Boys back in the Zone
Boyzone have one final album out and a tour next year – lead singer Ronan tells us why
They may have been the butt of many jokes, but in their 25-year career Ireland’s first major boy band were pioneers in more ways than one. Boyzone sold over 25 million records, won four Brit Awards, had four No 1 albums and 18 top 10 singles, six of them also hitting the top spot.
Now, with the aptly named album Thank You And Goodnight and next year’s farewell tour, Boyzone are bringing the curtain down for the final time.
“It’s not like The Rolling Stones, it doesn’t feel like that. I don’t think we would want to go into our 70s,” explains Ronan Keating, whose still-blooming solo career caused an extended seven-year Boyzone hiatus at the start of the century. “We’re in our 40s now, all of us. I think we’ve had a great run and all started to concentrate on other things. We want to enjoy this last chapter on our terms. Rather than it fade away and dissolve, we’ll go out on a high.”
Someone who won’t be there to toast the band as they go their separate ways is original manager Louis Walsh, a fierce critic of Ronan from the moment he decided to go solo.
“There’s no relationship. We don’t know each other. I have no idea what he’s doing, and I’m sure he has no idea what I’m doing.”
Love not lost on Louis is focused on founder member Stephen Gately who died aged 33 in 2009 of a congenital heart defect. Gately features on Thank You’s final track Dream which developed from a cassette Ronan and co discovered earlier this year.
Attitudes toward Gately’s sexuality meant his life in Boyzone was far from easy. “It was very difficult for Steve,” recalls Ronan.
“His anxiety, his stress. It was terrible that pressure would be put on someone for something so personal and private. But, you know, we stuck together.
“It was very sad, but times have changed dramatically. Something like that would never happen now.
“I mean, he was the brightest star I knew. He was just an incredible human being. Happy, so happy. So comfortable in his own skin. It was a terrible thing that he had to endure, but he got through it.”
■ Ronan Keating’s Emeralds and Ivy Ball is returning for its 12th year on Saturday, December 15, in aid of Cancer Research UK and the Marie Keating Foundation. Boyzone’s album Thank You and Goodnight is out to buy now.