plan is… I've never taken any more than two weeks off ever in ten years. So my plan is to clear the decks for eight, ten, twelve months and write. And write for myself, write for other people, write on my own because it's something I've started to do a lot more of - and write with all my friends that I've written with over the years, Callum McColl, Ricky Ross, Bryan Adams and all those brilliant songwriters. I built a studio at the house because I just want to spend time at home next year, watch my kids go to school and grow up.But I want to bring an album out then that I believe people want, my fans want to hear from me.

You've got to listen to the people that you made happy originally and try and continue to make them happy with the music."

[aussiekerry]

Thanks for posting Helen.. what a long read phew!

Good to know his thoughts on how the videos turn out

[Helen]

it is long but quite interesting

i just posted the 5 parts as they came up so it wasnt as bad reading them one at a time

[aussiekerry]

I read them all in one go