Post by Helen on May 29, 2006 12:46:54 GMT
driving.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22750-2198688,00.html
Times Online May 28, 2006
By Mark Anstead
Singer Ronan Keating, 29, joined Boyzone at the age of 16 after quitting his shoe shop job to pursue the life of a pop star. The ruthlessly efficient boy band notched up 15 top five singles, including six No 1s, and sold 15m records worldwide during the 1990s. Keating later managed the boy band Westlife. The Sunday Times Rich List gives him a fortune of £10m. He is married to Yvonne. They have three children, Jack, Marie and Alice
Keating has dallied with other marques but now has three BMWs in his garage (MARK BOURDILLON)
As the lead singer of Boyzone, the Irish boy band of the 1990s, Ronan Keating was one of the few pop stars any mother would have been happy to have seen on her daughter’s bedroom wall. Today Keating, 29, has morphed effortlessly from squeaky-clean teenage heart-throb to solo artist and wholesome family man.With record sales exceeding 15m worldwide he can afford to ease back on his engagements and spend time with his three small children. His cars reflect his new priorities: in his garage are three BMWs chosen, he says, for their safety features. He was a fan of the marque before he was famous and is now in the enviable position of being able to borrow whatever he likes from BMW Ireland’s fleet.
“My BMW 760 has a thing called ‘soft close’ on the doors. I think this feature should be on most cars — whenever you fail to shut a door completely, there’s a little arm that grabs it for you and softly pulls it in the rest of the way. For small children this is a necessity. When we have our eight-month-old baby with us we often put her into the car in her carrier when she’s asleep. The last thing you want to do is slam the door, so you just start to close it gently and the system takes over, silently pulling it the rest of the way. Oh man . . . it’s such a treat.”
His wife Yvonne, 32, a former model, drives a BMW X5. The other car is a sports-tuned M6 capable of 155mph. Keating claims to be more interested in its active cruise control than its 0-60mph time.
“It sends out a radar beam that monitors the distance between you and the car in front. If that car slows down, you slow down, and if it speeds up you’ll speed up, but only to your designated maximum speed set on the cruise control. The whole thing reacts more quickly than you can if you’re driving tired.”
All this expensive technology is a far cry from the first car he owned — a Vauxhall Astra. “That car was such a piece of nuts. When you stopped at traffic lights it would overheat,” he recalls. “I would have to slow right down 100 metres before coming to any traffic lights and crawl along hoping the cars in front would get a green light and start moving before I got there. As long as I kept moving it would keep the car cool, but as soon as I stopped the fan clicked off.”
The youngest of five children, Keating was born and brought up in Dublin, where his mother was a hairdresser and his father a trucker. The family moved into the country when he was still young and he had to walk a mile to the nearest bus stop.
This encouraged him to learn to drive, which he did by watching his father and practising in the family car alone around the back yard. He passed his test first time at the age of 17, having left school and launched himself into the pop world with Boyzone. “My friends joke I only passed the test because I was in Boyzone and the instructors wanted autographs,” he says.
The band went on to become a ruthlessly efficient pop machine that notched up 15 top five singles, including six No 1s. They were the first band since the Beatles to reach No 1 with each of their first four albums, an achievement put into perspective when you consider the majority of their songs were covers. The band paved the way for similar singing troupes such as Westlife, which Keating briefly managed after Boyzone split up in 1999.
One of the first things that Keating did when he started to make money was trade in the Astra for a BMW 3-series and he has remained relatively loyal to the marque: he also owns a BMW R 1150 RS Rockster motorbike, and two Harley-Davidsons.
His biggest extravagance to date has been a £115,000 Bentley Continental GT that he bought last year. He sold the car six months ago and instead drives the M6 when in a “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” mood.
“It’s just mad that car, I love it,” he says. “It’s so powerful you
definitely don’t want to turn off the dynamic stability control — it’s like you’re on ice if you do. It has a launch control button, the M button, which takes it from 400bhp — the dealers called that shopping mode — to 540bhp. If you put your foot on the brake and set it up and then hit the forward gear you will launch away sideways from traffic lights — it’s just nuts. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.”
Keating says he is a good driver and doesn’t suffer road rage. “The best thing to do with aggressive drivers is look at them and laugh,” he says. “I’m a nitpicker on the road, but I don’t get annoyed. I comment on it when people don’t use their indicator properly, or sit in fast lanes too long, but I’m generally cautious and careful.
“I love driving — if ever I do a radio tour I get the car and drive myself rather than be chauffeured. But the best drives of my life have been on a bike.
“A few weeks ago I took my newest Harley — the other is eight years old — along the coastal road between Malahide, where I live, and Portmarnock. There’s no greater feeling than being on a bike on a sunny day with the wind against your face.”
On his CD changer
Really good driving music is anything by the Eagles or Don Henley, and there’s an album called Painted Desert Serenade by Joshua Kadison that has a classic road trip feel about it. I’ve also got Curious George by Jack Johnson, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
Times Online May 28, 2006
By Mark Anstead
Singer Ronan Keating, 29, joined Boyzone at the age of 16 after quitting his shoe shop job to pursue the life of a pop star. The ruthlessly efficient boy band notched up 15 top five singles, including six No 1s, and sold 15m records worldwide during the 1990s. Keating later managed the boy band Westlife. The Sunday Times Rich List gives him a fortune of £10m. He is married to Yvonne. They have three children, Jack, Marie and Alice
Keating has dallied with other marques but now has three BMWs in his garage (MARK BOURDILLON)
As the lead singer of Boyzone, the Irish boy band of the 1990s, Ronan Keating was one of the few pop stars any mother would have been happy to have seen on her daughter’s bedroom wall. Today Keating, 29, has morphed effortlessly from squeaky-clean teenage heart-throb to solo artist and wholesome family man.With record sales exceeding 15m worldwide he can afford to ease back on his engagements and spend time with his three small children. His cars reflect his new priorities: in his garage are three BMWs chosen, he says, for their safety features. He was a fan of the marque before he was famous and is now in the enviable position of being able to borrow whatever he likes from BMW Ireland’s fleet.
“My BMW 760 has a thing called ‘soft close’ on the doors. I think this feature should be on most cars — whenever you fail to shut a door completely, there’s a little arm that grabs it for you and softly pulls it in the rest of the way. For small children this is a necessity. When we have our eight-month-old baby with us we often put her into the car in her carrier when she’s asleep. The last thing you want to do is slam the door, so you just start to close it gently and the system takes over, silently pulling it the rest of the way. Oh man . . . it’s such a treat.”
His wife Yvonne, 32, a former model, drives a BMW X5. The other car is a sports-tuned M6 capable of 155mph. Keating claims to be more interested in its active cruise control than its 0-60mph time.
“It sends out a radar beam that monitors the distance between you and the car in front. If that car slows down, you slow down, and if it speeds up you’ll speed up, but only to your designated maximum speed set on the cruise control. The whole thing reacts more quickly than you can if you’re driving tired.”
All this expensive technology is a far cry from the first car he owned — a Vauxhall Astra. “That car was such a piece of nuts. When you stopped at traffic lights it would overheat,” he recalls. “I would have to slow right down 100 metres before coming to any traffic lights and crawl along hoping the cars in front would get a green light and start moving before I got there. As long as I kept moving it would keep the car cool, but as soon as I stopped the fan clicked off.”
The youngest of five children, Keating was born and brought up in Dublin, where his mother was a hairdresser and his father a trucker. The family moved into the country when he was still young and he had to walk a mile to the nearest bus stop.
This encouraged him to learn to drive, which he did by watching his father and practising in the family car alone around the back yard. He passed his test first time at the age of 17, having left school and launched himself into the pop world with Boyzone. “My friends joke I only passed the test because I was in Boyzone and the instructors wanted autographs,” he says.
The band went on to become a ruthlessly efficient pop machine that notched up 15 top five singles, including six No 1s. They were the first band since the Beatles to reach No 1 with each of their first four albums, an achievement put into perspective when you consider the majority of their songs were covers. The band paved the way for similar singing troupes such as Westlife, which Keating briefly managed after Boyzone split up in 1999.
One of the first things that Keating did when he started to make money was trade in the Astra for a BMW 3-series and he has remained relatively loyal to the marque: he also owns a BMW R 1150 RS Rockster motorbike, and two Harley-Davidsons.
His biggest extravagance to date has been a £115,000 Bentley Continental GT that he bought last year. He sold the car six months ago and instead drives the M6 when in a “if you’ve got it, flaunt it” mood.
“It’s just mad that car, I love it,” he says. “It’s so powerful you
definitely don’t want to turn off the dynamic stability control — it’s like you’re on ice if you do. It has a launch control button, the M button, which takes it from 400bhp — the dealers called that shopping mode — to 540bhp. If you put your foot on the brake and set it up and then hit the forward gear you will launch away sideways from traffic lights — it’s just nuts. Not that I’ve ever done that, of course.”
Keating says he is a good driver and doesn’t suffer road rage. “The best thing to do with aggressive drivers is look at them and laugh,” he says. “I’m a nitpicker on the road, but I don’t get annoyed. I comment on it when people don’t use their indicator properly, or sit in fast lanes too long, but I’m generally cautious and careful.
“I love driving — if ever I do a radio tour I get the car and drive myself rather than be chauffeured. But the best drives of my life have been on a bike.
“A few weeks ago I took my newest Harley — the other is eight years old — along the coastal road between Malahide, where I live, and Portmarnock. There’s no greater feeling than being on a bike on a sunny day with the wind against your face.”
On his CD changer
Really good driving music is anything by the Eagles or Don Henley, and there’s an album called Painted Desert Serenade by Joshua Kadison that has a classic road trip feel about it. I’ve also got Curious George by Jack Johnson, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks and U2’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
