Profile / Westlife: Bryan McFadden has left to spend more time with his family, but the remaining members of Westlife are as 'driven and determined' as ever. You have been warned, writes Róisín Ingle.
When the Famous Five became the Fab Four this week, Louis Walsh couldn't resist irritating the Westlife out of boyband-bashers across the world. The pop impresario very nearly managed to keep a straight face when he pointed out that "there were only four in the Beatles", assuring reporters that of course there was a future for Westlife without Bryan McFadden.
"And they all fit in a taxi now," he joked later.
Schoolgirls were weeping outside the Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin this week but many will have greeted the news of McFadden's departure by muttering the title of one of Westlife's less appealing hits: Hey, Whatever. With more than 30 million records sold, more millions than they care to mention in the bank and a record-breaking 12 UK number ones notched up over the last five years, McFadden's emotional exit was bound to create as much excitement as Robbie Williams being booted out of Take That or Geri Halliwell getting out of the Spice Girls at the height of their fame.
And whether you think it was the most poignant moment in Irish pop or simply a publicity-hungry boyband manager's dream, McFadden's surprise decision caused one of the biggest media scrums ever seen at a pop-related press conference in Dublin. Even the Westlife lookalikes who serve as the band's publicity team appeared a little uneasy when the photographers began to pounce.
When Kian Egan - the little blond one, for those unfamiliar with the band - burst into tears reading out a letter to his "band-mate and brother" the most jaundiced music hacks looked touched.
"For one last time, Bryan, we love you and we always will," he read through the tears. And Egan wasn't the only one crying.
Looking post-jungle skinny, Kerry McFadden stood beside a couple of other Westwives at the back of the room. She couldn't hold back the tears as her husband told the room how he was leaving Westlife to spend more time with his wife and two children, Molly and Lily.
"Over the past six months I've been trying to make a decision about my future," he said. "Particularly since the birth of my second daughter, Lily, I have found it impossible to put 100 per cent into both the band and my family . . . It'll be hard not seeing them as much any more. They'll be off touring the world and I'll be at home with the babies."
It is six years since Westlife began life as Sligo six-piece IOU which included original band members Mark Feehily (now aged 23), Shane Filan (24) and Kian Egan (23). A call from Filan's mother piqued the interest of Louis Walsh, who was scouting around for a replacement for Boyzone at the time. Three of the original line-up were dropped and, when Dubliners Nicky Byrne (25) and McFadden (24) joined, the name was changed to Westside. Later they became Westlife after it emerged there were a slew of bands already trading under the other name.
"I made sure they could sing," recalls Walsh, who for a time co-managed the band with Ronan Keating. "I didn't want to make the same mistake I made with Boyzone."
After touring with the Smash Hits Roadshow, the band reached number one in the UK with Swear It Again and a few months later scored with Flying Without Wings, the ballad still most likely to be murdered at a karaoke or wedding near you.
While the band remained a relatively inoffensive feature of Irish life, it was weddings which garnered the most headlines for individual members of Westlife. McFadden got some unwanted publicity after an encounter with a lap-dancer on his stag night and there was outrage in some quarters when Nicky Byrne and the Taoiseach's daughter, Georgina Ahern, decided to have their nuptials in France last summer. More recently, Sligo's North West Hospice complained last month that they received less than €10,000 from guests at Shane Filan's wedding who were asked to make a contribution to the charity.
Controversy has also stemmed from the distinctly middle-of-the-road nature of the band's musical output. Three years ago, when Westlife equalled and then surpassed the Beatles' record of seven consecutive number ones, Belfast band Ash burned 300 Westlife CDs in what they said was a symbolic protest against "pap" music.
"It's sad when five talentless no-hopers have more number ones than the Beatles, especially when they sound like Daniel O'Donnell meets the Tweenies," said Ash's lead singer, Tim Wheeler, at the time.
In their day, Westlife have also attracted scrutiny from Fintan O'Toole, who was critical of the way Garda personnel had been used to keep screaming fans away from the McFadden's Hello!-sponsored wedding in a tiny village in Co Meath.
"What, after all, is Westlife?" he pondered. "A carefully constructed mechanism for attracting crowds of delirious fans. Not even Louis Walsh would claim that screaming young girls are an unwanted by-product of the band's success. They are the whole point of the operation."
The girls who gathered outside the Four Seasons this week weren't screaming but sobbing, worried that Westlife weren't as Unbreakable as the title of their recent greatest hits CD. They said that McFadden was the bubbliest, the best, the funniest of all the boys in the band. He put the life into Westlife, they wailed. Their mothers had even let them off school early to mourn at the gates of the hotel and they would never forget this day, they said, as long as they lived.
Meanwhile, the tears have dried up in Westlife HQ and it's business as usual for the hard-working band who are off on a world tour which begins in Belfast at the end of the month. They have tried and failed to break the US but Walsh says this is not a priority any more.
"There is a new energy in the band, it's almost like being handed a whole new group," says Walsh, who describes the McFadden-leaves-Westlife episode as a PR coup par excellence. "They are so driven and determined now. We have broken all the rules before and we are all ready to do it again, but without Bryan this time."
One couldn't help wondering what another Bryan might be thinking as he watched the press conference on RTÉ news bulletins on Tuesday night. Just last week the McFaddens were in Balbriggan District Court, where the Westlifer was facing three charges - of speeding, careless driving and driving without due care - in front of Judge Bryan Smyth. McFadden's barrister told the court that the singer was going on tour for six months and would not be available in two months' time when the case was due to be heard. The other Westlife boys might be going on tour, but McFadden is planning to become a house-husband, even thought he admitted this week that he is "crap at housework".
A budding songwriter, McFadden is also looking forward to hearing his latest composition, chosen by viewers of You're A Star last Sunday, performed at the Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul.
According to reports, his new career is being looked after by mega-publicist Max Clifford in the UK. The ex-Lifer and his television presenter wife are said to have ambitious plans for a joint career on the box and hope, in time, to become the new Richard and Judy.
Or the new Marty and Mary, if things don't go quite to plan.